Reflection Paper

As a believer in Christ grows they become more aware of the gifts that they may have been given by the Holy Spirit. It is up to us to use the gifts for the right reasons. We are to allow God to work through us to edify the body of Christ. I see a lot of so called Christians these days using what is supposed to be a spiritual gift to use for ministry of the local church using them for self-edification. They are looking to see how much praise they can get instead of how much pleasure God will get through their service. We as believers need to be able to discern between what a spiritual gift is and what virtue is. A spiritual gift is related to the ministry of Christ and a virtue is related to our character. It is very easy for someone to blur the line between two and get confused. Our spiritual gifts are not the same for everyone, where all who believe should show the fruit of the spirit. To some believers the Holy Spirit gives the gift of serving, teaching, administration, and so on. But in the end it is not what spiritual gift we have but how we use it; this is what makes the difference between edifying the body of Christ or oneself.

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.

I took this class knowing it would challenge me and more than likely get on my nerves--which it did--but I do not regret taking the course. I have learned writing skills beyond the write, revise, and finalize that comes with every paper written. This class taught me how to write with purpose and revise to make the purpose clear.

Going into the meeting, my intentions for the focus student, at which I wanted my colleagues to notice, were the purpose of each work sample and the information required for each sample. The samples that were provided for my colleagues were the summative project, “Rock Detectives”, and the focus student’s interactive folder he used throughout the entire unit. Based on my colleagues describing the work, asking questions, and through speculation, the intentions were apparent. First, my colleagues were able to identify my summative project and was able to notice that the interactive folder was an ongoing activity throughout the lesson. Next, they pointed out the key vocabulary throughout my unit, “I see vocabulary.” Finally, they noticed that the information was organized throughout the three pieces of sample work, which they noticed my intention of organizing the academic language.

During my time with Diego, we did a lot of different activities, and I really enjoyed working with him, I am going to share my assignments that I did with Diego, in my essay, I hope that by reading this paper, you can understand or visualize what I did with my student. Diego is 6 years old, and he is in 1st grade, he is a huge Minecraft fan, and his favorite character is Steve, and he loves to play soccer.

A struggle that I had was being influenced/following others. It all started one happy winter morning it was Valentine’s Day, I had been getting ready to go to school. I had just finished writing all my Valentine's last night for my classmates. I was in a rush, so they all said the same exact thing. I believe it was something along the lines of have a great day, here’s a lollipop. It was a picture of me holding holding out my hand and a real lollipop that my mom had punched through the paper to give it that 3D vibe.

The lessons that I develop follow a specific format that includes challenging, measurable objectives, appropriate pacing for each component of the lesson, appropriate student engagement strategies, activities, materials, pre-assigned groupings, and helpful resources. For example, I implement strategies and activities within lessons in order to provide students with an excited experience while learning. Within my well-structured lessons, I ensured that I included rituals and routines that students were familiar with. I also provided students with appropriate responses if students had a misconception about the current topic in order to avoid students feeling of embarrassment or frustration. For instance, during a phonics lesson, a student wrote the word "dat" instead of the word "bat." When seeing the misconception of letter reversals, I made the comment to be sure of the direction of their written letters and to remember that "b has a belly and d wears a diaper." Seeing that this misconception was evident, I provided students with a visual of these letters on the whiteboard. Following all lessons that I teach, I reflect upon my practices and continuously ask my supervising practitioner how the previous lesson went and I state what I feel as though I could improve, as I have the tendency to grasp when I make mistakes or could provide clarification for students. I also reflect on my teaching performance when watching recorded videos and listening to voice recordings of my

Ralph Ronaldo Emerson once said, "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." Although I was unfamiliar with this quote until recently, I would say Emerson's words are a very important part of my life. Without even realizing, I experienced what Emerson was trying to convey with this statement. In my junior year of highschool, I became a part of a pilot mentoring program. Going into the program, I ultimately expected to be helping a student organize their studies or to be explaining class topics to them in a way that would appeal to their sense of logic; I expected to be teaching a student how to do something. However, what I least expected -and what happened- I was the one who learned something new. I learned that the attitude I have in life can drastically affect how I live. If I don’t carry beauty with myself, I will never find beauty around me no matter how hard I try.

