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LifeKnowledge Spotlight

Me-We-Do-Serve

 

The comprehensive leadership curriculum of the National FFA Organization, LifeKnowledge, includes many quality online resources. The LifeKnowledge materials are organized around four stages of personal development: "Me-We-Do-Serve." The theory for this model is based on the work of renowned psychologist Dr. Arthur W. Chickering. This process takes youth from personal development through teamwork skills, goal-oriented problem solving and real-world applications in bettering the communities in which they live.  Take a look as we go deeper into the model and how it is working in local classrooms.

Me-Personal Development. Personal development starts with the individual. “While working with seventh and eighth graders, developing the ’Me’ stage can often be both challenging and rewarding,” said Robin McLean, an agriculture educator at Northern Burlington Regional School District in New Jersey. “They are at a time in their lives where they are trying to figure out who they are and where they ‘fit’ into things yet aren’t aware that this is what they are doing.  I work to develop the “Me” stage in the classroom and then carry this development into FFA activities.”

In the classroom, McLean facilitates a “careers in agriculture” unit, helping the students to discover who they are and their interests. “Informally, I integrate the ’Me‘ into our class discussions by highlighting student contributions around what I can deduct about their interests,” McLean said.

McLean goes on to describe why this is an important “fore” stage. “I believe ’Me‘ is an important first stage as it allows students to get to know what strengths they have. Often, students have not taken a chance to think about what they are good at, what they enjoy and what they can contribute.  It is interesting to hear how their response to ‘Tell me about yourself’ changes from the first day of class to the last.”

We-Relationships and Team Building. Once an individual is comfortable with self and self-purpose, relationships with others can be successfully initiated and maintained. Skills and strategies to engage others from relationship building to team synergy are developed.

Robert Ortiz, an agriculture educator from Durango, Colo., does many teamwork activities to focus on individual’s relationships with others. “Teambuilding activities are vital in a classroom. Students have to be able to work together to solve problems, create presentation and to finish work in a timely manner,” he said.

One successful team activity Ortiz has done is marshmallow tower building. Students are put into groups of four and given a bag of marshmallows and a box of toothpicks. They have to design a tower and then create it using the two tools. The group that builds the tallest free-standing tower wins. “This is a fun way to get them to work together because it takes just about everyone in the group to build the tower,” Ortiz said. “No one can just sit back and not participate.”

McLean helps to build “We” by exploring communication and roles people play on teams.  Her class does some formal teambuilding activities, and as the course progresses they start to apply these concepts in classroom activities. “In the beginning, I choose the teams based on what I know about students,” McLean said.  “As the class progresses, I allow students to choose their own groups.  At the start of each activity, group members select what role they will serve in the group -- manager, supply getter, recorder and question asker -- with others as needed.  I encourage them to vary roles to get comfortable with the different areas they might have to play on a team.”

 After each group-based project or lab, she has students answer questions related to the function of the team.  These might include:

• How much work did you do as opposed to others on the team?  Why do you think this was? 
• What worked well with your group?  Why do you think this was?
• What might you change about how your group worked together?  Why?

“I believe that it is important to not only have students work as teams but also reflect on the team process,” McLean said.

Do-Practical Skills. At this stage individuals and teams are prepared to make things happen. Skills for solving problems, making decisions and accomplishing goals are developed. This stage assists the individual and team in putting their vision into action.

Ortiz allows his students the opportunity to put decision-making skills into action with the team demonstration speech. “I pair the students and they have to create and present a five- to seven-minute demonstration speech. The topic is left up to them with the only requirement that it must be ag related,” he said. “The decision-making comes in to play because as a team they have to select a topic that they both are comfortable with and have knowledge of.  I also have them grade their partner -- how much did they contribute to the speech demonstration.”

There are lots of ways to purposefully integrate practical skills into an agriculture classroom every day. Lindsay Risch, a food science educator from Miami Valley Career and Technical Center in Ohio, provides procedures for lab activities but then allows students to make decisions and accomplish goals on their own. “Students are provided procedures for daily lab activities and experiments.  With that in hand, it is up to the students to make decisions as a team to complete the activity or experiment,” Risch said.  “Daily, students will make decisions about which measuring tools to use, what is the best method of mixing and how to calculate conversions, as well as many other decisions that enhance the development of their science reasoning skills.”

Serve-Community Development and Civic Engagement. This is the highest level of development for any individual or team, and it focuses on the service, growth and development of individuals around them. This stage provides leaders with skills to serve in community leadership roles and to grow other individuals in leadership, personal growth and career success.

When Ortiz was asked how he engages students in community development,  he said that during the creation of the Program of Activities every summer, he challenges his students to come up with at least three new ideas. “Each year we build upon our traditional service projects and try to create a new way to reach out,” he said. The new community service project each year is designed by the students and usually relates to something that has happened in the community or involves a group that needs assistance. “This year we are helping at the local senior citizens center,” Ortiz said. “There was an incident that happened this summer and the seniors wrote in the paper that they had lost respect for teens so the students wanted to donate four days of serving them lunch and interacting with them to show how good teens really can be and a couple bad ones do not represent the entire school.”

In Risch’s food science classes, students are expected to work as a team to solve a problem. These skills transfer into real-life lessons.  “After they experience problem solving through food science activities and experiments, students reflect on real-world applications on a larger scale.  Ultimately, students will be able to generate methods for bettering the food science community, whether it is in production, processing, preservation or packaging,” Risch said.  Students who chose careers in food science have a civic responsibility to improve or develop new foods as needed.”

LifeKnowledge Online has more than 250 lessons broken down into the Me-We-Do-Serve categories to help you facilitate leadership development in every stage.

 

 

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