I.l.i.t.e essay

I.l.i.t.e

          Ghandi once stated "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind". After hearing this remarkable statement I knew that Ghandi was a born leader. There have been so many great leaders just like Ghandi over the years like Barrack Obama, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., St. Rose of Lima, Nelson Mandela ETC. when hearing about these great leaders us kids don't realize that we are the future leaders. We could be the Prime Minister, the head of a successful company, or even someone who will fight against poverty. We don't really realize this potential. We usually need an inspiration like I.l.i.t.e .  I.l.i.t.e stands for Intermediate Leaders In Training Event. Basically I.l.i.t.e is when almost all schools from the Toronto catholic district meet together and we all have a great time and learn a lot about leadership in 2 different workshops. It was a truly inspirational event.

          As soon as we arrived Mother Theresa high school (were the event was held) I instantly knew I would learn a great amount of leadership. We entered the theatre of the high school for a greeting to start the day. The best part of the greeting was Stu Sanders performance. Stu is a comedian who travels around the world encouraging students to pursue leadership in a hysterical way. He tells the story about the struggles and stories that overcame him as a child and then how the formed him into the leader he is today. I really think he should write a book! After the wonderful performance we said a quick pray and we were off to our first workshops.

          My first workshop was called Positive Gear. I remember last year they came to our school so I recognized the two representatives from Positive Gear. The workshop was talking about how it's an amazing thing to be positive and to always "work as a gear" with other people eg. Imagine a gear that works together with several other gears to operate a piece of machinery. We are basically all like that. If we all work together like the gears in machines we can make and do incredible things for the earth and anything in it. They used good examples, stories and games that taught us about working together and being positive. As soon as the bell rang for lunch we went straight to the lunch hall and ate a fantastic lunch (courtesy of Pizza Pizza J). Later in the afternoon we met in the theatre for a talent show.

          I would say that the talent show was the best part of the afternoon. The first performers were students from a dance academy. They gave three different types of dances one slow dance, a Hawaiian styled dance and a hip hop performance. They were all pretty cool. The next performance was a band called Star Child x who I wasn't aware of but I still enjoyed their performance. They sang two songs which got everyone pumped. As they started to leave they handed out free Star Child x buttons and I just snagged one (I had to stand on a chair though).the next performance was by Diego from the next star. Everyone knew this performer so pretty much the whole theatre was screaming. I caught mostly the whole thing on tape. The final performance was by a dance group. They were amazing dancers. As soon as the talent show was finished we headed straight to our last workshop. I didn't really learn much in my last workshop though.

          We ended the day at I.l.i.t.e by saying a great prayer followed by a few wonderful songs. After experiencing I.li.t.e I know look at leadership differently. The event really makes you feel like you want to make a difference in the world. I felt very encouraged by the event and I hope all students can experience the intelligence of the event I.l.i.t.e . It truly was spectacular.

Tues, Feb 7, 2012
Kris I.L.I.T.E
                         At the I.L.I.T.E trip, there were many students from many different schools. Also, James and Mike from Positive Gear came to the I.L.I.T.E event. A singing crew called StarChild-X sang a few songs and sang on 99.9 Virgin Radio, my FAVORITE radio station! They were Starchild, J-Walz, and D Lon. There was another singer there also, his name was Diego, and he was on The Next Star, my least favourite shows. The comedian, Stu Saunders, made jokes that made me laugh really hard.
During the lunch break, that was when the singers and dancers came out; the comedian came out before our first workshop at the beginning of the I.L.I.T.E event. One of the dancers freaked me out because it
looked like he was going to dislocate all of the bones in his body. I.L.I.T.E. is Intermediate Leaders In Training Event. It is a leadership event full of amazing workshops. I had so much fun on my first workshop. During the first workshop we did games for self and a group work. We also learned what leadership is all about. The second workshop was so boring; I didn't even want to be there in the first place. All we did was talk and watch a boring video which we never finished. Also, I never learned anything in the second workshop,except that Black history month is in a certain month, and that Aboriginal history month is on a certain month and etc. We also talked about the war of 1812; I got a poster about it.
                     The I.L.I.T.E trip was from about 9:00 A.M- 2:30 P.M. When I got to the bus at 8:00, I was sooo tired! The I.L.I.T.E event was at a large high school called Mother Teresa. Many people from many different schools came to the I.L.I.T.E event. Also, people from different high schools came to volunteer to set up and do the I.L.I.T.E event. Even though many different schools came, a few never attended and only a
few students/classes from their schools came. The I.L.I.T.E event had a lot of people that could learn to be great leaders. Speaking ofwhich, at my first workshop, I learned a lot about leadership.

