Reflection Paper

Ever since I was a young boy, my family would pile into our old 15-passenger van and drive to church each and every Sunday, without fail. I didn't really understand it at first, it was just something I had to do. When I was around 6 years old, my mother encouraged me to accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior. I hardly understood what it meant, but I went through with it, much to my mother’s excitement. Years passed, and my understanding grew. Up until I was around 13 years old, my faith had no correlation to my actions. I could recite bible verses for hours, yet I couldn't say what any of them meant. That all changed one year at Camp Selah, a Then, in the year 2014, my faith took a turn for the worst. I’d had a testing first year of high

On September 6, 2017, I were documented for an incident that involved a University Housing policy violation. I was charged with violating the University Housing Alcohol 1.2 policy. With my violation, came consequences. I met with The Residence Conduct Coordinator to discuss my actions and came to the conclusion that I would have to schedule a meeting with The Campus Alcohol and Drug Education Center (CADEC) and with that, a reflection paper.

There are multiple reasons I am where I am today and why I’m going where I’m going. I have struggled in school ever since I can remember but without the people that I have had in my life I wouldn’t where I am today. But as I will talk about the teacher have played a huge role in the reason I am able to be where I am today.

For my service learning project I worked in Mrs. Evelyn Costa's first grade class at Meadowlane Elementary. Meadowlane is located at 4280 W 8th Avenue in Hialeah, Florida and was constructed in 1957. There are one thousand one hundred and seventy seven students enrolled at Meadowlane Elementary school. Meadowlane has fifty three classrooms and fourteen portables and there are one hundred and seventy nine students per grade level. The school was built on nine acres of land. The student population of meadowlane Elementary is comprised of 97% Hispanic, 2% White, and 1% Asian.

Over the course of the semester, there has been numerous amount of areas where I believe I have improved in comparison to high school. What has helped me in my writing is the writing class and the in-class writing workshop. The writing class that is located in the Kremen education building has helped me with my writing greatly because in the writing center the person in charge teach us lenses and we apply those lenses to the writing, draft, or reading that someone brings in. The in-class writing workshop has helped me because other students get to read my writing. This is helpful because I get feedback from many students and they let me know what needs to be fixed. A new tool I have been using is They Say I Say. The book is very helpful because of the information and examples it provides such as the templates. I have been applying the templates into my essays and I have seen a significant difference.

“Writing an essay is not difficult! I am actually great at it.” This is a common statement that I would formally say, and even believe. In the past, I had never felt the need to thoroughly revise my essays before. In all my past essays, I would work intensely on my first draft and then just turn the essay in. I never spent too much time re-evaluating my writing decisions before turning it in. This process had worked well for myself in the past, and as a result, each essay I turned it would be an easy “A”. When I signed up for EN100 I figured that it would be just like the other easy English class that I have taken. I assumed that I would work on an essay, turn it in, and then earn an A on it, but this was not the case. When I signed up for EN100 I figured that I could continue my previous essay writing methods, but that was quickly disproven. When I received my first graded essay, I was unsure why I earned anything but an “A” on it. It soon became clear to me that I was going to be required to change the way I formerly wrote my essays and spend more time with correcting them.

A Hindu spiritual teacher once shared, “This world is your best teacher. There is a lesson in everything. There is a lesson in each experience. Learn it and become wise” (Sivananda). When I take this wise advice and reflect on the past year, I see many lessons that have helped me become a more mature and responsible person. Many of these lessons have been through my English course with Mrs. Frohoff. In this class, we’ve had many units, such as the types of love, writing assignments, including many 1-page reflections, projects, such as a memoir and a PSA, and presentations on themes like identity and critical world problems. It has been through our memoir assignment, the large number of deadlines given, and the presentations required that I’ve been taught valuable lessons about who I am and how to grow as a person throughout this school year.

