Reflection Essay

When I first got accepted into Stuyvesant High School, I heard countless of rumors stating: “Oh the workload is terrible”, “The competition is so fierce” or “Out of schoolwork, extracurriculars, or sleep: you can only pick two.” I found it hard to let it faze me, since I graduated from one of the most prestigious middle schools. However, the rumors transformed into reality when I stepped into Mr. Nieves’ Freshman Composition Class. The workload at the beginning of the year was brutal, coupled with assignments from other core classes that seem unaware of the workload of other teachers. Reading assignments were a regular, and there were journal entries and occasional quizzes to keep us in line. What made it bearable was the friends I made in that class; everyone had their own opinion about the topic we were talking about, and listening to other perspectives really broadened my horizon and enriched my learning experience in Stuy. Another thing that this class has taught me is the importance of time management, a skill that I will carry on for the rest of my high school career and life. When I choose to sign up for Mr. Nieves’ AP American Literature class in my Junior Year, I was hoping to relive the discussion-based lesson plans and meet more outstanding peers. I was not disappointed, to say the least, reflecting through all the experiences at the end of the course. The lesson plans he laid out for us were an interesting mix between small lectures and class output, and what I

Many people experience exclusion in their lives; yet, when they feel included, they experience the process of healing. In the memoir Coming Back Stronger: Unleashing the Power of Adversity, Dw Brees’ journey to healing is explored. This experience of exclusion to inclusion is also discussed in Becoming Human by Jean Vanier. The New Orleans Saints accepted Drew, a severely injured quarterback at the time, just as Jean Vanier accepted people with intellectual disabilities into L’Arche. Withal, Drew is given the opportunity to motivate and inspire his team, and those people included in the L’Arche community are given the opportunity to develop new, meaningful relationships. For Drew, having this opportunity results in a milestone for the whole team that represents hope for New Orleans, while the people with intellectual disabilities being able to be in an inclusive community result in the maturity of the heart. Both works suggest that being inclusive towards other people, especially those excluded in society, by welcoming them into a particular community result in a person’s internal and external healing.

I am known to be a perfectionist, setting very high academic goals for myself, therefore I would like to end this semester with a numerical grade of no lower than ninety. Furthermore, considering I tend to be very critical of myself, I also hope to finish this course with a positive view of my writing skills. I enjoy composing many varieties of writing, however, I also tend to delete or throw them away because I believe it was horridly done. I trust this course will help me to realize my writings need not be compared to Emerson nor Shakespeare, that they are my writing and mine alone. Additionally, I have been entertaining the thought of writing a novel, and expect this course to assist me with tools to begin achieving my dream. I hope for this course to be a motivation to never give up, no matter how difficult the task may seem. In short, I expect myself to set high, healthy standards for myself and begin working to fulfill my aspiration to be a

I have contributed actively to achieve excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service. In the area of teaching, I have successfully taught one of the multi-section core chemistry courses (i.e., CHEM I and CHEM I-lab courses) and an upper-level course, Survey of Instrumentation for non-chemistry majors. As described in faculty plan, engaging and motivating students to promote their learning is one of the important teaching objectives as an educator. I have demonstrated excellence in teaching by active collaborative learning inside the classroom. Students actively involved in collaborative group assignments by working in pairs or small group to find solutions to challenging real-life situation problems. I utilized “Think-Pair-Share”

I spent the first years of my life in Pensacola, Florida. I was raised by a single parent, my Mom, and learned a lot about independence and women’s rights. Pensacola is a Navy town and she worked at the base. She would invite Navy people to our home during the holidays which taught me a lot about diversity. I learned a lot about from the people that came to visit and we had good times. They were in all colors and from various parts of the country. By the time I was in school, I had no fear of people different than me because of my exposure at home. In high school desegregation and bussing was taking place. Tension was running high and fights were breaking out nearly daily. A mixed-race group of us met at a girl’s house with the idea that we had no significant or insolvable differences and that we needed to find a way to stop the violence. We had a productive meeting and found common ground. The meeting took hold and the word got around that things needed to calm down. We needed the police to leave campus and we needed to take care of our own problems. It was a valuable experience. After High School, I went to a 2-year college and got a degree in Law Enforcement. That didn’t take hold well as my experience with the local police department was not good. I found them to be junk yard thugs, violent, and sex offenders of sorts. It was also a time I discovered my true love: skydiving. A friend of mine talked me into making my first jump with him. I was always fascinated with the

What motivated you to do your volunteer work? How did you come up with the idea for your activity? Who or what inspired you to get involved? How did your volunteer activity begin? Why did you feel it was important?

Mrs. Annette Hovey, a music teacher at New Rockford-Sheyenne Public School, was busy giving an elementary percussionist a private lesson as I waited outside the music room for them to finish. Mrs. Hovey can be described as a woman who simply loves and embodies music and is dedicated to teaching her students and helping them grow through her inspiring classes. She's slightly shorter than average height with shoulder-length brown hair, and that day was sporting a relaxed look of: blue jeans, turquoise Nikes, a NR-S homecoming t-shirt, and a comfortable looking black and white plaid zip up sweater.

