Reflection Paper

2.I, agree with you Victor,healthcare counselors and ministry can be a direct connection between inmates and the outside world. In order for an inmate to succeed in the outside world he or she needs to be given the psychological and spiritual tools to do so. It sounds so simple, yet it is quite a complex process. An inmate needs to feel good about themselves, inside and out, body and mind. They have to realize that everyone is given the opportunity to change, and repent for their wrong doings. Ultimately, they need to know that God will always forgive everyone just as long as they take God in as their savior, and live by his word.

Prisons are exclusive frameworks of interaction as they are highly controlled environments and are not influenced by the type of social conditions to be found in the public domain or any other type of governmental service. The everyday interaction that occurs between inmates and correction officers which can often span years depending on the length of incarceration of the inmate and the period of employment of the officer, will inevitably produce relationships that are not appropriate no matter the quality of training, years of experience, or degree of supervision an individual corrections officer has been provided with. Due to the nature of prison employment, corrections officers are dependent on others for their safety and security,

The act of reading, writing, and listening to literature for enjoyment has always astounded me. Humans are the most complex animals on Earth, yet literature is still a novelty to some. It might be because of what we learn in school that turns us off from literature, but I may be different. I found a love for poetry and creative writing during my freshman year in high school. It was important for me to project what I could not say outloud, and that is where I felt unified with literature. When I put pen to paper, I felt like life had stopped and I was in the moment. Life became increasingly hard as I went through school, but each time I came back to writing, I felt as if I was drifting away in myself yet still in control. It was hard for me to find a way to cope with my ever changing life. The act of writing helped me tell my story in ways that I could not express to others due to our social expectations. Storytelling is important, for it provides a nessecary outlet in order to cope with life more easily.

I have never been more vulnerable than at the end of my Junior year of highschool. I was exhausted not because of my work load, but because my best friend was in love with me and I was, for the first time, in a class that openly talked about race. The English class, taught by a black woman, was predominantly white (as was my school) and not only discussed race, but specifically discussed whiteness. For the first few months of my year, I was closed off despite believing I was participating. While the year went on, I realized I had been cruel to my (white) best friend. I had been completely unaware of the harm I was causing until, in December she told me that I didn’t actually listen when people spoke to me. I apologized in January and her forgiveness was something I had never before experienced. Over the last semester of my Junior year, while she reminded me how deeply important love is, I begun to see myself as white. On the last day of my English class, I thought of how hard I had worked the past few months to accept and express love, how I had come to believe that love was the most important thing in the world to possess, and I wondered why I had never known this before. I realized, suddenly, that whiteness can, and has, prevented me from feeling and receiving real, unconditional, and unracialized love. I began to sob. As my whiteness became visible, so did my deficit of love. I realized the comfort I, a white person, felt in isolation, narcissism and apathy enabled me to

There once was a time where I had no expectations on what was to come. Whenever I attempted to picture my future, I couldn’t. I did not know my career goals or any of my hobbies. Fortunately, the summer of 2014 changed everything for me. It was the summer I first volunteered to help with vacation bible school at my church. From that moment on, I had a fresh mindset and new goals. I permanently found an activity I enjoyed doing. Following that summer, I volunteered with VBS the three summers after. I enjoyed engaging with the children so much that I ventured into teaching second and third graders on Wednesday nights. Throughout this journey, I have been greatly inspired. Volunteering with children through my church has transformed me into a better and different person, through strength, career goals, and my faith.

From the first day I could walk my mom started to develop my athletic abilities and attitude. She would play catch with me, kick around a soccer ball, and teach me how to dribble, all at home in her free time. I was exposed to sports quite often because her, my dad, and their friends, played coed volleyball and softball. I additionally have multiple older cousins who she would take me to watch play in high school games. Here I saw not only how the games were played; as well as what a team player and how the correct attitude appears out there on the floor. As soon as I was old enough, she signed me up for recreational sports in a neighboring town. Most of the time those teams end up with coaches who don’t know what they’re doing and my mom was not okay with that. She decided to take it in to her own initiative and coach my team that way she knew I would actually be learning the sports the correct way and making improvements. She coached me in flag football, soccer, basketball, volleyball, and softball. Quite often one of my friend’s parents would help her coach. My mom led some severely successful teams in my childhood. Especially in softball where we won multiple trophies. Sometimes I would become frustrated because it seemed as if she expected more out of me than the other players and I was always getting yelled at; although, now looking back I’m thankful for all the yelling and correcting me that she did because it pushed me to be a better player.

