I am in a thick of it too: making my 3D super hero – alter ego. I just love this project! It’s so fun but also pretty confronting – even for an adult. You go through such a deep process of thinking ‘who am I and what could I be, or what would I like to be, who and what do I really admire?

Respect is one of our 7 pillars which we rehearse, talk, analize, question, remind, model, encourage, (and sadly forget sometimes too) all the time at LEAD. Respect, this is a tough one! Yet, when making my own little super hero, I notice that it’s really, really valuable and important one for me. I so long to be someone whose behaviour is rooted in a deep respect for life; people (including myself, it is really hard to respect others without respecting yourself), earth, and God. In the end aren’t all of our super heros the ones that we respect greatly as persons?

We all want to be respected, (i.e. treated with respect/ value,) yet we cannot demand respect. So we need to learn to give first. Only then will we receive back – sometimes.

I still remember vividly one encounter with a child last year when the task was to draw a symbol of respect and this one girl sat still without lifting her pencil with a blanck sheet of paper before her. I gently approached her and asked what’s wrong. She was clearly frustrated by the assignment and said: ‘how could I know how respect looks like if I have never been shown respect to or treated with respect?’ She obviously felt deeply misunderstood and devalued at that moment. It is a great challenge for us who work with (or parent) children to show consistent genuine respect towards our children. Showing respect to a child doesn’t always look the same as showing respect to an adult, but often it doesn’t differ that radically as we often let ourselves believe. We need to become eager learners of this skill.

Respect (according to Oxford dictionary)

1 [mass noun] a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

2 due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights of others.

a snapshot of the student's work

Recognize this quote from Spiderman? It seems every month there is a new super hero movie out on the big screen. LEAD is taking advantage of this new surge in interest in super heros and having the students create their own. What kind of powers would they have? How would they use them to help others? How does a super hero show responsibility with his/her powers?

Responsibility is a big word and one that we all need to remember. It encompasses lots of action from self discipline, setting a good example, as well as choosing a positive attitude. As the students work on developing these heros, stories evolve and identities form as the imagination blends the desires of the students with the fantasy of being someone else…. even for just a little while.

… What if we could actually become the good hero we project? What would it look like to have the character qualities of our own hero? But when I think of being responsible, it doesn’t really sound all that exciting.

Being responsible sound kind of  boring, but when you are a super hero, it is essential. You can’t use your powers in a way that harms others ( that takes self discipline), you don’t want to see evil overcome others so you help (being proactive and caring), and just by how you are, you are setting an example for others ( inspring greatness). Framing responsibility in what it actually looks like makes it sound way more cool.

15 February the student’s super heros will be on display at Al Wafa: Harry Koningsbergerstraat 30 Amsterdam. Come on over and see what they have imagined and ask them how they will emulate this hero in their own life everyday.

Caring can be a very silent, gentle thing. But it can be also be a very argumentative, tough, and even stern thing. Caring is not necessarily always kind, at least not in the way we typically think of kindness, in that it can require a certain level of fighting and breaking down: breaking down walls of role playing and expectations and disappointments and so on. Caring requires a lot of honesty, a lot of foresight, and a whole lot of empathy. Caring often requires a big push — a push through the roles we blindly play in life, a push through established systems, behaviors or actions, a push through a false perception of another person, a push through the norm. Caring requires us to step outside of not only ourselves, but outside of much of what is accepted as ‘the way it is’. And then, on the other side of caring, things are no longer ‘just the way they are’: there’s action, there’s decision, there’s growth. There is transformation. Little bit by little bit, little caring push by little caring push, life begins to shift. People shift. Communities shift. A city shifts. The world shifts?

Interestingly, to step outside of ourselves — to show empathy — we often have to first journey deep into ourselves. Like a trek through some cave, in order to see what’s on that other side, to really care for another person, we’ve got to dig through the depths of ourselves. But there is another side, there’s not just an endless darkness.

Reckoning is called Reckoning specifically for this reason: caring is, actually, quite a challenge. It’s something you’ve got to take into account within yourself — between yourself and another person, between yourself and the world. To care, we’ve got to stand in the face of ‘the way it is’, stare it down and break through accepted beliefs about, for example, the way a certain student is maybe ‘just a bad student’, or the way a community is ‘just not integrating’. We have to see beyond the norms and have foresight about what’s on the other side. And we have to be willing to make the trek to find it.

