More Information about the
Secondary Arts Course at OELC
Our arts-based leadership courses at OELC have a unique focus by developing students’ leadership skills through an exploration of the arts. The ideal candidate is not necessarily a student who is a ‘master musician, actor, artist, or dancer’ but one who has an interest in the arts and in particular, a student with leadership potential who is willing to learn about themselves, about others and how to apply their skills in their school and/or community.
There is a natural fit between the arts and leadership and this course allows for a unique exploration of artistic processes and applications that can act as powerful pedagogical tools for developing leadership capacities. Specifically in this Secondary Arts course students choose an arts area they would like as their ‘major’: vocal music, visual arts, drama, or dance. They typically spend a morning period in this arts area where they engage in creative arts activities with embedded leadership discoveries and opportunities. At other times, they have ‘integrated arts’ activities where they experience all the arts together.
Besides the arts activities, there are leadership development sessions where students explore various components of leadership: leadership styles, effective communication, group dynamics, problem-solving, organizational skills, and risk-taking in a non-threatening and encouraging environment and through well-planned experiential learning activities. OELC has a low ropes challenge course that is a rewarding and fun part of the leadership development sessions.
Opportunities for debriefing and reflection contribute greatly to the personal growth of students. Through the skilled facilitation of our teachers, often the greatest learning is reinforced through the analysis of elements which contribute to or detract from the success of an activity or challenge.
A typical day in the Secondary Arts course might be:
| 7:45 | Breakfast |
| 9:15 | Arts Major |
| 11:15 | Leadership Development Session |
| 12:30 | Lunch |
| 1:45 | Integrated Arts Session |
| 3:00 | Recreation |
| 4:15 | Massed Choir |
| 5:45 | Dinner |
| 7:00 | Leadership Development |
| 8:15 | Special Evening Activity |
| 10:00 | Cabin Meeting |
| 10:15 | Lights Out |
Based on the principles of democratic education, all of the leadership courses at the Ontario Educational Leadership Centre enable youth to discover their full potential while developing skills to work towards a vision of a more just and vital school and community.
Each OELC course will:
- Engage and educate youth so that they can return to their schools and communities ready to make a positive difference;
- Maximize the potential of emerging leaders towards becoming responsible and participating citizens in their schools and beyond;
- Provide youth with the opportunity to develop connections with other young community leaders across Ontario;
- Create safe learning environments where the disposition and skills to dialogue across difference can be nurtured, where diversity is welcomed, conflict is accepted and negotiated, and critical questions are encouraged;
- Allow participants to gain new insights, examine learned behaviours, challenge biases and become empowered agents of change;
- Design opportunities for young people to imagine and create other possibilities for themselves and their world based on democratic principles of social justice and equity.
Part of the vision of the Ontario Educational Leadership Centre is reflected in the words of philosopher Maxine Greene:
We need spaces...for expression, for freedom...a public space...where living persons can come together in speech and action, each one free to articulate a distinctive perspective, all of them granted equal worth. It must be a space of dialogue, a space where a web of relationships can be woven, and where a common world can be brought into being and continually renewed (1984).