Giving Compass' Take:

• The Bonstingl Leaders for the Future program helps facilitate leadership workshops for students in the third, fourth, and fifth grade, and specifically targets kids who would not necessarily consider themselves leaders. 

• How can we build leadership within the emerging edtech trends and incorporate leadership skills into social-emotional learning?

• Read about the five ways of how to teach students social-emotional skills and leadership. 

A group of about 20 kids in third, fourth and fifth grades spent much of the last school year working on service projects, following a training through the Bonstingl Leaders for the Future program.

The program, designed by a former veteran teacher, John Jay Bonstingl, is meant for students who don’t necessarily consider themselves leaders. These students are often in the middle of the achievement spectrum and Bonstingl said his first job is helping them recognize their own potential.

The first day of Bonstingl’s two-day training gives students a chance to define the characteristics of good leaders and discover the overlap in their own personalities and skillsets.

A group of sixth graders in Hebron Public Schools outlined a peer mediation program during Bonstingl’s workshop last fall and spent the rest of the school year developing it. Students aren’t always comfortable telling teachers or administrators the problems they’re having with their friends, students said, and the adults in the building are busy.

The sixth graders asked for help finding a trainer so students could receive formal training in peer mediation. In addition to getting the training themselves, they invited older and younger students, ensuring the program will continue and even expand after they move on to middle school this fall.

Read the full article about promoting leadership by Tara Garcia Mathewson at The Hechinger Report