Courage

Photo by: Richard Juarez


"People who are good at taking risks continually seek out and find meaning in what tests them. They embark on risky activities knowing that what they are doing makes sense to them at a very deep level of their being." -John Graham


Courage, as defined by John Graham, is facing what scares you, including risks that test your spirit as well as your body. In the book Outdoor Leadership, John Graham focuses a whole chapter on courage and shows how having this quality can help you conquer any risk and positively influence your life.

As I finished reading the chapter, I realized that my classmates and I, who chose to stay in Senior Seminar, have courage. We took on a risk. We accepted the challenge to complete a senior project while handling many other important things during our senior year. This risk is scary because of having to sacrifice other things in order to reach your end product and even having the possibility of failing, but we stuck to the project because we find a meaning in what we are doing. Whether it is composing music or guiding young women, we are doing it because it is our passion.

As I realized this, I remembered the whole point of this senior project, to find a passion and take a risk by developing a project around your passion, and this is exactly what we have been doing.

It can work Anywhere

Qualities leaders learn in the outdoors don’t have to stay in the outdoors; they can be implemented at work as well. This video called eZine Setting the Tone as an Effective Project Manager by Youtube user IndabaeTraining shows how these different qualities are used in the workforce.

Sprint the last 100 m.

Alright, there is roughly a month left till the school year ends. This means that I have less than a month left until I wrap up my project and present my demonstration of mastery. I have a list of what I want to accomplish before I finish my project. First, I want to write about my experience during the Creativity Week trip and post it on my website. Second, I want to see if I can create at least one more video (I still don’t know about what I want to record) and post it on my website. Third, my Senior Seminar teacher, Susan Davis, wants me to create a curriculum of a three day trip in the outdoors and post it on my website as well. Finally, I want to make my website look more attractive, so I guess with these additional add-on’s, my website will look pretty professional. So this is what I want to shoot for before I present to the world my demonstration of mastery.

Photo by Richard Juarez

What happened?

Image from Google Maps:


From March 5th – March 8th my school had its annual Creativity Week, and as I mention earlier, I was going to help Stephen Vrla and Lee Bryant lead a camping trip. Originally Lee had planned out to camp at Lake Houston, but because the park closes on Tuesdays we weren’t able to camp there. She chose another location, Big Thicket National Preserve, but this also didn’t work out. Lee and Stephen ended up choosing Sam Houston State Park, which is north of Houston, and that’s where we ended up camping at.

Honestly, the camping trip was more of a learning experience for me. I had planned out to teach the students about outdoor leadership, but I feel that I was the one who learned about outdoor leadership. Throughout the trip I was learning about leadership by being in charge, for the first time, of a group of 19 students and giving them instructions. I felt that I had a many mistakes here and there, but I’m glad that I had those mistakes because they uncovered many things that didn’t know. For example, I had to find a way to get the students together and quiet down before a gathering. I didn’t know how to do this at first; I would only ask them quietly to settle down, but towards the end of the trip, I got better at this and began to properly use my authority.

Throughout the trip, I felt like I didn’t pull my own weight because I didn’t do as much things as I wanted to, and Stephen and Lee were helping me out with things I should have already figured out. I felt like I wasn’t doing anything right, but, now that I look back at the trip, I was feeling this way because I was learning.

My Trailer

This is a trailer I created for my Senior Project.

I am "The Leader"

Picture by Richard Juarez; PNW 6/9/10 - 7/9/10


While I was reading “Outdoor Leadership” by John Graham, I came over a passage that said that a leader should see him/herself as “The Leader”. It’s all about confidence. Even if the trip completely fails, a good leader should still have self-confidence and manage to keep everything under control.

This caught my attention because as Creativity Week comes closer, I fell as though I’m going to fail the purpose of my project. I feel as though everything is going to go out of control and Stephen and Lee will have to step in and pick up my slack. As I read this passage, I was told that it doesn’t matter if the trip fails; part of being a leader is being able to keep a cool head when everything isn’t going according to plan. Being a leader means that I will have to be confident in my decisions and keep the trip alive if something wrong happens.

Change of Location

Last Friday, I had another meeting with Stephen, Lee, and the students who are going to attend the Creativity Week camping trip, and Lee informed us that there is a possibility that we weren’t going to be able to camp at Lake Houston because the park is closed on Tuesday. She said we can work around this, but we won’t be able to camp at the park for two days as we planned.

