This is Behind the Clover, real 4-H talk with real 4-H pros. A look at 4-H from the perspectives of 4-H professionals from Illinois and beyond with your hosts, Henry Craft, Amy Henschen, and me, Ryan Littlejohn.
Henry Craft: 00:35Welcome to another episode of Behind the Clover. I'm Henry, and I'm here with my cohosts, Amy and Ryan. Today, we're continuing our conversation with Michele Aavang about 4-H youth ambassadors.
Amy Henschen: 00:48Alright, Michele. We ask the same question to everyone on our podcast because we just like hearing the answers. We wanna know, do you have a favorite story or experience from your time working for Illinois 4-H ? It can be a favorite kid, a favorite event, a favorite feeling, whatever it is, we wanna hear it.
Michele Aavang: 01:07That is such a tough question to try to think of a favorite story or experience. There's so many. I there's just so many. Well, I did have one really great experience this summer. I had an intern, and my intern was one of my 4-H alumni that had come up through the program.
Michele Aavang: 01:32And, he was a homeschool kid that, you know, that had a really dynamic 4-H club, and he came up into ambassadors. And, you know, so I got to watch this kid grow, you know, I've he's been around, you know, I remember he he's been around long enough to compete against my kids, and so he's kind of, just a little younger than my my middle daughter. And so they were in Ambassadors together, and, him and I had such a wonderful time this summer and and kind of having him talk about his experience as a 4-Her and then him being an ambassador and looking up to, you know, the older kids and the grand ambassadors and all the things that they did and accomplished and thinking someday, wow. I could be like that. And then he said, and before you knew it, that was me.
Michele Aavang: 02:29That I was the one doing all the things and having the success. He said, you never hesitated to push us out front and pull us, you know, teach us we could do more than what we thought we could for ourselves. You know, to have that come back, I think, really makes the job worthwhile. But, you know, he said that, it it was just nice to see because he he has since, he was here this summer. Thank goodness because we don't didn't have a program coordinator, but he really stepped into the role, and he said it was great to do the same things he did as a 4-H ambassador and get paid for it.
Michele Aavang: 03:06So that was good. But, you know, he I think that was the biggest thing. He said that the experience he got in 4-H , especially through through our ambassadors, was that I was always confident, and and I always let them do take over and and do it however they wanted to do it, and, you know, I was always confident it was gonna turn out right. So I would say that's probably one of the you know, not not just Connor, but to have that come back. And and I I I will add that, you know, my daughter's part of was part of the program before I was even working for Extension, And, we were dropping her off after a family party, where some of her friends had gathered and and, they were all celebrating another 4-H member's birthday, and it was almost all 4-H kids there that are adults.
Michele Aavang: 04:00And, she ran in, and we were waiting to make sure she was there. And before you know it, I must have had, like, six of them streaming out of the restaurant to come and and give me a hug and see how I was. And, you know, they were from all over Illinois and Wisconsin, and it was great to see them. But, you know, that makes everything come back when they they do things like that and and, really makes you feel good about the time you spent with them, you know, how successful they are because you had a little something to do with helping them out with that. So.
Henry Craft: 04:34I think that those are some of my favorite stories of the people who you've interviewed on on this podcast so far. It's just folks that have seen kids full circle, and I think that is a really cool testimony to 4-H . Because you got people that were involved in a kid's life from as young as five years old, and then if you can see them when they're adulting, I mean, that's a that's pretty cool. I think that's the power of 4-H .
Ryan Littlejohn: 05:05Michelle, I think that ties perfectly into why we're here today. We are doing a section on youth leadership and we know we've heard you talk about it. People rave about it, about your ambassador program. And I think you've done a great job of the stories that I hear and I've heard you tell of kids that are afraid to take that next step, you push them into it and they thrive. Right?
Ryan Littlejohn: 05:38That's what we're here for watching these kids thrive and succeed. Over the time in your unit, you've really built up your local 4-H ambassador program. Can you tell us about the 4-H ambassadors, what they do, what sorts of experiences that you have, just kind of a basic overview?
