DECA Workshop

On October 24, guest speaker Keith Hawkins led a leadership workshop in the Little Theater for the DECA club. As a member of DECA, I was able to get a first-hand look at the event.

Although Keith Hawkins was a guest speaker, he didn’t lecture us.  Instead he got us out of our seats.  We started off this DECA retreat with picking a partner, moving around the whole room and singing songs.  This helped everyone step out of their comfort zone a little bit and get used to standing out in front of your peers.  Mr. Hawkins encouraged us to meet new people and that we did.  We shared some personal stories, our favorite things (like food) and lots of other stories that helped everyone bond with someone new.

We played multiple games including home girl, lions and traps, which is a Keith Hawkins version of rock, paper, scissors.  The rules are that home girls set traps, traps catch lions and lions eat home girls.  One of the more challenging games was when we had a giant jump rope and we had to get all 100+ people through the jump rope one at a time, and then get everyone through the jump rope all at once.

Afterwards we broke into groups of four to share some more personal stories which inevitably made everyone open up and see a whole new side of people we never knew before.  This helped everyone know and understand that no matter what someone looks like or how they are on the outside, you never really know what they’re dealing with and why someone is a certain way.  Although everyone has their own struggles in their personal lives, there will always be someone that has it worse and is dealing with something completely unimaginable to some people.  So when someone asks “How are you?” Keith taught us to reply “Better than good,” because we all are, in the end, better than good.