02/09/2012

I.L.I.T.E

        The best way to describe I.L.I.T.E is it was amazing and educational at the same time, it was amazingly educational. My day at school started when we came to school and sat in the atrium.  After almost ten minutes we were loaded up on the school bus and then we headed down to Blessed Mother Theresa. After we got to the high school we sat down in the hallway square. About half an hour later we went and got our name tags and went to sit down in the cafeteria/stage area. That's where we started our day at I.L.I.I.T.E.

        I walked in to the dark room hearing blaring music from the large sound system. As everyone knows, Cardinal Leger is THE BEST! So obviously we got front row seats (okay not front row but close to it, you know what I mean). We sat there chatting, listening to the ear-corrupting loudness of the music. Then after sometime we were greeted by a guy (I don't know his name) and then we said a prayer to start our day as good Catholics. After we said the Hail Mary, we were greeted by another nice guy named Stu Saunders. He told us the story of how his parents divorced and then what gave him the drive to become a good leader. After this we got dispersed to our activities for the day. Mine in the morning was The Angel Foundation Group, and in the afternoon was Big up Your Voice.

        The Angel Foundation Group activity wasn't actually called that but that was what they told us about and I couldn't remember what it was actually called. When I got to the room, most eyes were on me because almost everybody else was there. I looked around for a seat then sat down in a seat closer to the back because that was one of the only ones available. We were told stories of single parents struggling to support their kids and how they feed lunch. The Angel Foundation would like to make everybody more equal in the world and not have people struggling in life while learning or getting an education. Then we had this activity. The activity was: if we had one penny and we could change something for the better with that penny, what would we do with it. I stated, I would send that penny to Africa and tell them to keep that penny circulating. It would give people some joy.

When this activity was over we headed down to the hall to get our lunch passes to get our yummy pizza man, um I mean pizza. Then we headed to the stage/cafeteria area where we sat down and ate our pizza. When we were done we went down to the stage area to watch some performances by a dance group, StarchildX (I got a pin!), a guy and his band (the guy's name was Diego and I was told he performed on The Next Star, or something). All the performances were spectacular! I got it all recorded on my phone.

When we were done here, we went back to the hallway where we would head down to our next workshop. My next workshop was Big up Your Voice. In this activity I walked in the room and sat down near my cool friend, Helena. Then later my other friend Christopher came in. We were talking to the people behind us. Their names were Samantha and Gabriella. Turns out I did make some friends! So when we were here we talked for almost half the time because the projector wasn't working. Then the boys helping our teacher brought in a 46-inch T.V. We started talking about Canada's history and the teacher asked everyone if we notice a gap in it. Everyone said no. Then he asked if we were all Canadian and everyone said yes except for one girl, she decided to be sarcastic and say NOOOOOOO. Then the teacher talked about when Canada was discovered. He said the people who discovered Canada told everyone back home of the "dark" people they found here. Then we looked back at the pictures. Not to be racist or anything, but the picture frames only held photographs of white people. We even watched a video on it. Turns out it was true. So we were told that we can make a difference and fill in disrespected people.