Michele Aavang: 05:58Sure. So our 4-H ambassador program is for kids from 12 up. We have different ranges so a star ambassador can be anywhere from 12 to 16 and they have to meet certain requirements along the line to reach a grand ambassador status. So, our ambassadors promote the 4-H program. They work hand in hand with our 4-H foundation, kind of being those youth promoters, those youth spokespeople for our program.
Michele Aavang: 06:35Because they have to be in the program at least one year before they can be an ambassador. They've gained that experience and so they basically talk about how 4-H has helped them in their, you know, learn those life skills, those leadership skills, they're talking to other kids, other families. They, a lot of times, will help us with our promotional events. If we are having a county activity, they're usually running the check-in tables. They, a lot of times, are the ones that are there to help us set up for an event.
Michele Aavang: 07:10They help a lot with our fair judging. They're our judges' assistants. So they do take on more of a leadership role. They work very hard to maintain a great county program, little bit different than Federation does. They're not our planners, they're our promoters of those programs, but there's some criteria that they have to follow.
Michele Aavang: 07:33Again, they have to be in 4-H for a year, They have to select a leadership project that they have to do as an ambassador. Most of the kids will do public presentations. So last year, I think we had 18 kids just in McHenry County do public presentations because that's one of the easiest for them to do, and it's done early. But civic engagement, journalism, financial projects, or build your future, any college, any ready for life project with whatever project they're in if they wanna do that, that that meets the requirement. And then they have to do a lot of community service as well.
Michele Aavang: 08:13So they have to do at least two county community service, and that could be sometimes it's helping our foundation with their fundraisers, sometimes it's working with say Soil and Water Conservation District to do a tree planting. Some of our Extension partners, our ambassadors will volunteer, things we arrange through through the ambassador program, just volunteer opportunities for them, as well as some other things that they do within the county to help the program.
Amy Henschen: 08:47So, Michelle, you mentioned federation, and we've kind of talked about this on a previous episode. Illinois 4-H is set up a little differently than quite a few states in that we kind of, at some point, kind of separated out some different leadership functions and have different leadership groups for those functions. And you kinda hit on ambassadors are promoting 4-H , and federation is more like doing program, like planning events and programs. Do you have both in your county, or do you just have ambassadors? Were you involved in the decision making on what to have, I guess, is the question.
Michele Aavang: 09:18So, yeah, pre COVID, and I hate to say that, but pre COVID, we had all three, we called a team leadership team. We had our ambassador program, which was established here in McHenry County in 1980. I think it was one of the first in Illinois. At least that's the claim of the original volunteer who just recently stepped back in the last few years. But, anyway, so we have ambassadors.
Michele Aavang: 09:42And then while I was a program coordinator, I did bring back Federation as well. In Federation, those were like the planners. So we used to have Federation members. Each club could have two representatives from their club, and they would come to meet together, and they would bring whatever ideas each of their clubs had for the direction of the program that year. So there was a lot of overlap between federation and ambassadors because our ambassadors were already doing that extra step, and so they knew what it was like to be in a leadership program.
Michele Aavang: 10:21But federation was a lot different. You had a lot of maybe more livestock kids that would be involved in that, more kids that didn't wanna go out and do promoting in the public speaking that really wanted to be more of the boots on the ground and helping with fair and helping with certain workshops or putting on the workshops. So, yeah, we did have that, and then we also had teen teachers, which we still kinda do. It's not as formalized as it used to be, but those kids that help plan cloverbud camp and or might teach workshops. In fact, one of our we used to have teen teachers.
Michele Aavang: 10:57Gosh. I think he was an ambassador, on Federation and a teen teacher. He's now an alumni, and he still took, teaching our virtual cooking class. So, unfortunately, you know, our ambassadors transitioned to an online during COVID, whereas our federation really didn't. And when we tried to bring it back, it didn't have as strong of support, I think, from leaders and parents.
