Supervising a middle school fall dance as community leadership

Dance Supervisor

Activity Description and Summary

The community involvement activity I participated in was supervising a my middle school's fall dance. This activity required me, along with several other peers, to monitor and regulate the dance activities. The dance lasted 3 hours and was held in the school gymnasium where I teach.

Program Outcome Rationale

The Program Outcome that most reflects this activity is School and Community Leadership. The outcome objectives are as follows for this selection:

Build strong community relations by modeling and promoting equity, fairness, and respect among faculty, staff, students, parents and community leaders.

Provide opportunities for stakeholders to develop and use skills in collaboration, shared decision making and responsibility for the purpose of maintaining a comprehensive program of positive home/school relationships.

Acknowledge and respect the goals, values, and aspirations of diverse family and community groups by engaging the support of business, philanthropic, political, social, and civic or faith-based organizations and other resources to enrich the school's climate, culture and diverse learning infrastructure.

Maintain a broad communication network throughout the school and community by using a wide variety of print and electronic media modes whiles establishing a high level of visibility and active involvement among stakeholders

This activity was social in nature and necessitated the role of leader using alternative and creative means to demonstrate proper leadership.

Community Partnerships

The social and cultural values that are shared and nurtured within a school is important in student development and educational awareness. A school dance showcases the social skills of students and measures their ability to function in non-academic situations. The potential for new discovery is great in these types of social gatherings.

The social and emotional awareness that a community's children experience directly impact on that community in many ways. Elias et at (2003) agreed with the role of developing social skills as being integral in middle school education. They wrote " evidence is mounting from the field of brain-based research that the processes of learning, and especially retention with the flexibility needed for application in new contexts, is linked to social and emotional factors in students and in the teaching learning environment." This suggests that school leadership is essential in guiding this activity in the right direction.

In many ways the public school does not mirror society. In the real world such social activities like dances are much less coordinated and monitored and the individual has more choices to behavior. By hosting such dances, however, the students get practice in social skills and the ability to interact with members of the opposite sex, a precondition for normal functioning in the professional world. These efforts reflect an attempt to improve the community level of social awareness by addressing it with these students.

The role of the principal in this case is to ensure that a safe yet open environment is provided for to allow the student to socialize on a different level. It is essential that this environment is created so that parents may feel safe and understand the importance of these socialization exercises.

Reflection

Monitoring the school dance was useful and practical experience and I learned quite a bit in the process. The dance itself reminded me of my school dances and the impact that they had on my social development. I found the experience to be helpful because I had a chance to see students in a different light, and I assume they saw me in a different light as well. This exchange fostered a sense of mutual respect that is harder to identify in typical classroom activities.

The activity impacted on my ability to better understand the idea of diversity and leadership. In this activity I found that many of the necessary foundations of learning rely on the ability of student and the teacher to see beyond their typical roles within the school. This humanizing activity allowed for all those who participated a new understanding of one another and created new levels of diverse understanding of how we all are individuals with unique personalities.