This week I’m back in the States to care for my mother, a 56 year old woman who is right now like a frightened little girl. She is physically and mentally ill. Back over the Atlantic in my two-story apartment in Amsterdam with my busy life and all my own daily concerns, I’ve been avoiding caring for her for months. I’m talking about that kind of argumentative and tough and stern type of caring that involves an immense opening up of myself in order to really step into her shoes. I’ve been avoiding that big push. But it’s the push, it’s saying what many are afraid to say and it’s saying ‘I see you. I see into you beyond the roles we’re all playing and beyond the fear and the anger and the hurt. I see you. I care about you.’, that moves us towards transformation.

After sitting on the couch this morning crying with my mom, after hours of pushing, hours of caring, I’m thinking about caring for the 20 kids we’re working with for LEAD. And I’m thinking about how to push. How to care. How to transform. And I’m reminded of the importance of involving yourself, and in that the importance of commitment. A commitment to the other, a commitment to care enough to push through the tough stuff, and ultimately a commitment to the process of transformation. And the process is never done.

InSite
InSite is an international service project with partners; Amsterdam International Community School and Serve the City Stellenbosch. The aim is giving students sustainable, transferable skills from one nation to another. IB diploma program students from the Amsterdam International Community School travel to the township communities of South Africa and implement an afterschool youth curriculum which they have developed. Our goal is that the programs will be a sustainable gift to the local community and a life changing experience for our students. This project will provide an exciting challenge for students as they navigate the rewarding journey of group learning, skills development and connecting with communities in a developing nation.

Everyday Leadership Academy (ELA)
An ELA is a continuous afterschool program or a school can become an ELA. Using primarily art, but also other mediums as sport, play, and in a school, in the everyday curriculum to imbed character and leadership skills in the students and the surrounding community. Currently, Reckoning has an ELA in Cabrillo Village California and is establishing the second location at the Kingdom Citizen’s International School in Jos, Nigeria.

An Everyday Leadership Academy  (ELA), is Reckoning’s long-term presences in a community which focuses on developing good character and everyday leadership into the youth and adults in a community. Reckoning has partnered with the Josephson’s Institute with the use of their 6 pillars of Character which are: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. Reckoning has added one more universal pillar: beauty or transcendence.

The ELA uses these pillars as the foundation for training and leading youth and adults in leadership. The uniqueness of the Reckoning Approach is our focus on art and imagination. Process art making is the primary method of developing and training leaders in the crucial work of character development.

An ELA can be an afterschool program or it can be integrated into an existing school. In Cabrillo Village, CA the ELA exists as an afterschool program working closely with the local schools and the community at large, while in Jos Nigeria, the ELA is integrated into the school day.

How do we in the society in general choose leaders? Who are our leaders? Those who have money, who know how to present themselves, who have right connections..? Just very reacently I was at serving at a gathering where various faith leaders gathered here in Amsterdam for an evening of fellowship. For a moment I was just enjoying watching the new relationships that were formed between different leaders. I said to a friend of my who stood next to me as an observation, ‘there are not very many women here’. He answered to me ‘well, I see quite a few, but zero children’. Without really thinking further, as a reflect I paraphrased a Bible Scripture to him from Isaiah 11:6 ‘The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.’

That was our conversation for the night. But I kept on thinking this. I was thinking how the room would look like if instead of those (mainly men between thirty and sixty years old) leaders there were children of all ages and nations, both girls and boys. What an upside down picture. I am not a Bible scholar but it is obvious that, that is precisely the point of the text. It is painting a picture of upside down earth. It is filled with logical impossibilities – in this world and time. It is talking about a different kind of reality, something that everyone realises is not possible now, but some dare to dream of for the future. In the world we live in children are not seen as leaders, they are weak, powerless, vulnarable, unexperienced and lack competence for a task of a leader. But what would happen if they were leaders? One day these children will grow up and they will be leaders. We can either stand aside passively and wonder, what kind of leaders will they become? (Will they give justice to those who have been opressed?) or we can help them to grow and become leaders now. Leadership is a complex art and happens in so many different levels. I feel like I have become in a way a student of leadership as I am training to be a better leader of myself and those around me who are watching – and following.

Do you feel like you are a leader? If so do you know who you are leading and where to? Or are you a leader by a title but rarely act like a one? What kind of leader do you dream to be or would like to see your children to be? …and who are you following? Who is your leader?