This class challenged me to think clearly and critically as a student. I struggled with balancing the course content, writing effectively during short answers and DBQs, multiple choice exams, outlines and long essays. Thankfully, each DBQ, exam or essay I completed was handed back and put into a writing folder. One lesson I took away was using my previous assignments to reflect upon the work from the past and make improvements ahead. I was discouraged when I put an extensive amount of effort into a task and received a grade I was not proud of. Nevertheless, I received informative feedback and comments to improve my work to tweak. Pieces of feedback are valuable and constructive when I gained a better sense of the level of complexity that my work needed. Over time, I pushed myself to meet the standards that were expected and always reflected on previous work. Looking back, I overcame the difficult assignments and gained knowledge about writing fluently to consistently improve and revise work as a critical thinking learner.

The book describes students overcoming obstacles as, “overcoming obstacles and challenges, in solving problems, and in adapting to organizational change” (Whetten & Cameron p82). I learned the English language abstractly, which I overcame and I managed and organized my time for work, home, and school. When I come to U.S, I could not speak decent English. Also, I had a young child and I was a single mother. I could not take my child to a hospital without having a language translator. I was actually disappointed in myself for the way I needed support from the interpreter every time. I finished high school in my country of Somalia, and during that time I had learned limited English, but it was not sufficient enough for me to talk with others. After six months when I came to Boston and I started working. I used to try to learn excellent English all the time so I can communicate with others, but it was not easy to me. Learning English is tough when you have children and you are an adult. It was not easy going to school when you do not have money to pay for school. For that reason, I used to search for schools that taught adults English for free. It took me couple of years until I could sign up and study at a community college. I received support from my teachers and tutors so I can learn and understand the language. Today I overcome that obstacle and I’m pleased with my hard work and honesty in my life and in university.

English is a class that I have always taken lightly. Up until this class, I always had thought that I was a good writer. Papers were pretty easy for me and I never put that much effort and still got the grade that I wanted. When I came into this class however, that all changed. This class has taught me so much and has really developed my writing. I have learned many new writing styles and techniques, and I became familiar with new genres. Looking back at previous years, I now realize that I was a decent writer. But after taking this semester writing class, I can now say that I am a good writer with many new skills. College Composition has shaped me into a better writer, student, and thinker. Over time each paper became easier to write and I achieved better grades.

For the last ten years, I have taught third grade. Though mathematics is just one of the many areas of discipline I am responsible for to teach my students, it is definitely the hardest curriculum for my students to both understand and master. With both formative and summative assessments, including the annual state standardized assessments, it seems as if every year my students are struggling more and more with understanding and applying mathematical concepts. This is also evident with an increasing number of mathematic Academic Improvement Plans (AIPs) that my students bring with them from second grade.

To begin any task, one must have a minimum amount of effort within them. Even if the task is something they do not want to do the anger of having to do it fuels the effort. And that is how I myself begin an essay, full of anger. The base of an essay begins with writing the assignment in my planner and trying to figure out how to spread my process around. Here is the mind process of an assignment for myself “okay if its due next Monday and today is Wednesday that is 4 days away, I start the outline today begin writing…Friday and then there’s 2 days left I will figure it out from there.” 4 days is a good example for my process because in my unorganized mind I like to think writing a (short) paper takes 3 days. The first I outline, the second I write and the third I revise.

A few years ago, I had a Chinese student in my classroom, Evan was his name. He was very bright and inquisitive. His parents spoke very little English and ran a local Chinese restaurant close to the school. While this student was one of my highest readers his comprehension and background knowledge were not strong. I discovered this early in the year during a social studies lesson. In the lesson, I was using vocabulary words that would be in the unit. I had a picture pulled up on the smartboard of a little girl carrying a stack of folded towels. The lesson was about citizenship and helping others. This girl in the picture was helping her mother by folding towels and putting them away. When I asked Evan to explain to me how the girls was showing good citizenship in the picture, he could not. He did not know the name of the objects that the girls was carrying. When I asked him if they used towels in his house, he could not answer me. He could not make the connection between what the girls was carrying, and how that meant she was helping her mother. Obviously, they use towels at his house or they would all go around soaking wet! But Evan did not have the vocabulary as an English Language Learner to make a connection so that he could learn what I was trying to teach him. He shut down and appeared embarrassed and did not want to participate further in the class discussion during that lesson.

Before I take my first undergraduate class, I did not have any experience in writing academic papers. When I started working on my English class, I was nervous and did not think that I am going to make it, since it was my first time taking college level class and the hard part was that it was online. At the beginning, I felt helpless and alone without being in the class and asking for help from other students but soon I realized that we do not live in old time anymore. With the current technology like internet, online libraries and google, you have access to limitless knowledge and instruction on almost anything you have an issue with. The best part was that I realized that my professor is there to help me and answer any of my questions

There I was in the eleventh grade in my final month of school before Summer break. I was sitting in the front row near the door of my Math Inquiry classroom, just behind the foreign exchange student from Japan, Kokoro. The room was empty with just two students. With five total in the class, three of which were absent, it was just Kokoro and I. As we were looking over the math I found it to be the most heinous subject. I could not comprehend the material my teacher lectured on the unit circle. The curriculum for that was difficult. As a result my teacher Mrs. Dickey an intervention specialist and math major managed to answer my questions when I could not comprehend the material.