Life Elsewhere

When I am reading through the prompt and trying to think of one particular experience, the best one, and I realize it all leads back to my study abroad experience, my life at Ohio State as an international student.

There is an old Chinese saying that traveling for a thousand miles is better than reading a thousand books, which I often use to justify for my education here when my mom complains about me being too far away from home.  I would tell her OSU is at least eight thousand miles away from home, so I'm learning a lot here...

Anyway, I am a firm believer in travelling makes the best learning experience.  I still remember how I filled out my very first immigration form on the plane to the United States and how the guy sat next to me said "Welcome to America" with a smile.  During the first week before school started, I stayed in Bradley for temporary housing with another international student who I just met and we survived on ham, bread and juice for the entire week.  Everything looked different.  The dorms were surprisingly colorful with playful decorations.  The next morning, I woke up around 5am because of the jet lag.  I opened the window to feel the cool morning breeze, the sky was crispy clear blue before sunrise,  and I asked myself, what am I doing here?

Everything was brand new to me at that time and I felt like I was learning like a baby because I obtained new information from everyday life!  I immersed myself in a completely new environment and I learned from what I observed, what I heard and how I felt in a different language!  Pretty cool experience if you haven't traveled outside of the country and I highly recommend you do it to feel for yourself!

Didn't know what turkey looks like before...

I touched snow for the first time...

We learn the best by experience.  The people I met here change my life.  I am always interested in learning about different cultures.  I love talking to new people and I am amazed by their personal stories.  And listening to different perspectives on various issues allows me to think analytically and question my old beliefs.

Now as a peer advisor, when new international students ask for my advice on how to become successful at Ohio State, I can't help but think isn't it fun to explore and learn how to do things by yourself?  There isn't a formula to succeed and no right or wrong way to get involved.  It is the experience that we are getting in college shapes who we are and introduces to a whole new world if you are willing to open your eyes.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
                                                                                                           – Henry Miller

Love to use Disney songs to demonstrate my point :)

Many domestic students have told me that they think I am so brave to come all the way here on my own and they admire what I do.  They often ask me, don't you miss home?  Of course I do.  When I was at the very west tip of Costa Rica right on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, I would imagine if I just keep going straight from here, I will eventually reach home.  It seems not that far away, only the other side of the ocean.  But it's exactly this distance that teaches me about independence and learn and grow to become who I am now.

I will end with one of my favorite quotes from Forrest Gump:

''Life is a like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you're gonna get."

Travel is an adventure.  We don't know what it holds for us.  That's what makes it beautiful.  It's not the destination that matters, it's the learning experience that we'are after.

Travel.  Learn.  Life elsewhere.

We Want to Make a Difference

So why we do what we do in SLA? Because it's cool!

Just kidding...To be honest, I have never thought about it seriously until now.  I realize a lot of the times we just do things that seem interesting to us, hoping we can gain something from it.  But we have no clue what we are getting until we reflect upon it.  And learning about relevant theories definitely makes one think deeper and see things from a different perspective.

For me,  the leadership identity development model is more difficult to understand than the student development theory because the model is more abstract whereas the student development theory is drawn from empirical experience, but it perfectly explains why we do what we do in SLA.

Most if not all of SLAers have gone through stage 1 to 4 as we are all aware of the leadership concept, highly involved on campus to explore personal interest and develop personal skills, have taken on leadership roles and managed others, and probably facilitates a good group process instead of holding a positional role.  We have accomplished all the above from experience, from observing or reading about what other great leaders do.  If  our own experience or other people's experience has proven it right, we continue to do what we are doing, otherwise we modify the way we do things.  It's like when I learn how to cook, my mom would tell me you should do it this way.  When I ask why, she would say because that's what I have doing for the past twenty years.  But little does she know there is a scientific story behind it and chemical theories can be used to explain why things would taste good if prepared in a certain way.  Therefore, the leadership theories provide a logical explanation to what we see in student leadership development.

