Middle School Self Reflection Paper

Have you ever been stumped, or confused to the point that you wanted to cry? While you were suffocating on the near, seemingly endless, amount of questions you wanted to ask, did you weep? Were you drowning in the cesspool of fear when you read that paper? Did your report card and/or progress report do this to you? If this is the case, then follow these directions to be great and succeed in the 8th grade. How will I improve in my academics, you ask? Well, they could improve if I started practicing and studying harder, working hard and gaining necessary help, and gaining knowledge to pass classes.

8th grade was great I wasn’t the youngest, I was in the oldest grade. At this point I had middle school perfectly handled. Going to high school and being a freshman is terrifying you're the smallest you don’t know what a seminar B is and when you go to it. I loved middle school. I love high school; the only reason that I love it is because I have middle school to reflect off of. I have those experiences to help me have more. I use middle school to reflect and learn from everything that I did. I’m doing well in high school so far only because I have I have past experiences so that I can make choices that best benefit me now. Arnold Spirit from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and the Narrator from “The Bass, The River and Sheila Mant” are reflective because they both took action while being unique making it much harder than necessary. At the end of it they learned a valuable lesson and made the best decision for themselves.

Starting a new chapter in life is difficult, it comes with new experiences, new conflicts, and a lot more tension. To be honest a lot of things change when you start to experience the generation of junior high your mind set swifts off of the child set themes to more productive thinking you try to understand many things that are not meant to be understood.

Having grown up in Ghana when I was younger, a deep sense of curiosity in learning science had been ingrained in me. In my everyday life I tried to understand natural processes and gain a sense of understanding for common scientific processes such as photosynthesis and many others. As a middle schooler and later on a freshman in Texas, this passion of science continued to grow as I took part in many science competitions and tests including: TAME, UIL and TMSCA. Since moving to madison 5 months ago, I was excited to find new opportunities in a new school and school district to learn more in science. Upon doing much research, I found out about this program and I was elated because this program will provide me with much more experience than the

Have you ever just felt like high school was too easy? Well I have because I felt like the teachers just passed you on. They didn’t give me a challenge like I was supposed to have and from that being, now I have to prepare myself for the college life and teach myself the things I was supposed to be taught in high school. The school I came from didn’t have a math teacher or a history teacher all year so we just sat in the class rooms and played everyday all day and I still ended up passing and that school was Albany Early College. They told me that I would finish high school with an associate degree but all I got was a discombobulated school and an uncontrolled school. The next school I went to didn’t care either. They showed me that I can skip class everyday and still pass with an A average. Despite all the things I didn’t get taught in high school, I did learn some unique aspects that I can reflect on and use for college. The skills I reflect on are annotating, using the Cornell note-taking system, and how to be on time for school.

While back in my middle school years, I was looking for a few new activities. Over the years I was tired of playing the same sport over and over again. It grew so boring at times playing basketball, soccer, football and baseball. I was a child who liked to try new things and hated doing the same things all the time. I just found it irritating, and I just wanted to branch out and try a different sport from time to time. I believe that urge comes from my father’s side of the family; he would always tell me to try new things in life, but he was right things get boring and plain. I just needed to get into another sport for my middle school year. While looking for my new middle school over my summer vacation, I talked to my mother about going to a different school with new sports that I might be into. My mother asked me why was that so important. I just responded with I need to try new things ; why keep going to do the same old things time and time again . I had finally found a middle school that I liked with a new good sport for myself and not to far for me. This sport was fencing and the main thing that got me into it was playing with a sword at a young age I did not care about the rules or being safe with it I just wanted to play around with it and hit people with it .After that I learned I should be more patient with certain things and understand what i'm doing before I hurt anyone.

One of the most important things teachers should do is try their best to get along with the parents of their students. This weeks readings were related to the importance of healthy and positive relationships in order for a child to feel a sense of belonging and to feel secure. The textbook stated, “A child’s family is the first and most important place where a feeling of identity and belonging start.” (Bilmes J, 2004). Once a child finds their sense of belonging in their family, not only do they start to understand their cultural identity, like the textbook mentioned, but they also learn about trust. From a very early age, children establish their trust in the grown ups around them, (aka their parents), and from forming trust first, it is easier to then feel a sense of belonging. This is also how teacher student relationships form. When a child knows they can trust the teacher, it is easier for them to find their place in the classroom. The easiest way for a teacher to help a child establish their trust in you is to get their parents to trust you first. In a way it is like that quote “monkey see monkey do”. If a child can see that their parents trust a teacher and see that they have a healthy and good relationship, then the child will be more open to having a relationship with their teacher.

Initially when I began this project, I applied to a school which I went to called Abington Senior high school. I wanted to go to this school, so I could see my old teachers and learn from them again. Unfortunately, that did not happen. When I applied, I provided the school with all the necessary clearances and I sent an email to the head of the education department as they instructed. However, the department head did not respond to any of my emails.