Michele Aavang: 11:25But we are now in a place now that we have Megan here. She's going to try to reignite that federation because they serve different functions. And to make it easy on them, we used to have a 06:00 federation meeting, a 06:45 leadership training that went to 07:15, and the ambassador meeting would be at 07:15. So if they were both, they came one night and we're done. And they all got the leadership training, which is what we do with ambassadors.
Michele Aavang: 11:53I guess I should have added that. We do meet once a month, and every month, we do some sort of leadership building workshop whether we start like, one of our first meetings is how to shake somebody's hands, how to use a microphone. I stick the microphone in their hands. They've all done it once, and now they're not afraid of it. You know, we start that outline for our 4-H story right away.
Michele Aavang: 12:17So, you know, there's some criteria involved and, you know, we just right up front. This is what the expectations are. And, you know, it has to be age appropriate, which is why we have different levels. So a 12 year old is just trying to take it in. But we we have our grand ambassadors who help with the facilitation of some of our workshops and team building activities so that those younger kids, again, like Connor said, you know, to look up to those older kids, and then all of a sudden that he was the one in charge in in running those workshops and helping to build that confidence in the the younger kids.
Michele Aavang: 12:55So it it does come full circle. But, yeah, I mean, there's depending on how big your county is and what your county's needs are, I think is how you select what leadership program is gonna work in your your unit.
Henry Craft: 13:11Do you all have a fairly robust, like, FFA program as well up there in the the North Counties? Because I think that's sometimes what what we run into down here is our, you know, our all star kids who are really involved and, you know, who would be those ambassadors. And even those that aren't, honestly, it just doesn't feel like there's that many that are interested in all that extra, I mean, extra leadership type stuff. But I guess that's my question. Do you get a lot of the same kiddos involved, or are you seeing that there's just enough enough leaders to go around for FFA and also for 4-H and all the other leadership programs?
Michele Aavang: 13:55So up here in McHenry County, we do have three schools that have FFA, but they just recently added Hebron just started their FFA program. They probably have about a quarter of our 4-H participation in our clubs. A quarter of them are accounted for from Hebron because it is such a rural area, and there's such a large generational participation. So I would say FFA probably has taken some of that away in areas of the county, but we really only have three towns that have FFA. Participation in the 4-H program in general comes from probably the northern part of the county anyway, so it probably is beginning to take away, but a lot of those people that are in FFA really weren't in 4-H anyway.
Michele Aavang: 14:57There are some that are, and they already see the value of participating in our programs, but I would say it's I could see where that would take away, but we don't have enough schools with FFA that it really has had a huge impact. It has to have some, you know, there there's there's just the three three schools, really. Lake County doesn't have any. So, you know, Lake County is is completely different than McHenry County, and I'm learning that. And, Lake County right now, we are are trying to reignite their ambassador program.
Michele Aavang: 15:34I think at Lake County, we're gonna have to transition that to either a federation or more a teen teacher program rather than the ambassadors.
Henry Craft: 15:45So, Michele, I'm told as a part of your master's program, you focused on building out an ambassador program curriculum. We're we're curious to know how did you approach that work, and what do you think are the keys to a successful ambassador program?
Michele Aavang: 16:04Alright. So it's kind of not for the ambassador program per se, but that is what I use. So I kind of took whatever I had done over the years, many years, while coordinating the ambassador program and kind of put that into one leadership curriculum. So more of a Leadership Academy is what I called it. The curriculum could be used over say you were an ambassador leader, you could use the lessons in there over a three year period if you wanted to, which is kind of what I do.
Michele Aavang: 16:43I kind of have a three year cycle and we do these lessons so that they're not always the same, but at the end of that three years, we repeat them because the kids that already saw those lessons are now older and what they take from those lessons is very different, or they might be facilitating those lessons. But the structure of the curriculum can also be used, say, in a classroom advisory. So, that advisory that maybe you have in eighth grade middle school, maybe a freshman, you can use that as here's the lesson, here's the hands on activity. And there's about eighteen weeks worth, sixteen to eighteen weeks worth of lessons. And then the second half of that curriculum, you can actually apply it as a service learning activity.
