NTLP 2015: Plant Your Flag

     Every summer,  I volunteer on staff as a group leader for a national leadership program  for teenagers. It takes place at the Sacramento State campus every last weekend in July, a three-day weekend filled with motivational speakers, diversity workshops, team building activities, ropes courses, and leadership exercises. One hundred seventy-five students are divided into sixteen groups, complete with their own team mascot, team flag, as well as a team cheer that they create as a group.  For many who attend, it continues to be a life-changing experience: prejudices get re-evaluated, paradigms shift, mindsets change, and critical self-evaluation takes place. Students laugh, cry, bond, and learn. Over the course of three short days, one hundred seventy-five students from across America start the weekend as strangers and leave the weekend as family.

  One of the most memorable events that took place this particular weekend came from one of the participants in my group, Tyler. He displayed surprising candor in one of our activities, an activity designed to examine how we as individuals relate to and treat other people in society. In this activity, all the participants’ eyes were closed. One third of them had a round yellow sticker labeled on their forehead. Another third of them had a round green sticker labeled on their forehead. The remaining third of the group had two round stickers on their forehead, one green and one yellow, except for one sole individual. This individual had a red round sticker placed on his forehead, distinguishing himself from all the other groups. This red sticker was assigned to Tyler.

     Once everyone had themselves labeled, they were given the vague instruction to “go to where you belong,” This was to be done in silence, without words. Once the activity started, each person signaled to another person to go to be matched up with their corresponding sticker: red to red, yellow to yellow, and mixed to mixed. While each group was getting bigger and bigger, Tyler was scrambling around the room trying to find where he “fit in,” where he “belonged,” all to no avail. He tried to go into the yellow-dot circle, but they shooed him out. He tried to go into the green-dot circle, but they shook his head. In one last futile attempt, he approached the mixed-dot circle, and they dismissively said, “you don’t belong here.”

     Upon seeing Tyler being marginalized from each group, one girl spoke out with compassion, saying, “we all belong to each other!” After it was clear that everyone had a group, another person said, “where do YOU belong?” What took place after all the round stickers were labeled on each forehead was nothing short of remarkable. Determined, courageous, with tremendous candor and mettle, Tyler ran out of the hallway, darted into our session room, reached for our team flag and, with a fierce look on his face, planted it firm on the ground. “I belong HERE!”

     I was floored.

     Wow. I couldn’t believe he just did that. In one swoop of the arm, Tyler took a social exercise and flipped it on its head. Instead of feeling sorry for himself because he didn’t “fit in” with any particular group, he stood firm, took action, and did not waver in his identity or position. In a way, it was as if he was saying, “I don’t need to belong to any of your groups, you guys need to belong to MY group! I know who I am, I know where I stand, and I am not moving for anyone.”

    One of the perks of being a leader, teacher, or educator of any type is that the teacher learns just as much from the students as the students learn from the teacher. I am thoroughly impressed by the virtues displayed by the participants, most especially by Tyler. If more and more individuals displayed this type of courage, fortitude and resolve, this world would indeed be in good hands.