2008 Leaders in Training
Boys & Girls Ages 13-15
5:1 Ratio
Weeks: 5, 7, & 9 (M-F)
$895/week
The course is 5 days and 4 nights. Class size is 12 and there are two Senior Instructors and a Counselor present.
Purpose: The LIT is designed to provide youth with a fun, safe, exciting, challenging and supportive outdoor adventure experience in which to learn and practice the concepts and principles of leadership and performance psychology. It is a course in which participants learn how the mind works and the individual techniques to build an empowering belief system.
Participant outcomes:
- Discipline their focus and imagination
- Be great team players
- Overcome obstacles and fear
- Expand their identity through adoption of more empowering beliefs
- Think for themselves and be able to see the consequences of their decisions
- Understand their strengths and areas for improvement and be more understanding of others
- Lead themselves and others better
- Set goals
Course design: LIT is designed to be fun, exciting, challenging and productive. The fun, challenge and excitement are produced by outdoor activities such as:
- Learning how to use a compass and read a topographical map
- Negotiating an orienteering course in the woods using a map and compass
- Night hikes
- Playing Capture the flag
- Ropes course
- Swimming in a lake
- Board breaking metaphor
- Paintball
- Solo Vision Quest
The productive and personal empowerment part is that performance mindset models are taught before each experiential activity and participants get to experience the models! The primary outcome is for the participants to come to the realization that they are in charge of their thoughts and beliefs. Most of our beliefs are adopted unconsciously. Yet, beliefs are the most important determinants of how we feel about ourselves, life, others and our potential and how successful we will be in taking the actions to attain the goals we want in life! Everything we do we in the LIT, we relate to the mindset models.
Performance mindset models taught: Who are you? We are the summation of our beliefs about ourselves, life, school, teachers, friends etc. = our identity. With over 100 billion brain cells, our potential identity is vast!
- The communications model
- The belief model and the Law of Focus
- The role of fear and how to turn fear into power
- Habits and how to change them
- Overriding negative self talk and expanding your identity
- The stages of change and growth -Inception, Deception, Transformation, Identity
- Goal setting and making course adjustments
Teaching philosophy: We use the "Challenge by Choice" philosophy in everything we do. We lead by example and we understand that everyone grows at their pace. We encourage and support but never even get close to insisting that a participant do something they are not ready for. Saying "no" is respected and if a participant is not able to complete a task they are appauded for any effort they take. These are also excellent learning opportunities to tie into the performance models we teach and, therefore, the participant can see where they are and the path they want to take and practice the mindset tools to start getting there.
This is an excellent course for all those who want to become a CIT at Camp Calleva. The LIT Program will only be offered three times this summer (you may have to change your entire summer plans to make sure your child has this opportunity !! ). 15 year old youth can sign up for just the LIT program; however, we urge that they be a Counselor in Training (CIT) for one or two weeks of day camp after the LIT, as they will have the opportunity to apply the leadership principles.
Picture this:
- You are out in the woods at nighttime, but never lost, as you confidently move in the dark from point A to B reading a map and using a compass!
- Your mission is to find another team that is lost in the woods. You are able to track and find them by reading signs left on the ground and the vegetation and do so quietly and unobserved!
- You learn and use the mindset models used by business and military leaders which allow you to turn any doubt and fear you have into power,and you get to physically demonstrate this!
- You break a one-inch board with the palm of your hand and stay out in the woods by yourself on a "solo vision quest."
- You confidently stand up in front of your team and lead them during exciting team adventure competition.
Location: The primary location will be Prince William National Forest Park just north of the Quantico Marine Base on I-95 in Virginia. Other side locations will be announced before the course.
Download the Needs List (PDF)
About Your LIT Instructors:
James (Tony) Witter, Head Instructor, Leaders in Training Tony Witter's first career was as an Infantry Officer in the United States Army, and he retired in the rank of Colonel. Tony held a variety of leadership positions over a 26-year career in the Army. These had the mission of developing young soldiers to be more effective as followers and leaders and to build their self-esteem. He taught courses in Leadership, Organizational Behavior, and American Institutions to Cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point for three years as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership. Tony was also the team chief of a five-officer academic counseling team to assist Cadets in their studies.
Tony commanded an Infantry Training Battalion at Fort Benning, Georgia, which trained over 3000 new soldiers in Infantry skills, teamwork, ethics, personal discipline and physical fitness. Most of these young men were just out of high school. Tony graduated from the Army's elite Ranger, Airborne, and Combat Tracker Schools.
