Students

learn peer

leader skills

STABLE program

helps students

work with youth

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- New Ulm High School students performed a variety of group exercises and learned about leadership and presentation skills Monday during a STABLE Training Day Monday at the New Ulm Armory.

Students played interactive games. One activity involved running around the gym, stopping, breathing through a straw and then running again to stimulate what exercise is like to a smoker.

The STABLE (Student Team Approach to Better Living for Everyone) involved 100 senior high students as volunteer peer leaders and peer tutors. Through the remainder of the school year, they will conduct small group sessions at retreats for third- and sixth-graders.

NUHS students are trained in peer leader skills during the first semester. They will discuss topics like self-esteem, decision-making skills and saying 'no' to alcohol, tobacco and controlled substances to elementary students.

Seniors Kyle Schmiel and Joe Peters talked about the program.

"We learned about leadership and presentation skills and how to carry them out," Peters said. "We learned to lead by example and not be afraid to make mistakes."

Schmiel said he learned about fundamental differences in personalities, how to work together to achieve a common goal and become a better citizen.

"It's like putting together a puzzle," Schmiel said. "Everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses."

In February, March and April, teams of two or three STABLE students will present topics in more than 40 elementary classrooms. In May, third- and sixth-grade students will attend retreats at Flandrau State Park.

Volunteer STABLE students help with the DARE Program, anti-sexual harassment lessons in fifth grade and a Respect Workshop for eighth-graders.

Program speaker was Craig Hillier, whose Breakthrough Leadership program is geared to demonstrate how individual personality groups can and must learn to work together.