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"This I Believe:" students on leadership.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Many educators note that understanding student beliefs is a critical component in teaching leadership. In order to challenge and advance student leadership philosophies, teachers should first understand their students' entering assumptions and beliefs. The This I Believe minute paper provides a means by which educators can elicit student beliefs. This elicitation process is described and the results of a trial elicitation are described and discussed.

Introduction

When was the last time you had the opportunity to engage your students in a dialog about their beliefs? Understanding student beliefs, or conceptions, plays an important role in understanding their developmental progress. We often get a glimpse of student beliefs through reading their papers, portfolios, and journals or by listening to them in their presentations, classroom discussions, role plays, and exercises or even by way of their feedback and evaluation of a course. However, these sorts of learning experiences and assessments are usually not explicitly designed to elicit student beliefs. While considering student beliefs is important in any context, this paper will specifically focus on student beliefs about leadership.

Many writers have called for leadership education to, among other things, help students critically evaluate their own leadership assumptions and beliefs (e.g., Densten & Gray, 2001; Gallos, 1997; Gibson & Pason, 2003; Mello, 2003). Perhaps most compelling is Gallos' call for leadership educators "to look at our students, not as subjects, cases, or needy receptacles for knowledge or skills, but as individuals seeking opportunities to clarify their special contribution" (p. 7). Additionally, Gibson and Pason exhort us to work with students to "adopt a form of leadership that may be more challenging than their view upon entry" (p. 23). Denston and Gray (2001) assert that the role of leadership educators is to develop a reflective leadership learning experience for students in order to address negative assumptions that students may hold. Finally, Mello (2003) suggests that in order for students to truly understand the complexities of leadership, it is important to let students discover this understanding on their own...