VENTURA : Map Project Teaches Leadership

The mission was to draw a map of Foster Park, a wooded enclave on the outskirts of Ventura.

But for the 35 sixth-graders from Anacapa Middle School who fanned out across the park Thursday, it was not a lesson in making maps, but in leadership.

The first map they collaborated on, a 10-foot square of paper laid on the ground, was a disaster. Done in a helter-skelter fashion, it was not drawn to scale, nor did it look like the park.

“How are you going to solve this problem?” asked Margaret Gosfield, coordinator of the Ventura Unified School District’s Gifted and Talented Education program, and the leader of the exercise.

Do it over, the students agreed, but this time they would organize into groups with assigned tasks and use a blueprint. It sounded good, but without a leader, chaos and noise returned.

That’s when Erica McDaniel’s voice began to be heard over the others: “People, we need to work in pencil. Everyone working on the trees, go over there.”

“We should all have a free voice in this,” complained Nathan Baca, miffed by Erica’s aggressiveness.

“Don’t argue, just do it,” clipped Nicole Echevarria.

And they did, with little time to spare.

The exercise was one of several that the students carried out at the park under Gosfield’s direction. She recently received a $3,500 state grant to incorporate a leadership component into the program at the middle school level that targets minority students.

“If we can train them at this age to solve problems, it will help them and society at large,” she said.