Michele Aavang: 17:33So if you still had that advisory that fall semester, you would use that curriculum to teach all those lessons, and by the spring semester, you're taking those lessons and you're applying those. Like, it might be SMART goals. It might be, you know, using your public speaking skills and applying that in a service learning activity of the kids choice so that they're actually putting those skills to use as well as helping their community. So that was the structure of it, you know, when I was trying to think, how am I gonna do this? You know?
Michele Aavang: 18:06What am I gonna do for my final project? I thought, well, I'm gonna do something that I know I can use and apply. And I still, you know, I I I did that as my capstone project, and I pulled lessons from there. Frequently for for ambassadors, I've been using similar items for years, and I just kinda put it in one space. So, hopefully, that transition, we do have a a leadership group that's working together, and and we're hopefully gonna have a little bit more structure for each of those leadership headings, you know, whether it's ambassadors, federation, teen teachers.
Michele Aavang: 18:42So anybody that's interested or feels passionate about that should contact Katie Duitsman and and get on that committee.
Amy Henschen: 18:50So, Michele, it sounds like you've been dropping some topics that maybe are things that you have training for in this curriculum. I'm just curious if you could share some more. I've heard a hand how to give a handshake, maybe, like, elevator pitch, I kinda heard. So what are some of the other topics that you tend to cover, like, that are maybe some of your favorites? I don't need don't need list three years of them, but I'm just curious.
Amy Henschen: 19:08Some of the highlight topics that you think this is a skill, well, ambassadors can benefit from or teen teens that are participating in leadership opportunities with 4-H , but also, like, they'll use in their day to day lives.
Michele Aavang: 19:21So I I do use a lot of the lessons, and and sometimes we use them thematically depending on what's going on in the world. So, we have lessons on, I put together. And and a lot of these are are lessons that are pulled from other curriculums or ideas from that a lot of our wonderful educators are using or program coordinators. They're already using them. They're just in one space.
Michele Aavang: 19:46So things on teamwork, empathy, leadership, decision making, goal setting, meet and greet, making that eye contact, shaking someone's hand, telling their personal stories. So, yeah, I mean, it's a great structure to have that, you know, here's my 4-H story when you're promoting, but that also gives the kids a structure to tell their story when they're interviewing for scholarships, interviewing for, you know, some position with college, interviewing for a job. So we do public presentations, how to write a resume, how to do interviews, you know, that career exploration. So how to plan a service project? So we did have a large participation in that National 4-H .
Michele Aavang: 20:33I think we had four ambassador teams that planned different county events for to participate and some so, you know, how to structure that, how to come up with a plan, how to implement the plan, and how to report on the plan. It very simply, but, you know, at least the structure's there.
Amy Henschen: 20:52Michele, you kind of hinted at something else that I think is really important for especially new staff to hear. Like, you don't have to write and like, you don't have to come up with activities and lessons all on your own when you're planning to teach stuff. Right? Like, there's good stuff already out there. Do you can you tell us, like, how did you find the things that you tended to include from other places?
Amy Henschen: 21:15Like, was there anywhere, like, you specifically looked when you're trying to find this kind of good stuff already?
Michele Aavang: 21:22Shop 4-H , you know, I did purchase quite a few of the leadership or career exploration curriculums, and there's a lot of good stuff. And it might not, you might not want to do it cover to cover, but they might have one or two lessons. Ohio 4-H has a great leadership curriculum. If you're looking for short twenty minute lessons, I think it's oh goodness, I can't something 20. I can't remember that one.
Amy Henschen: 21:51Teen Leadership 20.
