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What is in our mind when we hear evolution, revolution, reformation, and transformation. What are the similarity and the difference between those four words? In a simple way, the similarity in these four words means change. The differences are the time of the process. To provide understanding to the student about the change I ask them to do an individual reformation project. For this project I ask the student to write it down their 10 bad habits they wish to change and then pick up one partner. After that, I ask my student to draw a picture on their bad habit with their partner in card board. At the end of class, I ask the student with their partner to switch the paper where they write down the bad habit and ask them to remind each other within a week to try to change the bad habit. The coming week I will evaluate the project.

The student starts to draw their bad habit with their partner

I ask the student to fold the cardboard into two parts and draw the line between the fold. They only can draw a picture in one side together and left the other side empty.

In the coming week, I ask the student individually whether their partner has a consistency to remind them to change the bad habit and what kind of effort they have made to change the bad habits. After receiving the report from the student I ask them to draw again in the empty side. I ask them to draw their biggest dream.

Pride project Malang

Oh my God

I ask the student to present their biggest dream without telling the other sides where they draw bad habits. There are so many great dreams and great pictures. And I ask them to compare both sides, can you achieve your dream if you have bad habits? Some of them convincingly answer no, some hesitate to answer and some of them just silent. The reformation project can reflect the bigger context. 20 years of Indonesia reformation after the riot of Soeharto there is a big change in terms of political shifting and system. But for the people is there any changes in their mindset? The answer can be yes and can be no. The hardest part of the reformation in Indonesia is to change the people mindset. That is what I’m trying to pass to my student. Can you try to change your habit within a week their answer is yes, does it change their answer is no. Well, it takes time to change the bad habits, at least they give it a try within a week. I hope the student can compare their own picture the left and the right side, the bad habit and the dream. The barrier is on the other side, if they can break their own barrier they can achieve the other side, it’s your reward.

One of the important skill as a leader is communication skill. Many scholars have research about effective communication for a leader. For me, it must contain at least two things: how we listen and how to deliver the message. But I’m not going to elaborate on the theory or concept in how is the effective way for a leader to communicate. In this part, I wanted to show, how my students communicate without verbal language. One week before I had asked my students to bring unused paper, scissors, straws, tape, colored pencils. In the specific week, I usually execute it in week seventh. Firstly, I will divide students into 8-10 groups consist to 4-5 students. Then I will give them instruction to build a tower with the fitments they already bring. I will give them 20 minutes to build the tower with one condition, they can not speak to each other.

After they finish the tower, they will have 10 minutes to create a name for the tower and the philosophy behind the tower. In the 10 minutes, they can talk to each other. This is the final tower.

After a fast deliberation, one person who represents the group will explain in three minutes the name of the tower and the philosophy.

After all the group finishes the presentation I will judge the tower based on three criteria: philosophy, flexibility, and endurance. The philosophy I will grade the tower based on the presentation the score is from 1-3. The flexibility grade by the power of the tower to handle the wind, I blow the tower using my mouth and a fan from the paper the score is from 1-3. The final criteria are endurance I will befall the tower using heavy thing like a book, this criterion the score is from 1-5. The students usually shout in phase two and three, worrying about their tower and it’s so fun to watch. After finish grading all the tower I will make a rank the group and the highest group will have 100 for their quiz score.

The last part of the class is a reflection, the student can express their impression toward the simulation. What they feel and impression in making the tower without talking. From the reflection, I can asses the level of understanding in my student about the importance of communication. People sometimes take talking for granted, they can speak to solve the problem but they choose not to talk. They talk but they do not talk about the important stuff. Even without talking people still can understand each other, gesture is part of communication and sometimes we put it aside. The natural leader usually emerges in this simulation, and natural follower will also rise. Creativity can arise at a critical moment, and finally, the natural leader will emerge because she/he has a better idea while others don’t have a clue. But collective leadership is as important as single leadership, teamwork and trust to each other are the key components in building the tower. Even without talking they can still believe each other, because if they have the same purpose. With a clear purpose, they can achieve the target.

Indonesia is archipelago country with a myriad kingdoms, small and big kingdom.  Each kingdom has a king who can bring his kingdom into the golden era. Two most prominent kingdoms in Indonesia are Srivijaya and Majapahit. Srivijaya based in Sumatera Island dominated the archipelago from 7 to 11 century. The monumental heritage is Borobudur temple the largest Buddhist temple in the world. The famous king from the Srivijaya Kingdom is Balaputradewa rules in 856 century. He manages to bring Srivijaya to the peak of the dynasty. It was his father Samaratungga who build Borobudur temple.

