Reflection Paper

There are multiple reasons I am where I am today and why I’m going where I’m going. I have struggled in school ever since I can remember but without the people that I have had in my life I wouldn’t where I am today. But as I will talk about the teacher have played a huge role in the reason I am able to be where I am today.

As my first semester at Rosemont College is coming to an end soon, I would like to tell you how I got here and how will I stay here. While applying to college Rosemont was not first choice. It was on the bottom of my list. But when I came to visits and listened to what the tour guides were saying I thought Rosemont would be the place for me. The biggest problem, for me was I wanted to stay close to home. I have family at home that I really did not want to be away from, it was my first time being away from home. I know that being away from home would be a change for me, it was a hard decision to make but I made it! The first step of getting to Rosemont was applying into then coming to visit, after my first visit I was still uninterested into the school. The campus was dull and dry and I did not see any students walking around or any of them coming out of class. Shortly after Spring Break of 2017 I had to make a choice. I began to look at the bigger picture of why I wanted to go. While Rosemont was not a place that I wanted to come, but I knew that I would get all my work done and more. I was happy I made the decision I made, because I am staying focus getting all of my work done.

When I determined that I was going to attend CSU I knew that it would be so much different than what I was accustomed to. After I made that decision I cried myself to sleep for about a week and a half because I was scared to move. I drew my dad closer to me to make sure that he knew I would be okay after I moved out to the “big city”. After that week, I entered William bridges first transition phase. When I was letting go of my family, it did not take me very long. Since I was living with my grandmother who the family refers to as “the Warden”, should give an image of

I knew college was going to change me in many ways. Yet, after my family and I restructured our collective and individual emotional reactivity over the three years that I was away at school, I believed my work in that department was done. I thought transiting into college was difficult, however, I found myself once again unprepared for the aftershock that rocked my family once I return from school. I left college a strong, independent, mature, and differentiated person, or at least I kind of did.

This change of setting was at first a difficult adjustment. Suddenly, I found myself in an unfamiliar environment with an entirely new and different culture. Students were often more free spirited and individualistic, and came from a wide array of diverse backgrounds and upbringings. At first, this new space was confusing and difficult to navigate. But as time went on, I grew accustomed to these changes through trial and error, persistence, and by doing one thing out of my comfort zone each day. These tasks I would create for myself were often relatively simple endeavors such as starting a conversation with someone new or speaking up in class, but at the time they were vital to my growth. It is the result of this that I today attend a school at which I feel comfortable, motivated, free, and have a fulfilling social life.

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.

The greatest lessons and the greatest teachers I have had in life have not been in school. I believe the greatest learning takes place when you are exposed the suffering of humanity. I gained insight, compassion, and empathy.

Jesus’ question “Who do you say that I am” has been one of the most debated questions in Catholicism. Over the past few years of Theology, I have consistently been taught that the Catholic Church believes “Jesus Christ is God the Son, who became man for us.” According to the Church's teachings, we are encouraged to live the way Jesus did, as He is our Lord and Savior. This means we must respect our “enemies”, ourselves, and for that matter all people we encounter in our everyday lives, just like Jesus did. Throughout the Scriptures, we are also reminded of the way Jesus helped people to believe and made them better people with each encounter, even if they didn’t realize it at the time. All of this made Jesus the person that many people view Him as today. So, in agreement with the Catholic Church, I believe that Jesus was the Son of God who saved our lives and saved us from our sins.

When I enrolled in English 330, Writing in Education, I was apprehensive. Over the years, proofreading has been one of my strengths which may be a great attribute, but the challenging part has already been accomplished, writing the paper. So, although I absolutely love to research and write about my findings, I have always found it to be a struggle writing essays. The words seem to come easy in my head, but when the time came to write or type those words into sentences was the most difficult. Even though I have endured difficulties and challenges this semester, I have given 100% into each assignment. The discussions, blogs, letters, emails and assorted categories of papers completed, they have all proven to me that, no matter how good you felt you did, there is definitely room for improvement. There is always room for improvement, whether the task is a school assignment or work done on daily basis for over twenty-five years. My writing skills, my thought process and analytical skills have all improved in the last eight weeks.

It is easy to underestimate how much effort is required to complete a goal. A common struggle for college students in particular is finding a perfect balance between giving too much effort and too little. Time management is critical and giving too much effort wastes precious time while giving too little results in a poor grade. I have personally found that when it comes to achieving goals either academic or personal, you can never give too much effort. In fact, the amount of effort you put into your work not only determines whether or not you reach your goal, but also defines you as a person. Knowing this fact, I took steps this semester to ensure that I achieved my goal of straight A’s, not just for the class but for the assignments as well.

As I began to reflect back upon my life and the incidents that have turned me into the writer I am today, I smiled as I began to remember some of my earliest childhood memories. Shortly after, my entire class was erupting with laughter as we shared stories about each other from our youth. The reminiscing of what has turned us into the writers we are today opened up the opportunity for all of us to share our memories and laugh about our elementary days. Through the reflecting I shared a very notorious memory from kindergarten involving our teacher. As I spoke about the memory I realized that it was the memory that has influenced me the most as a writer.

I remember, when I was in 4th grade, I used to try to write books or stories. When I was younger, I loved to read with my mom. After we would read something, would try to write something similar to the book we had finished. My mom would help me read books like The Magic Tree House by simplifying and slowing everything down for me so I could better understand what was going on and why. Nina Sankovitch, a reader who blogs about what she reads, captures my feelings when she talks about how “I discovered new wells of resilience and joy, empathy and beauty” (Sankovitch). When I was younger, I did not always know how to capture these emotions, but my goal was always to make a story and try to recreate those feelings. It was a real accomplishment for me because, while this was happening, I struggled with reading in class. When I first started reading, I would dread being called upon, though I liked to write stories of what I read on my own. Now, I do not enjoy to reading anymore.

Watching others suffer, and get hurt by those close to them is a very traumatizing experience. All over the country many children are suffering in different ways, which will affect them in the long run. It’s actions such as these that have swayed me, in order to help and save many in my community. As I progress in life I wish to help those in need, in order to give them a better environment to live in. This essay is being written so my history, current situation, and future shall be known to the person reading this.

Mrs. Anderson is the 5th -grade teacher. She has 25 students, but two of her students disrupt the whole class by arguing and fighting with each other. Zack has a specific learning disability in reading. He likes math and geometry, he is a quiet worker during independent work and likes to stay after school to feed a guinea pig. Patrick enjoys telling funny stories and being limelight. He is an average student, likes sports. According to Mrs. Anderson’s observation, Zack likes to argue with Patrick, yelling or crying on Patrick’s teasing or even pushing Patrick if he doesn’t respond to his request. Patrick teases Zack and other students by name calling or making hurtful comments. When called on during class discussion Patrick can give unrelated or inappropriate information ( Star Sheet). It’s a few critical goals for Zack and Patrick to focus during this semester:

When I was in the first grade, my learning disabilities started to shine through. I always thought my struggles rooted from my lack of effort and trying to get through the school day. One day, a teacher came into my classroom and asked for me. I walked with her to this empty, smelly, and plain white room. She started telling me that she was with the special ed department, had been tracking my progress, and that I had a learning disability that needed to be acknowledged. She started showing me proof that I was having troubles in math. She handed me a thick envelope and told me to take it home to my parents so they could go over it and sign it. Those papers changed the way I was able to learn and started to get me on track throughout the rest of my school years.