Michele Aavang: 21:53Yes. I had stumbled across that, and I was using that for ambassadors quite a bit. You know, there's a lot of great stuff out there, and, you know, I think I'm hoping that with our leadership group we're going to be able to have those takeaways and you know NAE4-H has got a they've got some lessons on there but I think it's kind of difficult to find those but I am on a work group committee for that and I didn't even know that stuff existed out there and it's there for us to use. I think you just got to dig deep and ask around. Don't be afraid to call somebody and say, "Hey, I hear you do a leadership program.
Michele Aavang: 22:32Can you just give me some stuff? Just give me some material because I don't wanna do the same thing I've been doing. I just need some fresh stuff." And and people are are really, willing to share and, you know, that's how we learn. And, you know, I had a teacher say, teachers are are like Vikings.
Michele Aavang: 22:48You know, we kind of pillage and steal from where we can and, whatever it takes to to get the job done and help our youth be successful.
Amy Henschen: 22:58Although we're really nice Vikings who credit where we borrow.
Michele Aavang: 23:01Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Amy Henschen: 23:07Just an asterisk for our copyright people on campus. Just we definitely credit people. I just and, yeah, you're just always looking for stuff. Right? I just met with we guys we have a new staff person in Illinois who works another state prior. And, like, they're like, oh, they heard I was doing LEGO.
Amy Henschen: 23:20They're like, you know, I wrote a whole team leadership curriculum with the ideas of building blocks of leadership, this idea of LEGO as the back end. And I'm like, we're gonna need to see that. I'm sure some people are gonna wanna look at it. So it's kinda cool. Like, you just, like the stuff's out there.
Amy Henschen: 23:36There's other people doing the work, and and those people probably are remixing for some at least part of their work stuff that that that's been out about. Because there's a lot of tried and true leadership building activities, and everyone kinda takes their own spin on them. So I love that. And I things I love about your planning, it's like that idea of, like, I can't make these lessons the same every year. They have to be fresh.
Amy Henschen: 23:58But I like I think that three year cycle is really ideal for that age group of, like, they'll be fresh, and maybe I'll have a new idea to throw in by the time any of these kids might be repeating this. So that's really cool. Michele, I wanna change gears a little bit. Still on the subject of leadership, but I know I was kind of that quiet, introverted kid. And so sometimes, like, I wouldn't have sought, like, these leadership opportunities out because I was like, I'd rather just not do that.
Amy Henschen: 24:25I'd rather read a book in my room. So, like, how do you approach recruiting in general to get kids on ambassadors, And then do you do anything special for those, like, quiet kids or the kids that maybe, like, their potential is not as visible, if that makes sense? Because there are some kids who are like, I do 17 projects, and I come to everything. And it's like, yeah, this kid is a good fit for ambassadors, but there's other some, like, quiet leadership kids who maybe need some some personal ask. I'm just curious how you approach that.
Michele Aavang: 24:55I think for those kids that maybe aren't sure, just a personal ask. We have a lot of kids that help at fair, and we have a 4-H building. Fair's a long time. So we find some kids that are really willing to, like, help in the food stand, and they may be quiet, but they love helping in the food stand. Or they like to sit at the table in the 4-H Building or set up projects or whatever.
Michele Aavang: 25:17So I think I think that personal ask, maybe seeing someone that is maybe there but not talking a lot, doesn't, you know, like a lot of attention on themselves, but you see that presence over and over. Maybe someone every time you send a call out for help, hey, we need volunteers to help with the setup or to be at this, You see them over and over, and you know maybe they're not the one that wants to be out emceeing your recognition program, but it's just as important to have those kids that are there to do the setup, that are there to do, hey. I'll come in and put those, you know, bags together for whatever project you need. And seeing that they all carry equal importance to each of those roles that they play. And I think, you know, when you have that personal touch and you you have them in your office or wherever you're at and having that personal conversation with them and and saying, you know, I really think that you would be great at this.
