By Travis Gettys
The Cincinnati Enquirer

It's hard not to look foolish with one hand touching your nose and the other touching your ear while singing, "Wally-ah-cha, wally-ah-cha, doodly-do, doodly-do."

That was the point of an exercise led by motivational speaker Ted Wiese on Tuesday at Scott High School. Wiese was teaching leadership skills to a group of gifted and talented high-school and middle-school students.

"Just change hands, don't poke your eye out," Wiese said, instructing the singing and laughing students to alternate the hands touching their noses and ears.

Wiese, a development consultant with Challenge Leadership Programs, used the exercise to show students that leaders overcome their fears.

"If you're willing to take a risk, you aren't afraid to be laughed at," Wiese said. "Laughter destroys the fear of what others might think of you."

The symposium was part of a program mandated by the state to encourage gifted and talented students to become school and community leaders, said Jane Bush, gifted and talented programs coordinator for Kenton County Schools.

"Our research shows that leadership can be taught and learned," she said.

Wiese identified aspects of leadership and demonstrated each with an activity.

For one, he chose three girls from the crowd and blindfolded them onstage.

Describing a delicacy - live Canadian newts - which he said he'd been served by relatives, Wiese placed a napkin in each girl's hand.

"This napkin is not for the Canadian newt," he said, as the audience voiced its delighted disgust. "It's in case you throw up."

Placing a gummy worm in each blindfolded girl's hand, he warned, "Because they're live, they might try to get away."

After two of the three girls ate their "newts," Wiese told the students that this exercise demonstrated an aspect of leadership.

"The way you overcome your fears is to recognize them and do it anyway," he said.

India Robinson, a junior at Scott High School, said she plans to apply the lessons she learned.

"I was worried about going out for student council next year, but now I think I'm just going to do it," said Robinson, adding that she liked that the symposium was open to younger students.

One of those students, Jacob Bailey, a seventh-grader at Summit View Middle School, said he was glad he attended.

"He kept us entertained, yet we walk out of here with more knowledge than we ever would have guessed," he said.

E-mail tgettys@enquirer.com