More Information about the
Music Leadership Course at OELC
OELC’s Secondary Music leadership course offers leadership development through the world of music. Music and leadership connect deeply as both are global forces that transcend different cultures, different geography, different styles. Both leaders and musicians must each find ways to create and innovate to use new technologies, to deal with change and to utilize efficiently the resources they have available to them. Both seek to create value and must collaborate effectively with others to succeed, including how well they listen, use their imagination, create or solve problems. These areas are the foundation of this leadership journey towards a greater degree of self-awareness, interpersonal skills and connecting with others.
The Secondary Music course provides opportunities to explore all facets of music in a safe and encouraging learning environment. Embedded in the activities are leadership lessons based on people’s own school/community context. Students will make connections with music as a way to understand the changes in the world today as well as how music can build confidence by clarifying values, fears, joys, strengths and limitations.
In addition to the many music activities there are specific 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 which is an exciting and fun part of the leadership training.
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 music course might be
| 7:45 | Breakfast |
| 9:15 | Music session (full band, orchestra or choir) |
| 11:00 | Conducting/Sectionals |
| 12:15 | Lunch |
| 1:30 | Leadership Development Session |
| 3:00 | Free Swim/Tuck |
| 4:00 | Leadership Development Session |
| 5:00 | Optional Rec Activities |
| 6:15 | Dinner |
| 7:15 | Debrief/Planning Time |
| 8:15 | Special Evening Activity |
| 10:30 | 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).