Throughout our discussion there were several intriguing and engaging questions that were asked and sparked a good conversation among our group. One moment where I believe I was most successful in the discussion, was throughout minutes six through sixteen. Throughout this time, we discussed how the Party’s control in 1984 can be seen in the world around us today such as in North Korea. This question was first prompted by Leo but what I feel made this our groups most engaging point was how everyone added to the question by rephrasing it, or adding additional information and perspectives, or incorporating it into aspects they are most passionate about in their lives. From this point, I related it to history and how history can be rewritten to correct ways a nation or person has morally failed. I used the example of slavery to show this point. Starting from about minute eight I discuss with my group how according to an article my English class read last year, Texas history textbooks teach slavery based on how it economically impacted the South rather than by teaching the dehumanizing and awful treatment of other people. This question and the points brought up by this question were what I found to be most engaging. Our group spent nearly ten minutes on this point, because this point took a personal side and everyone had something to discuss from it. I believe the passion developed from this point is what made this not only my most successful moment but one of our groups best

Students all attend school, for the same reason, and that is to learn. While most of the time we are being taught the same material, our school experiences vary from student to student and from school to school. Some countries schoolings are known far and wide for their academic performance and then there are some that don't even have basic schooling necessities. Some experiences are so wonderful, you never forget them. Others are so bad it's impossible to forget about them. I have had my own fair share of experiences be it domestic where I was shunned or foreign experiences which gave me a whole new perspective on education. It is these very experiences that have made me who I am today, a strong, critical-thinking and compassionate person.

Many people are usually shaped through the challenges and obstacles that they come across throughout their lifetime. I grew up with parents who immigrated here and knowing about their history helped me grow a lot throughout my childhood. I have grown to know about and going through struggles that my parents have gone through. I am now a hard worker and plan to use this characteristic to a good use when going to through college and pursuing my career path. I am also humble and thankful for everything that I have because my parents never had most of the things that my siblings and I have. Throughout my life, I have learned to grow through my parents and their history. Learning about my culture has also helped me grow as a person.

During this course, I have developed a new and useful skillset. One skill I can away from this course is that developed better argument skills. We have been assigned several assignments revolving around what is an “argument” and learning when and how to argue. My arguing skills have since increased and become more polished. I can use my new-found skills at work, in conversations, and at work. These tools will help me advance my conversations and language. I believe that this skill will benefit me primarily in work settings.

Every student deserves the best chance at getting the highest level of education they can, however, some students need a little extra support that others may not. A student, Axel, who is currently in my classroom has had a hard time keeping his focus and is often avoidant when it comes to his work. It has become clear that his avoidance becomes a distraction to the whole class. His behaviors currently include but are not limited to: rolling around on the floor during rug lessons, yelling across the room, walking around the room talking to friends, sharpening his pencil five or more times throughout the day, asking to go to the bathroom at inappropriate times, spending fifteen to twenty minutes in the

Children often repress memories from their childhood due to lack of will to remember or lack of wanting to remember. Tragedy or uncomfortable childhoods help cause children to forget what has happened to them. Growing up, I didn’t have the best childhood and often struggle with recalling any details from it. Now being grown up, the only thing I am certain that I remember is going to school, my teacher’s names, and things that I did at school. School was a place where I went to escape my home life. If someone were to ask me how to define my school experience it would be: Safe-haven. When I was at school, I was so absorbed in learning that all I could focus on was my education. After school, I would come home and play “school” with my brothers with reverse roles. I would be their teacher and they would be my students. I would explain and teach them in depth the things I had learned that day. The overall main reason that school was so enjoyable for me was because of the teachers. The teachers that I had in elementary school helped to instill my love for learning. They also helped me realize that I wanted to help kids such as they helped me. In addition, they gave me my dream. My dream has then be to become a teacher and help my students escape from whatever happens when they are not at school. I hope to have all my students in love with the learning process so therefore school can be their place of forget. They can come into my classroom and forget everything that is wrong with the rest of their life. As time passed and I am now a college student, my love for learning has continued to grow and has had me want to become the best teacher I can be. My ultimate goal and dream in life is to become an Elementary Education teacher that makes a difference to her students, whether that is making them feel safe, or helping them learn to love school.

From the early moments of my childhood, I remember seeing my parents go to Russian Orthodox Church a lot. They would explain to my younger brother and me what was right and what was wrong from the religious perspective. On my 4th birthday, my grandma gave me the Bible for kids as a present, and I remember my mom reading it to me before going to bed. Back then it was just another interesting story that happened somewhere very far away. And yet mom would always find a way to tell these stories in such a manner so they translated really well into the reality we were living in. The more I grew up the more I realized that there was something missing in the big picture of my understanding of the world. I saw a lot of suffering that was happening everywhere, death, natural disasters, and I thought there must be a reason for all of it. Otherwise, the God does not care about any of us. I started to look for the answers everywhere: in the philosophical and religious books, movies, wise counsel from the people who lived a long life. I could not find the truth in church because the whole purpose of its existence with all its rules and restrictions, its idea of God who is something or someone out there, separate from us, and the only being that knows all the answers, was totally alien to me; mainly so due to my unwillingness to accept the fact of transferring all the responsibility for everything one does to someone else. I believed it to be a weakness to acknowledge one’s bad thoughts and deeds as something natural, as an external influence of the evil spirits. For me, it sounded like people who agreed with this concept simply wanted to escape the punishment for what they had done, choose an easy way out.