Dr. Christine Weinberger is a Mohs surgeon who removed a Basal Cell Carcinoma from my mother’s face in 2014. Today, my mother has no concern about recurrence in the area and only has a discreet scar along the alar crease. Impressed by her doctor’s professionalism, bedside manor and extraordinary similarity in interests to mine, my mother urged me to reach out to her. When I did, she invited me into the clinic to observe her typical busy day of greeting patients, removing initial stages of their skin cancer, histological preparation, review of the slides, and then either further excision or closure. She performed over fifteen procedures eliminating people’s skin cancer that day. I left feeling the thrill of adrenaline and exhilaration, having discovered that I wanted to spend the rest of my life as physically and intellectually stimulated as I was that day. The next morning, I woke up to an email from Dr. Weinberger, informing that they had a job opening and would like me to apply. Soonafter, I arrived for my first day and during the initial orientation period I was immersed in literature and training in wound care, anatomy, wound healing, suture and staple removal, unna boot application (for chronic ulceration), surgical preparation, sterilization, identification of infection, biopsy procedure, clinical photography, gloving up to assist in surgery, UPTs, and EMR documentation. After mastering these skills, I became responsible for a full schedule of 15-20 postoperative

The process to become an effective teacher passes through knowing how to develop a course syllabus, while placing my students at the center. As a future instructor at a university, I have to think through what makes class interesting, clear, and understood by the students. My primary concern and focus are my students. After reading through most of this week’s assigned topics and carrying out my research on the internet and the Walden library, I am convinced that as a future instructor my approach, theories of teaching, and those who I will teach are the core when preparing a course description.

The school that I work for is Parkview Middle School. Parkview is in Jeffersonville, Indiana and is part of the Greater Clark County School district. Our current school grade for 2017-2018 is a B. Currently our pass rate for ISTEP+ is 62 percent.

Since the beginning of the semester, my writing has changed and evolved to accommodate and sustain longer essays. With longer essays, there is more room for in-depth analysis. Further analyzing a topic has led me to findings that I did not know existed. As I continue to write, I uncover addition and superior methods to approach my writing to the benefit of me and therefore, my audience. Throughout the semester, I have incorporated techniques to further my narrative throughout my writing.

My mother does genology for my family so I know that I am mostly a mix of African, Native American and not enough European to really think about. I look like a normal African-American girl and most people I come in contact with assume the same thing. To define myself without race I would say I am invested in the betterment of other peoples lives and performing in front of an audience. As a black woman I am affected mostly in my major, theatre, because being black is a factor in whether or not I am cast in certain roles. Personally it has been a rollercoaster going to predominately white-schools and still finding a way to love and appreiciate my blackness. I’m reminded of my race daily when I have to mix my foundations to find a shade that isn’t offered or when my theatre professors suggest I do a monologue from “A Raisin in the Sun’ and as of recently when I look at the news I am affected by the fact that the injustice in the world based on race could happen to me or a loved one in a heartbeat.

I stood atop a wooden stage found in an auditorium located in the University of Toledo. While standing there, Dan Stark, the Toledo region’s current engineer of the year, handed me a scholarship while the sound of applause filled the large building. The framed sheet of paper had a four-digit number written in it in large font: $1,000. To understand the circumstances that led up to this event one must observe the past and how I learned the importance of hard work.

I’m a very academically driven student and have several, quite lofty, goals for my time here at Texas A&M. I want to maintain a 4.0 GPA, or at least a minimum of a 3.5 in order to maintain my Cornerstone Honors status. My dream, and biggest goal, is to intern for a congressperson in Washington DC, and I also want to study abroad, hopefully in England.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (New International Version, Matt. 6.33-34). If I was told these verses when I was younger, they would contain no special meaning behind them, but after retiring from the military and the trials my family went through to get to where we are today, these verses stand out to me every time I read them. Until we go through our own personal trials we tend to be unaware of how strong our faith and trust needs to be in God. There were moments, when I was younger, where I relied on the Lord, but nothing that could have prepared me for the trust required to give to God during a time where my life completely changed. My family and I were a military family stationed in Hawaii where I lived for most of my life; Hawaii was all I knew. So when my father was ready to retire from his job in the Navy, it meant leaving my “safe zone” that I called home. Living in Hawaii was not an option after retirement for a large family of eight, for it was too expensive to afford. With that said, we went to stay with my grandfather in New York while my father searched for a new job.