After the meeting, Stephen, Lee, and I looked up different parks, and agreed that we would research different park over the weekend so we can find another location. Stephen informed me on Tuesday that Lee found another location called Big Thicket National Preserve. Stephen said that both him and Lee liked the area, and I agreed with them as well after I looked it up.

So now we are not camping at Lake Houston anymore, we are heading out to Big Thicket National Preserve this coming Monday. Here is a picture of where Big Thicket is located.

Image is from Google Maps.

Who’s on board?

So far I’ve heard from two people whom are willing to be on my panel. One of them is Stephen Vrla and the other is Rob Christy. Stephen had already told me he will help me out, but this is just a formal “Yes”. I’ve been planning the trip with Stephen, and so far everything is going smoothly.

I haven’t talked about my project with Rob Christy, but I will email him and explain where I’m at with my project. I will also meet him in person during our school’s Gala which is on February 23rd. I will be sitting at his table, so I hope we can get to know each other and talk about my project as well.

The Dream Team

The advisory panel for my project will consist of four people; my mentor, one teacher from my school, a board member from my school, and an expert in the field of outdoor leadership. So far I have three members whom are willing to help me out with my project: Robert Vasquez, Stephen Vrla, and Rob Christy. Robert Vasquez is my mentor, Stephen Vrla is a teacher and dorm parent for the middle school boys, and Rob Christy is a board member who expressed interest in helping me with my project. The only person I’m missing is an expert in the field. One of my class mates, Ana Flores, said she knows a member of the Sierra Club and gave me his email, so I could ask if he is willing to be on my panel. I’m almost done completing my panel, and hopefully I can fill in the last spot soon.

The Book is Here!

I ordered a book from Barnes & Nobel called Outdoor Leadership. I recently received the book, and it looks very promising. I think it will be a useful tool for preparing me for the camping trip during Creativity Week. The book consists of teaching different techniques of leadership and how to successfully preform those techniques. The book also teaches the reader other aspects such as how to deal with stress, how to resolve conflict, and how believe in yourself. I feel that this book will be a strong stepping stone on which I can build my camping trip off of.

Here is a link for you to preview the book: Outdoor Leadership

The Trip

So the big question is “What am I going to do?” So far, I have joined a Creativity Week group with two teachers, Stephen Vrla and Lee Bryant. Today we had our first meeting with all of the group members who are going to participate in the trip. There are about twenty students in total, and Stephen, Lee, and I gave them an overview of what we are going to be doing throughout the trip. Stephen is going to teach environmental ethics, and Lee is going to teach art; I’m going to teach the basics of camping and leadership to the students.

The location of the trip will be at Lake Houston. We will spend one night on campus to get everyone comfortable with camping, and spend the next two nights at Lake Houston. On the last day, Thursday, we will come back to campus for the all-school presentation and during this day we will present our Creativity Week project to the whole school.

Currently, everything is working out well. All we need to do is prepare for the trip by gathering the equipment, food, and other things needed for the trip. I still have to prepare my part of the project by creating my agenda and the activities I will make the group participate in, but the preparation is going smoothly. So to answer the question asked above, this is what I’m going to do.

Experts Wanted

I want to ask if there is anyone who is willing to help me out with my project. I don't want to make it seem as though no one is helping me, because I do have people helping me with my project, but it would be nice to have a wider range of people who could help me. It will be great if someone with a better knowledge of outdoor leadership can help me out and give me a better insight on my project.

Survey?

I'm thinking of asking students at my school what is the most important qualities a leader should have. I want to do this so I can have an idea of what others think about leadership and compare their responses. This will help by being a base on which I can work on.

My Reflection

My Students’ Sentence: “He made me confident about the outdoors”.

This is what I want the students to conclude after the camping trip. I want each student to gain enough knowledge and skills to lead their own expedition in the outdoors.

Was I better today than I was Yesterday?

In August, I didn’t have a clue of what I wanted to do. I had different ideas, but none of them seem to express my passion. I was walking through a foggy open field. I didn’t know where I was going with my project and fell behind everyone else. I became tired of walking through this field, and decided to find a way out. I began to think of my passions; I began to think of something I would love to share with others.

I started to ruminate about my past camping experiences, and realized all of the challenges and fun I experienced. This was when I realized that I could share my experience and knowledge with others. This idea was just the thing I was looking for.

