Welcome to our regular weekly feature, Wonderful Wednesday. Every Wednesday, Naperville Patch will introduce you to someone doing great things in the community. Do you know someone who deserves the spotlight? Contact Local Editor Mary Ann Lopez at maryl@patch.com.
This week, we recognize a teacher and mentor who helps young athletes find the leader within. This week Tami McQueen has nominated Barry Baldwin, a teacher at Naperville Central High School, for his work as the school’s lead sponsor with the J. Kyle Braid Leadership Foundation. McQueen said: “The foundation does a lot of good work in the community and empowers high school athletes to be leaders off the field, as well as on the field.”
Barry Baldwin knows the difference that teens can make in a community, whether at their school or in the city where they live.
While some people may look at teenagers and have a negative view, Baldwin has watched as teens have reached out to help those contemplating suicide, lent a hand to community organizations and taken steps to put an end to bullying.
A communication arts teacher at Naperville Central, the boy’s varsity golf coach and assistant girl’s soccer coach, Baldwin has worked at the high school for 19 years, teaching at Central for the last 16 years, he said.
About 14 years ago, the school’s athletic director Marty Bee approached Baldwin and asked if he might be interested in getting involved with the J. Kyle Braid (JKB) Leadership Foundation. The foundation seeks to identify young people who have leadership abilities and the compassion necessary to make a difference in their communities. The teens learn leadership skills, which help them to reach out and help other teens and peers in ways that may in some situations be life-saving.
That first year, Baldwin helped choose the first four students the school would send to the foundation’s ranch in Colorado, where every summer the students (two girls and two boys) spend a week learning leadership skills.
Baldwin had no expectations about what the students would gain through the experience, but when they returned, he saw the difference.
“It’s become a huge part of my life and a very important part,” Baldwin said. “Dealing with these kids who come back and do incredible things in their community. We have had 160 kids who have been through the program and they all came back and did great things.”
The second year of the program Baldwin went to the ranch for training with the foundation. The foundation’s ranch is in a small Colorado town called Villa Grove. The experience was a life changer.
He expected there would be some really religious aspect to the ranch, but he learned it was really about being connected to others and instilling in young people the understanding that with great power comes great responsibility.
Every summer he spends time at the ranch through the program, facilitating in the classroom and working as a ranch hand. Baldwin became so involved in the organization that he is now on the J. Kyle Braid Leadership Foundation’s board of directors.
“The impact it has had on me is that you can always do more,” he said. “When you help someone who isn’t expecting help, it’s pretty rewarding, it’s neat. These kids allow all of us by what they are striving to accomplish as students — they allow us to get involved in things we didn’t expect.”
The students who are chosen to participate in the program pick different projects to undertake, such as fundraising to buy and donate blankets to Children’s Memorial Hospital, donating care packages to the troops and adopting families at Christmas, Baldwin said.
Through his involvement in the JKB program, Baldwin said the way he reacts to everyday situations has changed.
The teens in the program learn refusal, self-help, negotiating and helping skills along with studying the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. One of the seven habits is to seek first to understand to be understood, which Baldwin said he has learned himself.
When he works with students, rather than jumping to conclusions when, for example, a student hasn’t completed homework, he is ready to listen and understand what may have happened the night before that led to a student not complete work, such as a family situation or other problem.
He credits his own students with helping him to learn and grow.
“It is almost like they are helping me more than I’m helping them,” he said. “To work with these kids, they are literally some of the best kids you will come across. It keeps you young, keeps you energized, helps you identify those in need or who need you to say hello, how are you doing. … The kids bring that out.”