Reflection Paper

Given that my maternal family is Muslim and my paternal family beliefs consist of Christianity and Agnosticism, I cultivated a natural aptitude for open communication and cooperative with others who hold beliefs and ideas that differ from my own. Being born as an African American male with a Muslim family in Southern Mississippi subjected me at a young age to be aware of highly nuiance social dynamics that are present in society. Furthermore, growing up around refugees from the Middle East and experiencing their almost contradictory perspective on the value of rights and opportunities here in the States allowed me to form multifaceted viewpoints. Also, my time attending both the poverty stricken schools of inner city Detroit and the wealth of an upper class Boy Scout Troop, not even eight miles away from each other, allowed me to experience first hand the unique role that environment plays in shaping an individual’s perspective. These any many other experiences have shaped

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.

“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.

At the age of 10 years old I moved to the United States after a devastating earthquake that nearly destroyed my beautiful island of Haiti in January of 2010. I was forced to leave behind everything I’d ever known because Haiti was in havoc; I was no longer safe. I left my once beautiful country with one suitcase in hand and a heart filled with sadness. To my friends, I was considered lucky to be leaving, but little did they know, starting over isn't the easiest thing especially in an unknown environment. Although, I myself was a US citizen, I never considered the United States as my true home since I had never traveled there or had the desire to. Everything that I ever wanted, my country provided for me. Life in America was foreign to me, and I’d only heard of it through stories, but now I had become part of that story.

During the summer of 2017 I worked on two different internships or projects. Both of the internships were completely different from the other. in one I work at a computer all day and the other I would spend out in the field working hands on with different equipment. I got to experience both ends of the spectrum of natural resource science. Both internships were helpful in helping me figure out which fields of natural resources that I was interested in, and which I might be interested in pursuing for future study and possible future job fields.

I have heard my professor state before, that education is a right not a favor, education is an important tool that should be taught to all students fairly. In a perfect world all students will enter a classroom with full bellies, a goodnights rest, and an eager mind ready to learn; however, we do not live in a perfect world. Some students enter a room hungry, tired, many thoughts running through their head, more energy than they can handle, or even they cannot walk and are being wheeled into the classroom. For this class I have read two very interesting books about smart young men who encountered many challenges at school and at home. John Elder is a bright young man who grew up during a time period where teachers, his parents, or even doctors were not quite sure why he was not like other children. As I was reading I asked myself many questions, but I had one very important one that stood out among them all, would I be the teacher to dig deeper and try to understand why this intelligent student is failing his classes? Blake also faced challenges that made me question what I would do if I were in his or even his teachers shoes.

In school, I used to loathe the icebreakers that involved saying an interesting fact about oneself. I would fumble around and iterate some unoriginal sentiment about my favorite color or animal and leave without actually providing substance about myself. This all changed after I lost the vision in my right eye and could tell people about the three-inch needle that pierces my eye multiple times every year. I thoroughly enjoy watching people squirm as I chuckle and explain the process.

In our everyday lives, we tend to categorize people because of their race, culture, their socioeconomic status, and judge people by their looks, age, ability, and gender. When I was working at a daycare past summer of grade 9, I met one Chinese girl who was around 4-5 years old. One time I witness her classmates making fun of her because she has a asian accent when she talks in English, her eyes are small, her mom works at a restaurant with low pay. Even during break, I would always see her sitting in a corner all alone, while others were having fun. Therefore, I took the courage to talk to her. Throughout the conversation, I realized that she was mad at herself because she has a different race from others, language barrier between her and her classmates and she was ashamed of her mother working at a restaurant because other parents work at a higher pay occupation.

She compared her life to a hurricane, a natural disaster that took everything in its path and destroy any shred of light in her life. Thus, the weeks turned into years of regressive behavior that led her to believe that she was not good enough to truly be herself. She only allowed herself to be her mother’s puppet, an item only used for public occasions, for if she ever became her own self, she would be outcasted. Yet, during those times I recall a shout in the cave of darkness, a murmured voice saying: Carpe Diem. Seize the day. My brother used those words when I was little —he was an extroverted fellow who vocalized whatever he felt because he was confident in whom he was. Nevertheless, I was an introverted, insecure, and self-conscious kid who was silenced by the public because they scared me. Fear ruled my actions. Fear ruled my mind. Fear ruled me; yet, my brother’s words rang a certain alarm in my head when I grew up. Thus, I realized that my individuality was stolen. My silence was bought, and my uniqueness was used as a weapon for society’s cruel expectations. I noticed that the world has so many beliefs, ideas, and aspirations that I wanted my own drum to beat in my own rhythm.