If I could describe myself in a single word it would probably be restless. I’ve been restless and impulsive for as long as I can remember. This spontaneity has gotten me into many arguments with my parents over the years on whether or not some adventures are worth pursuing, but one benefit it has given is the drive to stay in shape. I work out quite frequently, with near daily bike rides, occasionally runs and weekly trips to the gym. Nearly all of my aerobic excursions are symptoms of a deep restlessness that tends to stir when I feel I’ve been prone for too long. Over the course of this self reflection I will be highlighting any positive risk factors I may have for CAD (Coronary Artery Disease), discussing whether or not it is possible for me to exercise without any problems, creating a workout plan for myself using the FITT principle, and elaborating on any difficulty I may face maintaining this plan.

I believe being the youngest of two children has significantly shaped me into who I am and how I relate to people. I always had less responsibility than my brother and I am the more carefree, easy-going, and sociable sibling. Growing up I looked up to my brother and I still do. He is intelligent, hard working, and determined. I possess these qualities but not in the way my brother does. In third grade I was diagnosed with dyslexia, I had a difficult time with reading comprehension. I was able to read but I could not process nor understand the meaning of what I read. As a result, I relied heavily on tutors and learning centers in order to excel in school. Several years later I was diagnosed with ADD, I struggled with staying focused and processing what I was learning. I often felt discouraged and did not understand why I had such difficulties in learning things that seemed to come easily to others. This experience dramatically lowered my self confidence and how I viewed myself. It led me to question my abilities and I often felt timid. As I grew up and I began to experience new things, both bad and good, I consciously decided that I needed to shift how I viewed myself and the world. The book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People states that our paradigms, correct or incorrect, are the sources of our attitudes and behaviors, and ultimately our relationships with others (Covey, 1998). This shift in my thinking allowed me to value myself and my abilities and

These past few weeks of school have been a fun and stressful experience. People have told me that eighth grade would be easier than last year, but I have found that to be false. On a more positive note, I have made several new friends and become more involved socially. So far this year I am trying to apply the strengths that I possess. Perseverance, time management, and a good work ethic are the strengths that I use daily at school. When I am not doing school related work, I am either at gymnastics practice or spending time with family. A typical day in my life consists of school, practice, and sleep. I don’t have time to be involved with any school sports or activities. If I could chose to be more involved in social and school activities, I would. Unfortunately, there are not enough hours in the day to do everything I want. On the weekend, I enjoy taking a break from the busy week. It’s hard to do this when I have to catch up or get ahead on school because I know that I’m not going to have time to do my work. My goals for this year are to let go of my worries and not to be so hard on myself. I am striving to be positive and have personal happiness this year.

Over the years, I have worked closely with children in various settings from babysitting to the actual classroom, and each time I gain new understanding of children which has allowed me to grow more patient about their behavior. Additionally, I must add that most of the children I have worked with have all come from low Socioeconomic status families which has been proven to be the cause of major behavioral issues. The way I have witnessed the behavior of these children be managed varies between each of the locations. Some teachers and caretakers are quite harsh in their discipline while others are much too passive. In essence, as learned in the Environment and Programs as well as the Discipline and Limits unit, there are several key elements that determine the behavior of children in the classroom. As it relates to Preston Taylor Ministries, behavior management is sometimes ineffective especially when dealing with certain children; however, for the most part, I believe this center handles behavior in an efficient manner.

Since our group was the only physical education group in the class, I feel like our strength was the ability to bring energy to the classroom. We all did a great job at being energetic and keeping the students engaged in the lesson. We also did a nice job on our delivery and giving multiple medias for learning the material. I thought a strength of our planning and delivery was the activity in our lesson to apply the knowledge learned. As a group we did a good job at going through the rules and applying them to the classroom.

disciplines. Since this class was used for formal instruction, I noticed that they never had a hard time with subtle refinements. These students used appropriate levels of vocabulary while answering questions and understanding the complex syntactic structures of the teacher’s PowerPoint. Although I didn’t notice any such grammar structures or phonology, I did notice how automatic they were with recognizing common words. One of the students had noticed that in the PowerPoint the teacher had used the wrong “new”. The teacher praised the student because he was even unaware he had used “new” instead of “knew” in his instruction. This showed me the ability of how late adolescence automatically recognizes critically evaluation of texts. I wish I had observed a child where they were ELL, but I thought this helped me see the developmental trends of different age groups. I thought everything I have learned in this class thus far, abstracts the idea of a child’s cognitive process theory. These students were advanced, proving that the child’s unique experiences lead to differences in their pathways to proficiency and how they communicate. I thought it was great to hear the sarcasm the teacher used with his students to interrupt the text. For example, he had made a joke about Julius Caesar’s wife and how ugly she actually was. The students laughed and really connected to his humor. I asked the teacher why he liked teaching 10th grade and he said “because I can say and act in different

One crisis in my life in recent years would have been when I was dating a controlling and verbally abusive guy in college who my parents did not like. One evening my parents came to my college to voice their concern and thoughts on our relationship. They were worried about me and the choices I was making. I was frustrated with the tension I felt from my parents and the guy I was dating. I remember telling them to let me make my own mistakes and decisions in life. Looking back on the situation I know they were intervening because they cared about me and wanted me to open my eyes to reality. I think it way they decided to respond was ineffective due making me feel isolated and judged by them. They showed up out of the blue and had not told me they were coming. I would have felt validation if they would have sat down with me to hear how my relationship was going would have made it easier to hear their advice.