There is nothing wrong with learning from experience, but then we can't predict what happens next because we don't have a strong theoretical basis.  With the leadership identity development model, we can see our leadership development journey in an analytical way and envision where we are going in the future.  I really like the last two stages of the model where we take responsibilities for the development of others and care about the community.  We have discussed it in class that leadership is about inspiring and empowering others to pursue their passion and make a difference in their life.  Right now we are on stage five, generativity.  We care for the welfare of the buckeye community, and we want to empower more students to become leaders so that they can empower more people.  This is how we change the world, same idea as Pay it Forward, the movie mentioned in Kelsey's blog.  We do what we do in SLA because we want to make a difference. Our motivation is how we can better serve others and we are concerned for the sustainability of the organizations.  We mentor younger peers to help them develop their leadership abilities.  After we graduate, we will be on stage six, integration and synthesis.  Our leader identities have matured and we will dedicate ourselves as life-long learners to adapt to organizations of different complexities.

Identity development model and the student development theory allow us to contemplate and reflect on our involvement experience, focusing on not just why we get involved, but also how we get to where we are now.  It ties directly to the workshops and facilitation we do in SLA.  We need to understand our own motivations and development process to be able to serve others and help student organizations to figure out their development progression.  We will become authentic and more effective leaders because we believe in what we do and we have a strong theory to back it up.

One thing I don't understand about the identity model is the helix model of development.  Do we have any real-life examples when people go back and forth between these stages?

Leadership Examples from Performing Art

Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership:

Will Schuester, "Mr Shoe" from Glee, is an exemplary leader.  He cares about the needs of his students and he helps them to achieve their individual dreams while pursuing the shared goals of the entire glee club.  At one particular episode (ep22 season 2), what he does showcases the five practices of exemplary leadership.  He inspired a shared vision among the glee club that they are all going to win at the nationals, but the glee club members get carried away in the big city and are not being productive in writing songs.  Meanwhile, they learn that Mr Shoe may be leaving them for Broadway.  Mr Shoe voices his personal values by sticking with teaching instead of performing on Broadway to keep the team together.  He challenges the process by changing the way they prepare for nationals.  Most importantly, he fosters a collaborative environment to enable the glee club members to bring out the best in themselves.

 I can't find the video clip where Mr Shoe brings everyone together when they are fighting against each other right before going on stage, but here is the promo for that episode:

Authentic Leadership:

As my favorite Broadway show and Disney movie of all times, The Lion King comes to my mind immediately when I am thinking about Authentic Leadership.  I really like the show because we can see how Simba grows into a true leader.  Simba is always ambitious and eager to be king, we can tell from the song "I just can't wait to be king".  But he doesn't understand what it means to be a king at that time, thinking being brave and adventurous is enough.  Well, he is wrong and his father's death transforms him into an authentic leader.  Grownup and mature, he now understands his purpose and motivation better -- he wants to return home and restore the devastated Pride Lands.  Inspired by his father, he has strong personal values and he leads with his heart.  He does not lead for power or status like Scar, he leads for his faith.  The following clip shows one of my favorite moments from the show where Rafiki guides Simba to overcome his fear and have faith in himself as leader of the Pride Lands:

Reciprocal or Relational Leadership:

The Avengers is quite an interesting movie in terms of leadership and teamwork.  Each of them is a hero in their own right, but when they come together for a shared cause, they seem to act on their own and just focus on what they do the best as an individual, which leads to damage and death.  Captain America steps up at the right time to bring all these people who are good at acting on their own to form a strong team.  The process from individual to a team embodies the five key component of the relational leadership model: purposefulness, inclusiveness, empowerment, ethical practices and a process orientation.  They come together for a good cause, an ethical cause. This shared vision binds them as a team and empower each individual to do something they could not achieve on their own.  They all learn to put their personal conflicts behind and combat as an inclusive team.  They look out for each other and view the battle as a team effort instead of an individual war.

Below is a glimpse into this movie: