Today Tim and I headed into the high peaks region to hike up Rooster Comb Mountain with the 4th and 5th graders from Keene Central School. Rooster Comb is a local mountain for these kids--the trailhead can be reached on foot from the school, and you can see the school from the top of the mountain. This meant that many of the kids had climbed the mountain before, but that didn't matter...one of the goals of the hike was to talk about leadership, and what better way was there to demonstrate leadership than to show the group a trail that was already familiar to you!
Before we began the hike, we played a game called "Jiggy-jiggy Joy", which involves a series of actions being passed through the group, with each person doing the action that the person before them did the round before. It's a fast-paced game, in which the players need to be thinking about themselves, the person in front of them, and the person behind them. The kids were quick to notice that not only was the game fun, but it was also a good symbol for the kind of leadership that we were looking for on the hike---taking care of yourself, while also following the lead of the person in front of you and helping the person behind you.
Then we were off for our hike. Each of the kids took a turn leading the group. Before we began the hike, we talked about what sorts of things we wanted the leader to be doing. The students said that the person in front had to set a good pace, and should stop to wait anything people in the back fell behind. As each kid took their turn in the front of the group, they all displayed this behavior beautifully!
The leader was also responsible for making sure that we stayed on the trail. This was somewhat more of an issue, as seen from the kids' response in the photo below when I asked, "Which way does the trail go next?"
Just kidding! (That photo was completely staged.) Actually, the kids were really good at both following the trail through the forest and at keeping track of where we were on the map. This second part was yet another way that some of the kids showed leadership, because knowing where we were in relation to where we were going helped keep up the spirits on group members who got a little tired. 
We ate our lunches at the top of the mountain while enjoying the view. Every single kid made it all the way to the top, despite blisters, tired feet, and the fact that this meant that they got lunch almost half an hour later than usual! Here's the group at the top of the mountain, with some of the high peaks in the background:
Finally it was time to head down the mountain again, which presents different leadership challenges than going up---while going up, the leader must make sure that everyone is going slowly enough that everyone can keep up; while going down, they must make sure that everyone is going slowly enough that no one gets hurt from running down the mountain! Here's a photo from during our descent:
When we got back to the school, we talked about what we had learned about leadership during the day. The students were able to give a lot of great examples of times when their classmates had exhibited good leadership skills ("When someone fell down and cut their knee, he pulled out a first aid kit and gave her a bandaid.") We also asked the kids how they would describe a good leader. Some of their responses included:- "Someone who takes care of the group"
- "Someone who makes sure the group is all together"
- "Someone who listens"
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