Continuing his interest in personal development and performance psychology, Tony recently completed two personal success-coaching courses; one was "Coach for Life" and the other was the "Results Coaching Academy" by the Anthony Robbins Company. In July of 2003, he was a Trainer at the Anthony Robbins "Discovery Camp" at the University of San Diego and was responsible for 35 youth, ages 12 to 17, who attended the week long camp.
Karen Seibert, Head Instructor, Leaders in Training
Karen Seibert has degrees in Environmental Science and Zoology. She has worked in these fields from doing everything from being a Zookeeper to a Vet tech, to working on the Chesapeake Bay for EPA, to being a water quality expert for court cases for the Maryland Department of the Environment. Her consulting work has varied from wetland studies in the Cypress swamps of Mississippi to researching the environmental impacts of explosives at a military site in a sage brush desert.
She has worked in the area of Environmental Education for the past 10 years. Programs she has developed include a stream ecology course; how to raise worms; reduction, reuse and recycling; orienteering skills; and winter survival skills. Karen is an avid camper, skier, diver and connoisseur of international travel. She has three kids, all attending Calleva, and works with the camp year round as a Head Instructor of the Calleva Leaders In Training Course, Girl Scout liaison and in developing Corporate programs with Tony Witter.
Testimonials:
My son Tony has always been a great kid; he's done well in school, had lot's of friends, been a very caring brother. But when he got into middle school, I noticed that Tony was probably more of a follower than a leader and making some poor decisions that concerned me. His grades dropped and he did end up in trouble several times, although nothing major.
He had gone to Camp Calleva several years in a row but last year was invited to do the Leadership In Training course. Wow! It really gave Tony a lot of confidence and the ability to make good decisions on his own without the approval of others. He learned so much about himself and strengths he didn't know he had. He truly came back a different kid. I have always been proud of him, but I'm so glad he wanted to take this course. It gave him so much. I highly recommend it to any young person.
Dear person interested in doing the LIT course; This is a great program to do. It has many activities to do and builds a bridge for you to start on. I did things that I thought you would have to go through years of training to do. It lets you let out your inner self and get a new perspective on life. When I came home my mom said I was a totally different person (in a good way). I felt very proud of myself and recommend this to anyone, but you have to work on this too after the course. I learned that the hard way. I also liked the counselors a lot, they were perfect for the job. So, if you are thinking about doing this program then I would recommend it a lot.
Patricia and Tony
From his Father's and my perspectives, we can say Tyler's participation in LIT was positively life changing. At the point we called you, he was having a miserable summer, was indecisive about school and behavingirresponsibly. He was faced with some hard choices and was running away from them. Upon his return from a week of LIT he decided he wanted to do something better with the rest of his life than just sliding through high school with barely passing grades would prepare him to do. He chose to leave his old friends and easy school behind in order to attend a very tough college preparatory school; choosing also to repeat the 9th grade in order to improve his academic foundation. We have no doubt that his LIT experience helped prepare him to take responsibility for himself and to make these decisions. The friends he made through LIT have also helped him get the rough spots of the highly demanding past semester. Last week he told a roomful of parents and students meeting at his school that while his current Humanities course was the toughest class he had ever taken, that it was also the best and most learning he had ever experienced in school. (We suspect he may have been thinking as he spoke of his best outside of school learning experience -- LIT!) Today he is thinking about seeking an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy upon graduation from high school, but while his college choice may change, we think the training and empowerment of Calleva's LIT program have already had lasting impact on Tyler.
Thank you. Grace and Fred
Before LIT, I was very self-conscious and was always thinking about how stupid I must seem to people. During the LIT week I began to get rid of that feeling. I now feel that I'm a more self-confident person. Lana (14 years old)
My daughter thoroughly enjoyed her Leaders in Training course, especially the solo overnight. The experience seemed to foster an increased maturity and a greater seriousness toward her schoolwork. Patricia (Lana's mother)
My first night out in the woods was a bit scary because it was my first time ALONE in the woods. I strung together ponchos for my tent and only had a sleeping bag. Around eleven I started to hear the voices of the wild like crickets and frogs and I wondered if there was a bear nearby. In the morning I woke up to birds. I had survived the night and it made me feel like I didn't have anything to be afraid of. I liked LIT because it gave me the opportunity to prove to myself that I am strong and capable of doing anything I put my mind to.
The first day there were three other guys who seemed to know each other but by the end of the day we all knew important things about one anther that we would never have guessed and felt connected in a way that doesn't usually happen so fast. The course strengthened me as a person. I learned to trust my instincts, to push myself and to trust myself. It enabled me to complete whatever tasks were asked of me even if I was scared or worried what other people thought of me.
I want to do the course again because of the cool stuff we do like paintballing and other team building activities like Jacob's ladder. I think any teenager looking for a thrill and a challenge would enjoy this course.
Michael
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