Michele Aavang: 26:21Recognition is a little sneaky on my part. All of our ambassadors emcee. So some of them get to a certain age and that grand ambassador where maybe they weren't talking a lot, but they've always been there. They're always looking for that. Every time you encourage them, you see them succeed a little bit more.
Michele Aavang: 26:42But then I've had some kids that have never ever spoken in front of a group, and just to read those names or to shake somebody's hand when we're giving out awards. I had in fact, I did have one girl that she just was adamant. She was not gonna read a part. I said, I don't have anybody else. I said, are you comfortable doing this?
Michele Aavang: 27:03And she reluctantly said, yes. I will. And then it turned out the one that was supposed to go after her didn't come up to do their speaking part. So I luckily, it's in a script, and I'm like, can you keep going? And she was the best speaker of the night.
Michele Aavang: 27:18She's great. So I was like, wow. And then after that, she says, you know what? Civic engagement is one of our our projects they could do. And she says, you know what?
Michele Aavang: 27:28I think I'm gonna do public presentations because then I'll be done in March. So it worked out, and now she's not afraid to do public speaking. So I think it's the personal touch. I think volunteers or leaders are really great at saying, you know, I think you would make a great ambassador. And it doesn't hurt that our foundation gives out scholarships.
Michele Aavang: 27:48So a lot of those kids are there because they wanna apply for those scholarships. And to get those scholarships, they have to do those things. So just supporting them so they get there.
Ryan Littlejohn: 28:00Michele, I've got a question for you about how you structure the people leading the program, like the teens. Like, is it you as the educator, is your your EPCs, or do you
Ryan Littlejohn: 28:11have a volunteer that goes along and helps you with all of this?
Michele Aavang: 28:17So initially, our ambassador program was led by some really great volunteers. However, they started the program and just stepped back. Remember I said it was 1980 when our ambassador program started, so they had kind of reached a point in their life where it was very difficult for them to meet those requirements. We do still have some volunteers that assist with ambassadors. Right now, I am leading the ambassador club for us because they work hand in hand with foundation, I did that as a program coordinator and then I kept that as an educator.
Michele Aavang: 28:57Because they do a lot of the leadership activities, I do all of the trainings for them, But as we move on and our new program coordinator is more comfortable, you know, she will also be taking on some of those roles with those kids. I have a lot of because I have these lessons put together, it's easy for me to hand them off to the older kids or what we call grand ambassadors. So there's not as much planning involved as once upon a time, and that's kind of their role as grand ambassadors is they have to schedule, they have to book the guest speaker, they have to decide on what lessons are gonna be taught. Usually, after the New Year, so coming up here in February, we'll start with the grand ambassadors leading those meetings. So if for now, this is the way it is and how it's going to evolve from here, I'm not sure because I love my ambassadors and I love the program and I love watching that leadership grow.
Michele Aavang: 30:00But, you know, I I don't want to to take away from from our new program coordinator's job either. So but I do believe she's gonna probably focus on federation, which is more County, and our ambassadors. Some of them come over to Lake County and help as well. So we're hoping to add more Lake County kids, and I'm hoping that maybe our ambassador program will just expand and be a unit ambassador rather than county focused.
Ryan Littlejohn: 30:28I think it's great that you have your passion and your job too. Right? We always try to help kids find their passion, but we always have our passion or our thing that really just sets us on that right path, and this is what we're gonna do to make these kids better. And I think you've done that with ambassadors, and then we can hear it when you talk about it with us. So we wanna know what advice do you have for someone looking to start or rejuvenate a youth leadership program in their county?
Michele Aavang: 30:59I would say invite the kids to come have a conversation on the direction they would like to see their program go. What opportunities do they want for themselves? Kids have some great ideas. I feel that kids can speak better to the program than adults, and they can also speak better to where their leadership skills need a little bit more experience. Inviting them to say, you know, this is what I need and really listening to what they are saying.