When I was eight years old, my dad being to honor and asked to speak at a meeting for the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (ASOPRS) in Jerusalem. The event happened to overlap with my spring break. We packed our bags and in the morning we set out for LAX. After a rigorous and tedious flight, we arrived at the Ben Gurion airport. Zwe started the trip in Tel Aviv. After settling in to the hotel, we freshened up, and began to roam the streets. We had walked through the Shuk Hacarmel. The whole atmosphere was so welcoming. Everyone greeted us with warm hearts and open arms. My family felt right at home. The next day came about, and my mom had mentioned that we were going to meet one of her cousins, Sharon. Sheron is a consultant for the Israeli Defense Force and has dedicated his whole career to protecting his country. His passion for Israel taught me so much. Although our time was short because he only had a few days off, he taught me the meaning of being Israeli. Israeli isn't just being born in Israel, it means to alwya have a part of Israel in your heart. It is something I carry with myself and is one of my personal core values. After five days in Tel Aviv, we set out for Jerusalem. The night we had arrived in Jerusalem, my family and I could not contain ourselves. We decided to walk around and get to know our home for the next five days. As we were walking through the city, we began to hear the sound of music and people laughing and singing.

Looking in the mirror at the actual physical presentation of myself, I investigated what other people view when they looked upon me. At that moment, I began to realize what the features are interpreted as. My hair is pulled up and tight, various people have suspected military, but I have never been enlisted. My glasses and crooked teeth would suggest that my parents were low income, no corrective surgery or braces for me. My body image would be identified, instantly by women, as having children and I do have two sons. After one eight-pound boy and the other almost ten-pound baby my body did not return to its original dimensions, there was no weight trainer or nutritionist for me. My calloused hands will tell anyone that I am a blue-collar worker and the ring on my left tells them that I am married. Progressing through college and beyond will be my way out of the shell that society has created me in, it will be my golden door to freedom.

Over the course of the semester we have done numerous writing assignments in order to help us dig deeper into topics that we might not have known about previously and to improve our writing skills. I have never been an excellent writer. I’ve had trouble planning out where details would go in my past papers. However, there has been a clear improvement in my writing when looking back on the work that I have done in this class.

I grew up in Greenville, South Carolina. Having had grown up in the south, I was always around people who are more traditional in viewpoints, especially when surrounding the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual/Transgender, Questioning, and more community. I received my education at a high school where no one hesitated to throw around extremely derogatory terms. Throughout my schooling I had found close friends who had expressed their feelings of not fitting into their biological sex. Every time I heard them talk about their feelings I felt my heart sinking. I knew it was not fair. I found myself constantly feeling their pain. Feeling all their fear, anger, and sadness along with them because I knew that they lived in fear of people finding out who they really were and what their reactions might be. It broke my heart that they were forced into constantly fearing for their safety.

The Jesus and Christian Community class at Fresno Pacific University is a course where a student can further develop their relationship and understanding of the Bible while discovering a relationship with Christ. All incoming freshmen are required to take this course as a part of their general education requirements which focuses on the book of Matthew, his interpretation, and the historical background of the Bible. One of our assignments is to help incoming pupils understand a certain verse and its purpose. The section we will be focusing on is the in Matthew chapter 17 verses 14 through 21 in addition to the Sadducees and other related topics. Jesus has followers which are the general public and disciples who are the people who claim to be devoted to God called the Pharisees and Sadducees. The faction of the disciples called the Sadducees are a group that are not characteristically what one would depict as humble servant of Christ. They followed their own set of rules and had standards that were different from the Pharisees, the followers of Christ, and Jesus himself. As we continue this discussion, we will see the importance of the verse in Matthew along with the roles the Sadducees and the things that influenced their cultural views.

Imagine dreading an assignment so much that you don’t even want to start it but once you finish it you look back on the experience and realize it was good for you. That’s what happened to me during my Junior year of high school when I was assigned a paper that challenged me and grew me as a writer. This writing assignment was a seven to nine paged paper on my responsibilities to America. Because it was the first paper I wrote that was more than a couple pages, I struggled with making it long enough while still keeping it structured and well written. I also struggled with finding what I wanted to write about and how to express it clearly. Although this paper was difficult for me to write, it was a tremendous learning experience for me.