A class of Joseph Stilwell Military Academy of Leadership eighth-graders got to go to college Friday.
The students were participating in a leadership project held at the University of North Florida.
UNF Leadership professor Laura Boilini had the students thinking about a list of 32 leadership traits she passed out — listening, optimism, responsibility. Her goal is to get them to identify their strongest leadership skill, and the leadership area they’d like to work on better developing.
The Stilwell students were set up in a college classroom. Middle Schooler Jakob Dwinnell said his best leadership skill is cooperation. And he’s had a lot of practice at it being a twin.
“I really like helping people," he said. "And if they need help I would come over and see if I can help them in any way they need.”
The students were told to pick their go-to leadership trait and then paint a picture of it. Jakob’s picture was sort of abstract with red and blue swirling together.
Across the room, Deven Robinson was sketching a football. He wants to play for the Green Bay Packers one day and said his best trait is his energy.
“I’m always active and I play football. I play sports,” he said. “I just love being on the field.”
But the students were also instructed to think of a leadership trait they could work on bettering. Deven said he’s going to work on not talking back to his coaches — sometimes his passion for the sport gets in his way.
And the students will have a reminder of these traits to take home. Boilini had them paint their strongest and work-in-progress traits on either sides of a stone.
Jakob, who has “cooperation” painted on one side of his rock, has “following-through” painted on the opposite side. He said he wants to work on his procrastination throughout the year.
“Sometimes with my homework in school I’ll start my history fair project and then also try to do my science fair project at the same time,” he said.
A table over, Samantha Edenfield, who said she’s working on strengthening her independence, also said she’s also interested in checking out UNF, because she doesn’t know where she’ll go to college.
Boilini said holding this project at UNF is on purpose. The students will also be getting a tour.
“We really just wanted to make students aware that college is possible and this was a way to kind of develop their leadership traits in alignment with visiting UNF and have that opportunity to be on campus,” Boilini said.
Boilini asked the eight graders to fill out an action plan so that they can work on their leadership skills the rest of the year. She said she’ll be following up with the students at their school to see how they’re doing.
The paintings the students made will be on display at UNF. They’ll get them back at the end of the year at a special leadership reception.
Reporter Lindsey Kilbride can be reached at lkilbride@wjct.org, 904-358-6359 or on Twitter at @lindskilbride.