I.L.I.T.E was a great experience for me. If I had the choice I would go back again to do more activities. We were leaders and now improved leaders. I always like to build on my leadership skills so I could lead people by setting a good example. Anyone can be a leader if they tried. I was told at a workshop; we are leaders, so we should get up and make a difference now!

                                By Nick Y

ILITE

ILITE: Intermediate, leaders, in training, Event.

                              ILITE is a great  learning experience for anyone. ILITE is an event where schools all around the Toronto district school board come together to express and share how we can be leaders. This year ILITE was held at Mother Theresa high school. Our school was at ILITE because it was training for us to become leaders. There were a little over ten schools that came and there was an amazing amount of volunteers/speakers. There was one speaker in particular that I tremendously enjoyed. His name was
Stu Sanders. Stu Sanders gave an inspiring and hilarious speech that I will never forget. I forgot to mention the other performances there was dancers, a band called star child, and the winner of the next star Diego. For sure ILITE would be on my top ten lists of favourite school trips.
                                One of the most important things about ILITE was the workshops. Everyone went to two workshops. The two workshops I went to was breathe easy and Cadence. At breathe easy we learned how to relax and mingle. During our first game we had to get a partner and our leader would give us a problem and we had to explain how we would react in this situation. Our next activity was learning about stress. Duringthe last game we got into groups and we had to decide which of the scenarios on the papers we got goes under which stress column. At the end of the workshop we did some Yoga which was hard yet stress reliving.
                      I'm not very coordinated in dance but I got the hang of it after a while. The dance style we did was either Maringa or Salsa, I can't really remember. We learned five different dance steps. At first everyone was stepping on each other's feet and messing up but our leader broke it down for us. At the end of the class we did a dance off using our five different dance steps. It was funny because everyone messed up but we had such a great time.

I.L.i.t.e: Intermediate Leaders in Training Event

Name: Anita

Teacher: Ms. Babb

Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Not long ago, there was a trip for the grade 7's and 8's of Cardinal Léger. For what I thought, was that it would probably be boring and I'd get tired. But, it wasn't anything like that. I.L.i.t.e changed my life forever. I wasn't just an ordinary seventh grader going to school, I now am a leader. I am now showing different examples to everyone around me, in different ways.

Many schools were at the i.L.i.t.e event. Also, there were some high school students volunteering to speak, different teachers for each workshop, the nice staff from the high school setting up, and a funny comedian and speaker Stu Saunders. I.L.i.t.e was at mother Teresa catholic high school. Mother Teresa is by the looks of it, a very great school. The school is partially big with lovely classrooms and nice teachers. It was a great school to do the presentations and the workshops. I think i.L.i.t.e took place because it gave intermediate students a chance to make a difference in the world. One of my favourite quotes is, 'one million starts with one.' Which basically means that being a leader doesn't really mean that you have to do something big. Every big accomplishment just starts with a simple plan that you vision in your head.

I.L.i.t.e stands for intermediate leaders in training event. What this basically is, is that the organization takes a bunch of 7's and 8's from different catholic schools in the district, and also some 6's, and shows them how each of them can be leader. Not a leader by bossing people around but by doing small quiet examples. Some more recognized people that told us about it were Diego, the winner from the next star season 3. Also, Starchildx, a rising band that's song superstar, appeared on 99.9 virgin radio. Before we got to meet all these wonderful talents we needed transportation. Our school arrived at i.L.i.t.e at about 8:30 a.m.by bus. We were to be at school by 7:45 because the buses were to leave at around 8:00 in the morning. The bus trip took about 20 minutes because the buses were kind of delayed. We left from i.L.i.t.e at about 2:30 -3:00 in the afternoon, Arriving back safely at Cardinal Leger at about 3:15 p.m.

