The Research On Developing Pupils’ Leadership Through "Young Pioneers Congress" In School

Leadership is a core accomplishment of human beings in such a changing world with unprecedented opportunities and challenges. The possibility of cultivating one’s leadership leaves much space for educators to explore. Therefore, students’ leadership has entered the eye-sight of educational researchers. Researches on students’ leadership in China mainly focus on teenagers currently. But pupils, who are in a very crucial stage of their development, also can feel and show some important traits of leadership. Based on that, this paper proposes the concept of "pupils’ leadership" and explores its manifestation and development mechanism in the perspective of the "Young Pioneers Congress" on school level which is unique under Chinese context.Under the basis of sociological and pedagogical research, this paper explores the ingredients of pupils’ leadership in three dimensionalities:"me-me", "me-you", "me-thing". A good understanding of the development mechanism of development will enable us to improve pupils’ leadership more effectively. So a discussion of the connotation of leadership development is also presented in the paper, including "everyone has leadership potential", "leadership is conditional" and "the manifestation of leadership varies".It is important to find suitable carrier to support the development of pupils’ leadership. There are abundant organizational, institutional and activity resources existing in Chinese primary school campuses. Characterized by its broad participation, various projects, high degree of democracy, the "Young Pioneers Congress" on school level has become a typical resource for pupils to develop their leadership. Based on school practices and taking the ingredients of pupils’ leadership as the analytical framework, the author analyses different procedures of the "Young Pioneers Congress" on school level and how these procedures help develop pupils’leadership.Although the "Young Pioneers Congress" on school level is a splendid resource for pupils to develop leadership, the potential has not been fully explored yet. There are many reasons for this, including insufficient emphasis, misunderstandings of leadership, substitution in execution, a lack of reflection etc. In order to fully realize its potential, school leaders, teachers, parents, communities and other social forces should joint their efforts to stimulate the development of pupils’leadership, working altogether to prepare qualified citizens for the future.