Michele Aavang: 31:39I think, you know, parents always want to tell us what their kids need, but I'm telling you those kids, start, you know, that 12, 13, they start having opinions they might not tell you, but by 16, they're gonna share them. So invite those kids. And those that you really see are willing to jump in and help, are willing to you know, if you have programs and you need somebody to emcee those programs that don't have a problem stepping up to the mic, maybe some that are nervous, you have the confidence that they can do those things, invite them to the table and say, this is,, how do you need this structured? Do you wanna meet once a month? Do you wanna be in person?
Michele Aavang: 32:19Is it easier for Zoom? I think you just need to structure it how those kids need it. And they'll be vested in the program then. If they're they're telling you what they need and what they would like to see happen and you are listening to that, they're gonna respect you for for taking the time and really trying to make a program that suits them. They'll be vested in it, and they're gonna wanna see it succeed.
Michele Aavang: 32:45And it it it doesn't hurt if you can get somebody to sponsor a scholarship. That's always a good carrot to dangle too.
Amy Henschen: 32:53I love that you're leading into, like, let their youth voice. Youth voice. That's such a great reminder. I just wanna tell staff in case you're new, and we talked about there's federation. There's ambassadors.
Amy Henschen: 33:05There's teen teachers. Don't be afraid if the kids you're you have something in mind and the kids tell you where they wanna go, either one, shift to a different one of those buckets or make a little hodgepodge of your own. We're not, like, super crazy strict here where we're like, well, an ambassador can't do that. I mean, like, we have, like it's broad strokes. Right?
Amy Henschen: 33:28The the titles are broad strokes titles, and, like, you can make them your own and use the kids in kind of, the way that the kids wanna get used, utilized around your your county and where their learning wants to go. So I don't just wanna remind people you don't have to feel tied down by, well, we picked ambassadors, but these kids wanna do all that stuff, but they also wanna plan an event. Great. Let them do that too. If it works for them, then it works for you.
Amy Henschen: 33:52So that's that's really cool. But I love that your start start with the kids is such a great piece of advice and just, like, something we're hearing a lot from people who have great leadership programs if that tells you something.
Michele Aavang: 34:07Yeah. And I really think now is the time. I think that these kids now post COVID spent a lot of their anybody that was middle school in during COVID or, you know, there those are your, like, juniors and seniors right now. They're not afraid to tell you what they think. They've had to advocate for themselves a lot, in their own academic experiences and, you know, those life skills.
Michele Aavang: 34:36So give them a voice, let them tell you, and hold them accountable. You know? I mean, you you can't do it for them. If it fails, it's okay. It's not a reflection of you.
Michele Aavang: 34:47That's part of the process, and failure is good. And a lot of these kids need to know what that feels like. There's nothing wrong with the red ribbon sometimes. You know? It's all okay.
Michele Aavang: 34:58It's all gonna be better. That's part of the life process, and I think we just have to teach kids that. If this is what you wanted to do and this is how you said you were going to do this, I support you. Let me know how I can support you. If you just choose to drop the ball, well that's not my problem.
Michele Aavang: 35:15That's part of the lesson to be learned. So be there, support them, give them the tools that they need. Don't do it for them.
Ryan Littlejohn: 35:26Man, I love me some red ribbons. Michele, thank you for joining us today and sharing your passion for helping you thrive in leadership. It was truly inspiring the things that you're doing and I know we can't wait to see that curriculum maybe come out sometime soon. You can correct me if I'm wrong. We'll see.
Ryan Littlejohn: 35:50But I know that there'll be definitely times that that will be shared and people can get ideas.
Michele Aavang: 35:57For those of you that are looking into maybe some new leadership activities or programs, let me know. Whenever I'm going through the peer process of this leadership curriculum, I'm going to have to have some really great people willing to pilot the program. So, you know, looking forward to potentially doing a pilot program at a someplace this fall. So let me know.
Ryan Littlejohn: 36:23Thanks for joining us for this episode of Behind the Clover. Join us next time for more conversations with real 4-H pros.