Some things I learned from this experience were to love who you are inside and out. For my first workshop went to a station called, if I were a boy. This station was basically talking about how the media portrays the ideal girls and boys. We had talked about how we thought how the media showed us about an ideal person through listening to the media and other sources. There turned out to be more ideas and suggestions for the ideal of a girl than a boy. We talked about why there was more, and shared our ideas. Next we did an un ideal boy and girl. Lots of comments were said about it. Once we finished the teacher asked if anyone actually fitted into the ideal girl or boy. There was no one close to it. This showed me that everyone is perfectly imperfect, it was a fantastic workshop.

My second workshop was teens and social justice. This workshop was basically about how we as growing teens can make a change in the world. Our instructor was from India and showed us about his country and how it needs change. He used a recognizable example, Russell Peters, to show us about the Indian culture. Russell peters basically showed us funny yet true ways on how Indians act. Behind all the laughing that came out of our workshop was the truth. The truth that we finally all understand that each and every one of us can all go off and make a big difference in the world. Now, I'm starting to think that this trip is just the starting of a new leader coming in the next few years

I.L.I.T.E. ASSIGNMENT

I.L.I.T.E.

By: Alexandra

        I.L.I.T.E. Intermediate Leaders In Training Event. This experience was very educational and fun. I,L,I,T,E. is a leadership program with workshops, talent shows, and performances. It took place at Mother Theresa's high school. I.L.I.T.E. is supposed to teach students to take a stand, don't be afraid to try something new, and to get back up when you fall. I.L.I.T.E. changed me in a good way because it taught me to never give up and to lead by example. I am going to use the skills I learned in I.L.I.T.E. in my daily life.  

            As I entered the high school I was very excited and curios about what was going to happen today. When we all gathered together in the theatre this guy names Stu Saunders talked us and other schools that attended to I.L.I.T.E about what it takes to be a leader. My first workshop was called Extending the Circle of Hope. It was about how this girl named Meagan who was in kindergarten and had a brain tumor. Meagan's friends and family all worked together made 1000 paper cranes, and made her a paper cranes ceremony.  They did this because Meagan read this book called 1000 paper cranes and the book says that if you make 1000 paper cranes you get one wish. So they did the ceremony and they all wished for Meagan's health. Unfortunately God wanted Meagan up with him in Heaven so Meagan did die. What I learned in this workshop is that one person can make a difference.     

ILITE
                          The Intermediate Leaders In Training Event, also known as ILITE, it was the most inspirational conference I've ever been to! It was on Friday, February 3 at Mother Theresa High School. At the conference, I learned that anyone can be a leader and that you don't have to be a superhero to make a change. The motivational speaker was the funniest guy ever! Everything he said was hilarious, but at the same time he talked about serious things and how we can all become leaders. What was the purpose of this? It was held so that all of us can realize that it takes one small step at a time to become true role models to everyone.
                      My first workshop was called 'Breathe Easy,' they taught us some ways to handle stress. I met so many people from different schools, we introduced ourselves and we played games to know more about each other. When it was over, we had lunch in the cafeteria, and there were many performances to watch during the lunch break. The performers were Starchild X, Diego, and many dancers! Every single performance was incredible! It was like a concert during a school day! I enjoyed Diego's performance the most because I was really looking forward to it, and he was the only one I heard of before. Workshop #2 was called 'Who are you?', the people handling the workshop are from an organization called '1Focus.' They told us about their journeys and their purpose. Their purpose is to help a specific place to lead them to a brighter future. This year, they are focusing on education somewhere in India. Many people can look up to them and follow what they did to achieve their goals in life.

                   To end off the day, everyone who attended ILITE joined in prayer and worship to thank God for everything, for all the blessings and to help us all in our journey to become great leaders. I'm sure that everyone who attended walked out with a smile and carried with them everything they learned to be a successful person/role model. There are no words to describe how much fun I had that day, and I will always remember the things Stu Sanders told us about how he became a leader. We should all make a change to make the world a better place for ourselves and
others.

