My service - learning project was working with elementary school students (grades k – 5) at Deer Park Elementary School in the Physical Education department. Going into this project I thought it was going to be a breeze and that my leadership skills were going to just erupt and shine right away. This assumption turned out to be far from right. My first time out to the school I was a little timid and shy. I was basically just sitting back and doing what the P.E. coach told me to. I wasn’t really interacting with the kids as much as I wanted to and I also think that I wasn’t interacting as much as they wanted me to either. My leadership skills were turning inside me just waiting to burst out but for some reason I wasn’t letting them. My second visit to the school I was like a whole different person. I had the feel for everything and everybody around me. I was much more active and interactive with the students. While I was working with the students I was not only displaying my leadership skills but I was also building close relationships with them. “There can be no friendship without confidence and no confidence without integrity” –Samuel Johnson (Covey 185). This

Next on Covey’s list is clarifying expectations. Covey defines this as establishing clear goals and roles within the organization. The main point is to spend a little extra time in the beginning, which in turn saves you time in the end. When clarification is not present communication breaks down between employees. Establishing clear goals takes time and courage and should be acted on immediately because although it might be easier to act like nothing is wrong it takes going that extra mile to truly achieve at a mutual set of expectations (Covey 194 – 195). The responsibility is mainly with the teacher in setting goals and clarifying expectations for the students so I decided to make some goals for myself and push myself in reaching them. Coach Cooper has three things in which she expects from the kids. The first goal is participation. All she expects the children to do is at least try to take part in the athletic activities for the day. The next goal that she has is appropriate dress code. She expects the students to come out to the field ready to play in close – toed shoes and athletic clothing. The third and final goal that Coach Cooper has for her students is showing signs of improvements. At the end of each week if she feels like her students are performing better than the first time playing the sport, they will have achieved this goal. Coach Cooper keeps a log in her folder with each of theses three categories and gives them a score of one to five (one being the least and 5 being the best) in each. If a student comes out and participates every day wearing the proper clothes and shows signs of improvement at the end of the week, they will receive all fifteen points and receive an A for the class. Coach Cooper is very good about giving constructive criticisms to the kids. She also gives rewards to the two kids each day that went (what she calls) over and beyond there expectations. I believe that this is a very smart way to make the students play a little harder to get that reward. By doing this she is demonstrating her reward power over the class. Later on in this paper I will go in depth on how different types of reward power produce different types of responses and expectations.

Trying to balance my time between every student turned out to be more difficult than I thought. I was in an ethical blind because I asked myself if it was fair to the kids that needed my help to take their time and give some of it to kids that maybe were not in need of my help. I decided to continue to help the students that really needed me and then tried to help the other kids in different ways like explaining to them how important it was to use their knowledge to help their classmates. This strategy seemed to work well because it got the kids to interact with each other in a positive way and reinforce their learning through teaching. The kids all seemed happy due to their athletic improvements and I was happy because my relationship was building with the class as a whole.

Power becomes the authority in the rational – legal system because the power is passed on to an individual. In my service learning project the power is delegated towards Coach Cooper. She has various ways of showing this power out on the field. She also has the ability to use her power to get the students motivated. Coach Cooper wears a whistle around her neck that I believe shows the students that she is definitely in charge. There are five different types of power within an organization: coercive, reward, legitimate, expert, and referent (Johnson 10 – 11). During my visits to the school, Coach Cooper displayed me how she uses all five types of power. She shows coercive power by punishing the students with not letting them play for the day or by simply taking their points away for the day. She illustrates reward power by giving the children the maximum points for the day. She also gives away player of the day awards to the two

Some topics in this essay:
Coach Cooper, Physical Education, Deer Park, Pugh Hickson, Larry Spears, Johnson Covey, St Petersburg, Max Weber, Servant Leadership, coach cooper, University Tennessee, personal integrity, physical education, service learning, bank account, leadership skills, deer park, service learning project, pugh hickson, rational �, � legal, rational � legal, coach cooper students, emotional bank account, goal coach cooper,