The Breakout Education Network and the emerging I Channel are among the tools being developed by Kitson Vincent and Stornoway Productions to encourage higher standards of civic virtue among Canadians. One new product of this project is a slender – but very worthwhile – essay on leadership by Tom Hoppe.
Hoppe is not an academic, and his activism began more by way of necessity and experience than inclination. Before that, Hoppe was a soldier and a damn good one too. As he recounts in Tom Hoppe: A Journey of Leadership (Breakout Educational Network, Toronto, 2008); he received two medals for bravery while in Bosnia with the Lord Srathconas. As most ex-soldiers can relate, there is no better place to learn about leadership than the military; and no more intensive place to really learn about it than a war zone.
This personal exploration of leadership is an excellent little paper, and one that should be widely distributed in schools. Kudos to the people at Breakout for bringing this story to the public; and thank God we have more young men like Tom Hoppe.