I.L.I.T.E

I.L.I.T.E
Name: Kimberley
Teacher: Ms. Babb
Date: Tuesday February 7, 2012


                                    I.L.I.T.E stands for intermediate leaders in training event. On Friday February 3rd 2012 some of the grade 7 and 8 students of Cardinal Leger got to go to I.l.i.t.e. this event is held at the high
school, Mother Teresa, every year. It is held to tell and show the students how they can be leaders. During this event we were first spoken to about why we should be leaders and how we can be leaders.
After that we went to workshops about leadership. There was one workshop held in the morning and one in the afternoon. During lunch we all got 2 slices of pizza and a juice box. While we had lunch there
was also a talent show with dancers and singers.
                          My first workshop was called "Big up your voice" in room 220. This workshop was about how to work with and communicate with others. During the workshop we played games that involved communication with others. The second workshop was called the thanks of giving in room 110. This was about the Angel Foundation. The Angel Foundation is what  runs the charities throughout the school board. They also help students and their families with financial problems. Since there were so many schools at I.L.I.T.E I knew no one in my workshops. These workshops were fun ad it let me meet new people.
                       I.L.I.T.E was a great experience even though I am not the typeof person who likes things like that. We got to meet new people learnabout leadership and experience new things. I.L.I.T.E was interesting
and it was nice to be able to experience it.

Ilite

       A lot of people would say iLite is about being a leader. It is, but I believe a little differently. I believe that iLite is about being the best person you can possibly be, in every single way. ILite is held at the Mother Teresa high school in Toronto and it is basically a leadership event for youths with many workshops teaching you about different parts of life. In my personal opinion, the stories and lessons learned there were very inspirational.

       I took two classes about leadership. One was called 'Positive Gear' and the other was 'Teens in Social Justice'. In Positive Gear we learned about communicating without speaking, staying positive, and making a difference. I can honestly say that after that class, I started putting every negative into something positive. I truly learned how to keep a positive gear.   

       As for Social Justice, I learned about the terrible parts of poverty and being poor. That class has made me want to care more and give as much as I can offer to the world. I think that every single human being in this world has a right to be warm, fed, and healthy. Not sick, cold and hungry.

       Now here's the part of Ilite that changed me entirely. Meet Stu Saunders, a youth comedian and one of the most entertaining people I have ever seen on stage. He was talking to us, being all fun and all, but he began to tell us a story. He told us a story about his parent's divorce. When he was just in grade eight, his Dad left the house, Stu was scared and he asked his brother what was going on, his brother told him that his father was leaving the house, and wasn't coming back.      

       By this point I was thinking about my parents and I was in tears, but then something hit me, I'm not alone. There are lots of kids out there that were or are going through the exact same thing as me. But the thing was that, Stu went through worse than I did, and he's happily married now with kids. If he made it, then so can I.

Holly

Monday February 6^th 2012

ilite

I.L.I.T.E
Intermediate Leader in Training Event
Name: Helena
Teacher: Ms. Babb
Date: Tuesday, February 7, 2012
                    I've experienced lots of things that made my day 'The Best Day Ever', but truthfully, Ilite was the top out of all. Ilite stands for Intermediate Leader in Training Event. Ilite was taken place in high
school named "Mother Theresa". When we first got inside, we had to gather around with different schools. After, we were put in an atrium and were being entertained by music, people singing, and telling us stories. The comedian named Stu Saunders told us jokes and his lifestories which were depressing but some of them were funny. After that,we were assigned to different workshops; one in the morning and one in
the afternoon. The first workshop was called "Feed the World".
                   "Feed the World" workshop was teaching us about the environment, how our food from farms were processed, and ways to try to make people be eco-friendly. I forgot what my teacher's name was but he was very nice to us. It seemed like I was the only one answering most of the questions in the class because when he asks us a question, the class was dead silent until someone raises their hand up to answer. Our teacher showed us a video and a PowerPoint about the environment. We played a game after we were done learning and he was so funny when he was pretending to be a guy shooting at us but with a water gun. Class was over, and lunch was next in the atrium. We ate pizza and drank juice. In the atrium, performances were shown and Diego from "The Next Star" show was performing there too.
              Our next workshop was called "Big up Your Voice". I first thought it about singing, but it was actually about history. Before class started, I met three new friends named Samantha, Gabby, and Drazen.
Technically, I didn't really meet Drazen, but I knew him from my friend in another school. History class started and our teacher showed us a documentary on a T.V. Since it was Black History Month, he showed
us a documentary about that. I could hardly understand what was going on because half of the time, the computer wasn't working. At least the class was educational and fun! After the workshop was done, we went back to the atrium again to get ready go home.
                 My opinion on Ilite was that it was a great life experience and just plain "wow!" I liked Ilite because it was very unique out of all the other trips that I went to. It was nice how we got to meet new and
maybe old friends from other schools there. I hope another time Icould see Ilite again, but this time, I'll probably be in high school so I could talk and present prayers like Christiana and Natalie
(Students from our school who already graduated).

