Reflection Paper

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.

Over the course of the semester, there has been numerous amount of areas where I believe I have improved in comparison to high school. What has helped me in my writing is the writing class and the in-class writing workshop. The writing class that is located in the Kremen education building has helped me with my writing greatly because in the writing center the person in charge teach us lenses and we apply those lenses to the writing, draft, or reading that someone brings in. The in-class writing workshop has helped me because other students get to read my writing. This is helpful because I get feedback from many students and they let me know what needs to be fixed. A new tool I have been using is They Say I Say. The book is very helpful because of the information and examples it provides such as the templates. I have been applying the templates into my essays and I have seen a significant difference.

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.

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.

Every school has these four main academic subjects: English, Math, Science, History/Geography. The class I like the most in my eighth grade school year is History. This is because we get to learn about different time periods, different people, different religions, and so much more. We don't just sit in class and read out of a textbook. We get to do fun activities to help us understand more. While we work, we talk to our teacher and have funny and weird conversations. We make fun of each other and have a good laugh. I'm always excited to go to History class.

A brief overview and background: I went on a mission trip with my church Youth group to a deaf village in Jamaica. While we were there, we built dorm rooms and classrooms for the children living there. The impact that trip had on my life was amazing. It made me realize just how good we have it in the United States of America.When I am hungry or upset and I didn't get the newest trend clothing, I always think back to the children down in Jamaica. They literally have nothing. At the deaf village, all the children are foster kids. Their parents gave them away because they did not want to deal with their disabilities. I have never taken my parents for granted again, because of what we have and the relationships we have in the U.S.are very precious, We are a very blessed nation.

Since arriving on campus, I have been asked how I came to Miami several times. Some would say that coming here is destiny, but I disagree. Psalm 139 says that before I was born, “in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them” (NKJV, Psalms 139:16). While there are several main components about which I will write, I keep coming back to the fact that God placed me here.

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.

For a long time i was different from the other guys. From the toys i played with to the clothes I like to wear. I was in 6th grade the first time i had feeling towards a guy. I was scared and ashamed of theses feeling. As time passed the feelings only became stronger and I fell further into the closet. Middle school was hard, i was bullied and called gay, a faggot, queer, even before i consider my gay or told anyone. When highschool came along it became harder and harder as the days went on to keep the secret in. I just wanted to be like everyone else but i was a young man with a secret, a secret that weighed down on me with so much force. It hurt constently, a wound that felt couldnt be heald. I indulged in many self destructive behaviors to suppress and hide my feelings. I was losing myself in the closet. i felt trapped, like i could never leave. I wanted to leave this closet i was stuck in but i was to scared to be ridiculed even further than i already had been. One day i gussed up the courage on a drunken night and told one of my friends on a frozen over lake that i was bi. The feelings i felt that night of finally opening up made me feel a bit more hole. So slowly one at a time i told my frends i was bi. I even made a fake MySpace profile to help me come out of this dark closet. Silly i know but i was so scared to do this on my own. I left highschool after being in the hospital for depression issues for not being able to look at myself in the mirror. even tho i had

To go along with being an athlete, I am a student. To be able to get playing time, you need to have good grades. My parents didn’t just push me to be a good athlete, but to get good grades. I had higher expectations compared to my brother. But that pushed me to keep my grades up and do get an A on assignments and tests. This impacted who I was and what I decided to value. It was important to my parents that I got good grades, but to me it was too because it helped me get into college and it made me feel good about myself. Being a student, just like being an athlete, teaches me to be diligent in the work that I have in front of me. It also teaches me time management, and what I need to get done compared to going out with my friends.

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

In 1994, my parents immigrated to Canada from Vietnam to seek better living conditions and a promising future for their soon-to-be children. However, to live in a free nation filled with opportunities, the two left everything behind. While living in rent, my father worked full-time at a factory while my mother had found a job as a cashier. Although they had a sustainable income, my father understood that raising a child would cost them more than they were currently making. In 1997, my father decided to study computer science at Langara in search for a better-paying job while working part-time as a security guard. Meanwhile, my mother took up housekeeping, working at two different hotels to earn more money for their coming child. Understandably, my parents had made their lives much harder immigrating to Canada, but their sacrifices - I can say - has paid off.

Despite my intellect, most colleges would classify me as a mundane, unimpressive person. I'm a white, heterosexual, Christian male: the most stereotypical example of a privileged person in America. I have experienced privilege, but I have also experienced hardships and inequitable stereotypes.

I feel that there is a great divide within my life at its current point. I live in two different spaces depending on the time, and while they are a great distance from each other geographically, they are at an even greater distance culturally. I grew up in a small town in New York State that was majority conservative and I now live on a college campus that is extremely liberal. Before I arrived at college I felt that I had already grasped an understanding of my various privileges as an individual on the micro level. However, being here and having to face them head-on through the meso level Swarthmore community is a completely different experience. Because I identify as a pansexual, neuroatypical woman there are certain power structures such as patriarchy and heteronormativity that I tend to concern myself more with. However, despite my various privileges (or perhaps because of them), I should focus an equal amount of attention on those power structures that benefit me. It would be foolish and hypocritical of me to call out men or heterosexuals to fight against their own privileges without in turn doing the same of my own. Therefore I would like to reflect on those privileges in order to better understand how they interact in my daily life on the micro, meso, and macro levels in order to better understand myself and to “think not only beyond privilege, but beyond the sense of self that claims privilege.”

Since 2011, I devoted my life to God, this happened when I get convert and be baptized to the church of Jesus Christ. I was still a babe spiritually. I learned many things in the Gospel and I felt the Love of my heavenly Father. I couldn't speak English back then when I joined the church, but through reading the scriptures daily, the Lord help me learn and understand the scriptures. Today, I can testify to you that I have read the bible many times from the start to the end. And most importantly, I teach the Gospel in English.