Below is a summary done by Lyra Sophia Tan and Genevie Alexis G Cheng about Student Leadership Training given last Saturday, 24 September 2018. The resource speaker was Ronan Capinding, Assistant Principal for Student Activities and Formation at the Ateneo de Manila Junior High School. Mr Capinding dabbles as an actor, director, and scriptwriter.
“All the world’s a stage, and all men and women merely players.” This quote by William Shakespeare allows us to learn the terms used in theater because all of us have roles and the world is a big stage. In the leadership seminar held last September 22, it was as if we attended an acting workshop that tackled how to play the lead role as part of the student council.
The theatre methodology actually corresponds to the way we live our lives. We can be given the role of a daughter, a son, a student, or even a friend, but in this case, we’re given the role of a student leader. At the start of the seminar, we were asked to do certain exercises that strengthened the body, voice, and mind, one was when Mr. Ron asked us to proclaim our names which made us feel empowered. These exercises taught us of how we should aim to be exemplary individuals, before we can even fully contribute to our group.
There was a story that Mr. Ron told us about two construction workers. When these construction workers were both asked about their jobs, the first one answered that he was just building up bricks, but the second had a rather different answer. First, he smiled before answering that he was working on the cathedral. From this story we can learn that we should always see the greater good in everything we do, rather than focusing on the minimum.
He left us with quotes that he wishes we would internalize, such as “Kapag hindi ka naubos, kulang!” Because when we strive to be best, we have to give our best in everything that we do. After all, if we don’t give it our all, we will never go farther than our limits.
As leaders, we should also learn to work with our co-leaders or what Mr. Ron likes to call “an actor and co-actor”. Once we can be fulfilling individuals, we can learn how to work as a team. For this, we were given an activity entitled “mirror mirror” wherein one person has to copy the actions of the other. Mr. Ron assigned the roles A and B among us, he then announced which person was suppose to lead, but what surprised me in the end was how he muffled the last letter, the letter to reveal who was the last leader, this led us to be clueless on who was leading. Unexpectedly, everyone was still in sync, even though there was no specific leader. This reflects on how leaders should be able to communicate with each other and be open-minded to each other’s ideas, rather than waiting for someone to lead them into sharing ideas with everyone else.
The last portion of the seminar talked about “actors in an ensemble” which corresponds to a group of student leaders like the PIQC Student Council. For this portion we also had our last activity, this activity was called “don’t break the plate”. For this game, we had an imaginary plate that shouldn’t break and we were to work as one to execute Mr. Ron’s orders without breaking said imaginary plate, this activity allowed us to gain teamwork and become ‘actors in an ensemble’.
Leadership shouldn’t be about the title, or the fame. Leadership requires gratitude, because as Mr. Ron has said, without gratitude, leadership will simply be vanity. What we realized was that we shouldn’t aim to lead, instead we should aim to serve the people around us who gave us the position in the first place.
In conclusion, the leadership seminar was undoubtedly fitting for us students and we can consider the six hours we spent last Saturday as time well spent with Mr. Ron Capinding. It wasn’t like any other seminars we’ve attended because there was a friendly vibe within it. It was as if we were just friends and we were simply chatting about things we wish to share, but nonetheless, the seminar inspired us to be the best we can be in everything that we do. As William Shakespeare once said “All the world’s a stage, and all men and women merely players”, for us of the Student Council, PIQC is our stage and we will surely act out our parts as the best student leaders we can be.