ILITE

I.L.I.T.E

                              Ilite is a thing when intermediate students across the school board go to a school or high school to learn about how to be a good leader. Ilite stands for intermediate students in training event. I think
Ilite is a great opportunity for intermediate students to learn and have fun about the rolls that leaders play. On Friday we went to Blessed Mother Theresa high school. We took a school bus their which was awesome. When we got there we had to all sit in this cramped square with a bunch of kids from different schools. After that we got are name tags and we headed of to the workshops that we had to go to.
                        The first workshop that I went to was Creating a Circle of Hope. This workshop was about this girl Meagan and another girl Hailey who bothsuffered leukemia, a type of cancer, and what we can do to help the other kids who are suffering the exact same thing that they suffered. The workshop was okay, they mostly kept talking on, and on, and on.The only thing that was pretty cool was that we got to make papercranes. I made a red one that was the best one in my opinion.
                            The second workshop that I went to was positive gears. This presentation was the one I least enjoyed because of some of these reasons. Firstly we had to play this weird clapping game which was
really boring. Also we had to play this game where we had to hold ethers hands and squeeze it like a chain reaction.
                              The best part of this Ilite experience was that at lunch we got free pizza and juice. This was also stupendous because we didn't have to right an entire essay on this field trip. This trip helped me
understand that being a leader is not something big that you do it is something small and others see what you are doing and do the same thing.
Justin.

ILITE

                       A lot of people would say ILITE is about being a leader. It is, but I believe a little differently. I believe that ILITE is about being the best person you can possibly be, in every single way. ILITE is held at the Mother Teresa high school in Toronto and it is basically a leadership event for youths with many workshops teaching you about different parts of life. In my personal opinion, the stories and lessons learned there were very inspirational.
                        I took two classes about leadership. One was called 'Positive Gear' and the other was 'Teens in Social Justice'. In Positive Gear we learned about communicating without speaking, staying positive, and making a difference. I can honestly say that after that class, I started putting every negative into something positive. I truly learned how to keep a positive gear.
                              As for Social Justice, I learned about the terrible parts of poverty and being poor. That class has made me want to care more and give as much as I can offer to the world. I think that every single human being in this world has a right to be warm, fed, and healthy. Notsick, cold and hungry.
                                Now here's the part of Ilite that changed me entirely. Meet Stu Saunders, a youth comedian and one of the most entertaining people I have ever seen on stage. He was talking to us, being all fun and all, but he began to tell us a story. He told us a story about his parent's divorce. When he was just in grade eight, his Dad left the house, Stu was scared and he asked his brother what was going on, his brother
told him that his father was leaving the house, and wasn't coming back.
                By this point I was thinking about my parents and I was in tears, but then something hit me, I'm not alone. There are lots of kids out there that were or are going through the exact same thing as me. But the
thing was that, Stu went through worse than I did, and he's happily married now with kids. If he made it, then so can I.

Holly