MILTON — Students from Jay, Milton, Pace, Pensacola, West Florida, Pine Forest and more participated in the second year of Quint Studer’s Quintessential Leadership Program starting at Adventures Unlimited.
Groups of roughly 12 students at a time honed communication and cooperation skills as they lifted each other in trust exercises, played a sort of blindfolded dodge ball, and more.
Quint Studer, founder of the Pensacola-based Studer Group, said the goal was to make Northwest Florida the “Mecca of leadership training in high school,” to create an accessible leadership curriculum for high school teachers, and eventually hold “an educational summit on leadership in Northwest Florida.”
Studer invested $50,000 into the program last year; he invested $55,000 this year.
Over a year ago, Studer said he was speaking to a school’s Student Government Association and learned that leadership curriculum is different from one school to the next “but I thought, ‘Shouldn’t there be some consistency so a child, no matter what high school they come out of, if they’ve taken leadership, they know how to do certain things, whether run a meeting, time management, or provide feedback?”
Some of the skills students learn in the program, Studer said, include knowing how to run a meeting, process improvement, giving feedback, setting goals, connecting to “why,” explaining things, communication, having difficult conversations, knowing what not to do, and not carrying someone else’s message.
Kyla Kirby, a Milton High School student at the program, and one who took initiative in planning how to solve problems, said her takeaway so far has been meeting new people and having her thinking challenged.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: (PHOTOS) Northwest Florida students learn leadership skills at Adventures Unlimited