It is significant because of Louis. Louis injured his eye when he was 3 years old and within 2 years found himself totally blind. At the age of ten, Louis was sent to an institute for blind children. He found himself very dissatisfied and discouraged because he could not read. By the age of 12 he created a method that enabled himself to read; by 15 he was sharing this method with his friends. In 1854 the world adopted this teenage boy's method as a standard - the Braille System is named for Louis Braille (Elmore, 2001).
It is significant because of 13-year-old Sydney Ling, who wrote, produced and directed a feature-length film, Lex the Wonderdog
(Elmore, 2001).
It is si
gnificant because of Dennis Vilmer, a 6-year-old from Oklahoma, who had a dream to write a book. Dennis wrote and illustrated the book, Joshua Disobeys. He won a national contest in 1987 for this wonderful story (Elmore, 2001).It is significant because of Joseph Melenick, a 2010 graduating senior from Ba
y High School in Bay Village, Ohio. Joseph has Crohn's disease. Over the past five years, he has raised $50,000 to help find a cure for Crohn's. As a 7th grader he invited his entire class to a birthday party at a bowling alley. He asked his classmates to bring a small donation to the research instead of a birthday present. Over the years Joseph's annual birthday Bowling Bash has expanded to T-shirt sales, cookie sales and raffles (The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards).
It is significant because of Laura Sweeting, a young lass from England, who dreamed of being the youngest U.N. goodwill ambassador. She accomplished her goal on June 9, 2000 at age 16 (Elmore 2001).
It is significant because of a 12 year old 6th grader from Toledo. Last
year Beatrice Thaman heard about the malnourished children in Guatemala. She began her campaign and through fund raising and donations, Beatrice provided 150,000 vitamin tablets to a medical mission in that country - a year's supply for more than 400 children (The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards).Why is it so imperative that we challenge our students to find significance in their lives? Because everyone of them can do extraordinary things. We have students like Dennis and Sydney and Joseph and Beatrice sitting in our desks at our school. What do all these children have in common? They all have a burden, a dream, a vision. Once they caught the vision, their passion to do something about it changed their lives and the lives of those around them.
As our school looks at developing young lives into servant leaders, we must become strategic in helping them to identify God's vision for their future. My definition of leadership points to the centrality of vision: Leadership is the dynamic, interactive process of creating, communicating and transforming vision into reality. Snyder and Graves (1994) stated. "Organizations whose leaders have no vision are doomed to work under the burden of mere tradition." Traditions are needed and often establish high standards within organizations, but if we hope to develop and train new leaders, we must encourage and inspire our students to find and follow God's vision for their lives.
How do we do that? The next post will make a few suggestions in helping students discover a vision.
References:
Elmore, T. (2001) .Nurturing the leader within your child: What every parent needs to know Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.
Snyder, N. H., & Graves, M. (1994). Leadership and vision. Business Horizons, 37(1), 1-7
The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards http://spirit.prudential.com/view/page/soc/301 .
Photos:
Sydney Ling - http://whitehorsefilms1968.blogspot.com/2006/12/white-horse-films-1968.html
Joshua Disobeys - http://openlibrary.org/books/OL2033514M/Joshua_disobeys
Joseph Melenick ad Beatrice Thaman - http://spirit.prudential.com/view/page/soc/307?lp=306®id=1579
Laura Sweeting -http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/114138/Meet-the-record-breakers
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