I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of students in Schuyler (pronounced Skylar which I was corrected on several times!), Nebraska, last week, and I was overwhelmed by their kindness and positivity. I focused on the topic of “Digital Leadership”, which essentially focuses on the opportunities that are in front of our students to make a difference in the world. Although I discuss how to be safe and topics such as cyberbullying, the main emphasis of the talk is “you have the world at your fingertips, what are you going to do with it?”
After the talk, several of the students came up to me and thanked me for not only my positive message, but that they had the feeling that I believed in them. We had some great conversations and I later discussed them with the group of teachers that I was learning with. This came back to the students, and they actually offered to bring me a Starbucks to the professional learning day, which was unbelievably kind of them, especially since the closest Starbucks was about 30 minutes away!
They then gave me the following note:
Student note totally made my day! #scs123 #fb pic.twitter.com/hy5eVMM668
— George Couros (@gcouros) October 15, 2015
This is now something that I carry in my computer bag along with me. My favourite part? “Keep doin you!”
Too often, the narrative with our students is what they can’t do, and I think we need to really focus on what they can do, and help them see leadership opportunities today, not tomorrow. We need to focus on the positives and how people are making the lives of others better, like the Clemson football team holding a pep rally at the home of a terminally ill child. We need to put more of these ideas in the minds of our students.
I look forward to following these students using social media to make a positive difference in the school community at the Schuyler Spirit Club twitter account.
I also wanted to say thanks to those students that went out of their way, to make someone’s day. You have no idea how greatly appreciated it is.