For most of us, the teenage years are a mixed bag of fun times with friends and confusing moments of discovery and uncertainty.
When you do get tangled up in a knot it’s important to be connected to friends and supporters to help untangle.
For four days this week, selected student leaders from each of Killeen ISD’s 12 middle schools are participating in an exercise called Leadworthy, with trainers guiding them through team-building challenges.
The scheduled four-hour leadership conferences were intended as precursor to a new middle school elective Teen Leadership course connected to Capturing Kids’ Hearts, which is in place across the school district.
Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders, all nominated by teachers for their leadership skills, divided into even teams and came up with team names. Throughout the day, they earned and recorded points based on a variety of interactive games.
Eastern Hills and Manor middle schools participated in the first day of leadership challenges Tuesday at the Franklin and Emily Pratt Learning Center.
Penny Taylor, a KISD behavior support specialist, said the new teen leadership course will give students tools to help them lead and to help them follow.
“It’s a leadership conference so all the activities are about leading and being led,” she said. “I hope they learn they are a leader and that they take away some skills they can take to their peers and help them not make destructive choices.”
About 30 students from each of the 12 campuses were set to take part in the conferences spread across four days.
In one challenge Tuesday, students took turns dashing across a rotating jump rope, first without jumping and then with each jumping once then moving out.
In another activity, team members took turns playing tic-tac-toe with beanbags on a grid taped to the cafeteria floor.
Another challenge required students to untangle from a human knot.
Dareios Pinkney, a seventh-grade student at Eastern Hills Middle School said the day mixed learning with friendship.
“This is about being a leader or being led and learning what leadership is,” he said. “It’s working out really nice. The fact that we’re starting to learn to be leaders is amazing because we need more leaders in the world.”
“We had to analyze the speed the jump rope was going and how fast we had to run through to not get hit,” he said of one game. “I talked to my team, and we all figured out the calculations and then we were all doing it successfully.”
“The teamwork helps you become friends. I’ve made new friends and reconnected with old friends today.”
“We’re learning to use teamwork and help lead and be led by others,” said Manor Middle School eighth-grader Leila-Anne Cola. She said her favorite part was being with her friends.
“We had to come up with ideas even if we didn’t want to and it was really fun.”
See photos here