I concluded that I was going to lead a camping group in which the students will learn basic leadership and survival skills. Currently, I’m in the process of gathering information needed to begin this camping trip, but I’m a mile stone ahead than I was in August.

Where? Where? Where!

I have talked to Stephen Verla about where I could make my project happen. At first I picked a location that was a long drive from the school, but Stephen reminded me that I should pick somewhere closer because Creativity Week starts on Monday and ends on Thursday. During the past three years, Creativity Week has been from Monday to Friday, which means that I have one less day to make my project happen. This means that I have to work around this obstacle and now plan on picking a closer place.

Stephen and I looked at a few websites where we could find a closer location with an interesting terrain, and we found this website, Texas State Park Guide, that has a highlighted area of Texas with information of Parks in that area. He said that he would be okay to take the group and me anywhere in that area. Now that I have the location narrowed down, I’m one step closer to making it happen.

If any of you have any comments or suggestions, please post them below.

Where do I Go?

Before my project could be “Okayed” by the administration, I would need to give them a plan of when and where this camping trip is going to happen.

I asked one of my teachers at school, Stephen Verla, if he would be willing to help me out with my project, and he said yes. I told him that I wouldn’t want to plan the trip on a weekend because it wasn’t enough time, and it might be better to have the trip during creativity week. There will be much more time during this week, and none of the students will be worried about school related stuff. Stephen agreed that creativity week would be a good time to have the trip, but he wasn’t certain what he was going to do during that week. He said that he was open to student’s ideas for that week, but he would help me out if I got all of the details together.

I was glad after talking with Stephen because I felt assured that my project might actually happen. Now that I have an idea of when this was going to happen, I now needed to know where I would have this camping trip. Stephen recommended somewhere with a mountainous landscape, but the area that I can think of with a mountainous landscape is west Texas. I’ve heard that Big Bend National Park is a beautiful place to go camping, but I don’t know if it would be considered too far from the school’s location; I don’t want to the exhaust the driver.

If anyone can help me out with picking out a location, please comment below.

My Site

I didn’t mention this earlier, but I’m also creating a website, using WIX, about my Senior Project. This website is still being worked on, so you might have some difficulty trying to navigate through it. As I get all of the details for my project together, I will post the updates on my blog and this website.

If you have any comments or questions, please post them below. Also, if you have any tips on how to improve my website, please post them.

Here is the link: http://www.wix.com/juarez17richard/richard_17

This is my big Idea

Video by SIUCCommunications

SIUC Outdoor Leadership Program




This is what I had in mind for my project. I don't mind if this happens on a smaller scale, but I want the individuals who are participating to understand ideas and concepts of the projects, such as leadership skills and the beauty of the outdoors.

Background Information

I’m going to give you a little bit of my camping background. As you know, I went camping with my school’s Young Men’s Group in my 8th grade. This was the first time I’ve been camping so it influenced me a lot because not only was it my first time, but it was a fun trip. This made me want to go camping again because I wanted to go through the same experience. I wanted to be away from civilization with my close friends. I wanted to have fun again. This was when I decided to attend the Woods Project during the summer of my 9th grade.

The Woods Project was awesome. I spent two weeks at Yosemite National Park; during the first week I stayed in cabins, and during the second week, I went backpacking. This trip was very fun because I was with some of my schoolmates and I met other students from different schools. I also learned a lot over the environment of the park and the importance of the outdoors.

During the summer of my 10th grade year, I was selected to attend NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School). The reason I chose to do NOLS was because I wanted to go through the same experience I went through in my previous trips. I went backpacking for a month in the Pacific Northwest with eleven other people. It was an amazing experience to go off for a month and see the world in a different view.

My First Steps

Hello everyone. As many of you know, my name is Richard Juarez and this will be the site where I will post the progress of my Senior Project. First of all, I need to tell you the idea for my project. Throughout the summer, I’ve been brainstorming many ideas for my project, but none of them seemed to interest me.

Then the school year began, and a lot of my classmates already had an idea of their projects; I was clueless about mine. I began to think about things that I enjoyed doing, and camping was the first thing that popped into my mind. I love the outdoors. I feel in love with it during my 8th grade when I went on a camping trip with my school’s Young Men’s Group for the weekend; it was one of the best times I had with my schoolmates. Ever since this experience, I’ve been hooked on camping.

I don’t have a clear idea right now of the direction of my project, but I basically want to create a camping group that will see the same wonders that I see in the outdoors. If any of you have any ideas or comments about my project, feel free to comment below.