I was 21 years old when I came to the United States and needed to work in order to help my father and relatives with the rent. Three months later, I found my first full-time job making pillow cases and mattress covers at the Navy Yard in Brooklyn, and attending evening ESL classes in a public school twice a week. Additionally, on Sundays, I went to the American Language Community Center (ALCC) in Queens. Since I came from the Dominican Republic, I was on a hiatus from college. Nevertheless, I knew that learning English was the only way back to it. Despite suffering from sleep deprivation during that time, I persevered until the day I received my admission letter.

Do we really look into ourselves? As I read The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch over fall break his life story really made think: How will I accomplish my dreams like Mr. Pausch? Randy’s idea of a “brick wall” really hit me because I admire that someone believes that hardships could lead to great things if they work towards it. I want to look into myself and see what life lessons that I go by the seventeen years I have been on this planet, and how they reflect what people will remember about me.

Do you remember what your priorities were when you were eight years old? When I was that age (1965), I was in third grade. One of my jobs was to make breakfast on weekday mornings for some of my younger brothers and sisters. At that age, my primary goal was to figure out ways to get out of work around the house, so I could go outside and play with my cousins who lived in the neighborhood.

The United States has always been known as a melting pot; a country where different ethnicities, cultures, and religions could congregate to in order to escape from conformity. A country where people could go in order to start a family and raise their children in a diverse environment. A place where everyone from different backgrounds is represented and everybody can share their ideals and experiences and feel welcomed. That is what I was told growing up, that is what teachers and mentors engraved into my brain, and it wasn’t until I was seventeen-years-old when I realized that is far from the truth. My language and perspectives are constricted due to the fact I grew up in the United States, and all it took was one trip overseas for me to discover the diversity of the world in comparison to America.

On my last day with class 3-213, I had the opportunity to conduct an interdisciplinary lesson using nonfiction articles. The articles I used derived from Nonfiction News: African Animal Edition by Cecelia Margo. Accordingly, the students have been studying nonfiction for several weeks and because of this, they had previously learned the various features of this genre. Upon planning for this lesson, I took time to prepare and craft an activity that would promote collaboration and engagement. Thoughtfully, I took into consideration the children that were in the room and adapted my lesson to meet their educational needs. Thus, I decided that I was going to crafted this lesson on the premises of two ideas: (1) tiered-text differentiation and (2) the pairing of advanced and struggling learners. Going into this lesson, I knew that I wanted to ask thoughtful and encouraging questions that would enable students to integrate their prior knowledge and challenge them.

A fundamental lesson that stuck with me through my early years of childhood was the importance of loving to write. There are many instances that have influenced me as a writer today, including going through an immense amount of stress from AP classes, writing my own poetry, taking the 5th grade writing exam, and applying to colleges. I developed a love hate relationship with reading and writing and this was strongly influenced by my teachers, parents and tutors throughout the years.

I met with K. Beam before we left on our two- week fall break to discuss working with her for the coaching practicum and what she was interested in working on with her students.

“Because transition is a process by which people unplug into a new world, we can say that transition starts with an ending and finishes with a beginning.” In many ways the previous quote relations to my transition of transferring from Saint Peter’s University to UNC Charlotte. I had to “unplug” from many things in both my academic and personal life, as a result of, transferring to another school.

It’s always sad to watch the semester go. You get into this routine everyday and it becomes your life. When the semester ends you get a break which is great but then you’re thrown into a whole new routine with new people. I, myself, am a very awkward person and I’m never too keen on talking to people I don’t know. It makes it hard for me to be okay with new routines, I’d rather just keep everything the same. My best interpretation of my writing would be this: I don’t know how to change up my routine. This is seen very clearly through all my essays. However, I’d like to focus on my three essays The Youngest of Five, Band Practice, and Liar, Liar.