Majapahit was the most dominant kingdom in Indonesia. Under Hayam Wuruk as a king and Gajah Mada as a prime minister, Majapahit at the peak of the golden era and expanding their territory to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Philipines. It has a formidable navy and sea power. Srivijaya and Majapahit are only a few of glorious kingdom in Indonesia. They have strong and powerful leadership. Because of the strong leadership, they can achieve the golden era of their kingdom. I want my student to learn from Indonesia history before the Dutch colonialism. We have so many kings which are the example of a role model from Indonesia. Hopefully, when I ask the inspiring leader, my student can up to these kings and never forget rich and diverse Indonesian history.

In an effort to force my student to read Indonesia history I ask them to prepare the oral presentation about famous kings from the kingdom they set by themselves. Instead of using the power point for the presentation I ask them to build three-dimensional props to explain the genealogy of king that will represent a province.

Padjadjaran Kingdom from West Java

Majapahit Kingdom, King Hayam Wuruk

Banten Sultanate

Makassar Sultanate, South Sulawesi

Udayana Kingdom, Bali

The result is amazing. Firstly students demonstrate their creativity in the 2D and 3D props and the shapes are so varied. Secondly, they learn about the family tree of the king they select. They also need to provide the argument of the characteristic of their king in term of leadership character the king posses. I can distinguish students who work on this task only to past the assignment and the one with the passion. And I’m sure most of my student do it with enthusiasm.

Lesson learned from this assignment for my student are:

1. Teamwork; as always before you can be a good leader you need to be a good follower

2. Learn from the history; many kings especially from the prehistoric era they don’t have facility or technology like the present but they can make it, they even concur the world.

3. Creativity; I fully realize that every student has their own learning style. Some are auditory, some are visual, some are psycomotorik; they don’t like to read or listening but they enjoy making something. Well, I hope this assignment can facilitate at least the psychomotorik type since most of the course’s activities are in class.

I was started teaching leadership courses since 2012. Leadership is one of my favorite courses, not because of the context but because I can explore a lot of teaching methods in this class. Leadership project is the final assignment for this course. In my opinion, leadership is not a hard skill, but it’s a soft skill who can be trained. We need to be a good follower before we become a leader. That’s why in this course unlike other courses that I taught that emphasize analytical skill in this course I wanted student aware with their potential as a leader. The objective of this course is students can realize the leadership potential in themselves, students can build sensitivity towards social conditions else students can lead their groups to create a social project start from planning, execution, documentation to evaluating. They will meet some difficulties in the project, but problem-solving is part of the objective. There are some issues I have addresses for the student which:

1. Aging
2. Animals
3. Anti-Bullying
4. Civic Engagement
5. Cultural Diversity
6. Disability awareness/support
7. Education
8. Environment
9. Health
10. Poverty
11. Public safety: natural disaster, war, terrorism
12. School improvement

The steps for the project are:

1. Make a group contain 4-5 persons (or I can decide for the students because student tends to choose the member from their own group).
2. Select the issues I have provided
3. The selected issue will be presented in week 7, 1 issue can be selected for 2 groups. So, it will not be concentrated on certain issues.
4. Select the object/places to conduct the social project
5. Select the level of service your group will conduct. There are three levels:
   1. Direct service: you can make a face to face project, such as giving food to elderly/the poor one, shower animal in the zoo, preserve endangered culture etc
   2. Indirect service: in this level of service you don’t have to meet/engage with the object you can make some fundraising, collecting clothes, sponsor some food, donate some trees or plant some trees
   3. Advocacy: you can make a poster to gain public awareness, make some advertisement in social media to campaign some issue, make a letter for president or legislative, or you can make a video for some awareness campaign.
   4. Every group can choose 1 level of service or they can choose to use more than one level of service
   5. Discuss in your group and make some plan to solve the problem you will be promoted
   6. In the process, you need to document every step of this project
   7. At the end edit a short video with the duration of 5-10 minutes
   8. Uploaded your video in YouTube
   9. Deliver the link of your YouTube
   10. We will watch the video at the final week and have some response from YouTube audience and from your classmate
   11. Make a short report that describes the background of your project, place, duration of the project, the level of service, the process of the project, and the task division for every member of the group; who does what

Why do I ask my students to upload their videos on the YouTube because students tend to be more serious when their work will be published on social media? Another reason is to see how their leadership project can inspire others. According to Maxwell, a leader is influence and leadership is a way of influencing others. In 2012 up to 2017, I asked a student to upload video by their own, but in 2018 I asked one of the students to make one channel, so all the videos will be collected in one YouTube channel. Proudly present the link for the YouTube channel for the leadership in 2018.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIinVX3o_rBPEgwv3Y3rhFw

For videos before 2018, you can be searched by typing the leadership project of the government science University of Brawijaya.

The following is my favorite leadership project video of all time [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgnnMuAxA84[/youtube]

Selamat Datang di Universitas Brawijaya. Ini adalah posting pertamaku