Reflection Paper

New beginnings don’t have to start January 1. The time for a new beginning is always right now; and what better time to embrace the motto “no more excuses.”

For my second observation, I choose to focus on making a lesson that would benefit the students with their upcoming paper. I knew from their last paper (they analyzed a cartoon) that students struggled with two things: they either said too much or too little in their summaries and they had a tendency to use quotes when they meant to paraphrase. Therefore, I designed a lesson using picture books that would have students collecting information from a variety of sources, which they would have to do for their final paper, and summarize in their own words what they found.

As I was first raised as a child, the biggest influential individual in my life is my mother. Nonetheless, she comes from a background from how her parents raised her to treat others in the same manner as you would like to be treated. With this standard, this has been the “golden rule” throughout our family today. By belonging to a Catholic Church since I moved back to the state of Pennsylvania before entering the start of 2nd grade, I attended St.Ignatius of Antioch in Yardley, Pennsylvania.

As humans of society, we all crave the respect and friendships of our colleagues. Unfortunately, choosing to walk in my Christian faith made those two components difficult to grasp.

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.

In Elizabeth’s classroom there are various activities going on all about Egypt, there are students demonstrating how ancient kings were mummified for burial. The students are learning about Ancient Egypt, but they are doing it in an atypical way. The activities and lessons are not teacher driven, instead the students are working in collaborative groups except one student and they are working on student driven projects. Some students are learning about pyramids. The classroom brings on a new meaning to organized chaos. A teacher who really needs structure in the classroom may have a difficult time with a classroom that is organized like Elizabeth’s. There are a few areas of concern when approaching student driven activities like what is being done in Elizabeth’s classroom. One concern is how can she ensure that all her students are learning the required content. To me this can be done a couple of ways. She could use formative assessments throughout the learning process as a way to assess if the students are learning the content. These can be as simple as observations of the students collaborating together, or as concrete as a pen/paper quiz over the required content. Another way is to establish content specific rubrics that are differentiated to meet the needs of each group’s specific projects. Of course the rubrics need to be presented and reviewed with the students several times throughout the process. Prior to beginning their assignments and then revisited in weekly

Life can change in the blink of an eye. One moment it is smiles and laughter and the next moment it is tears and feelings of hopelessness. I never fully comprehended the reality of this life idea until I was coming to the end of my freshman year of high school. Just like any other day at school, he was radiating with joy and happiness. However, that night many lives changed. It was apparent to me and many others that the radiating joy and happiness was fake. That specific night, May 2, 2017, his joy turned to sorrow and his happiness turned to an excruciating pain. On this very night, my innocence was stripped away and my outlook on life was drastically changed.

A week before college move-in day, I had to leave behind my strenuous summer job with a heavy heart, wondering if I would ever see my kids ever again. If you have ever worked with young children, you know how exceptionally hard it is to be the perfect balance of fun and energetic, yet responsible and poised. Even though I was a camp counselor for three years, each summer felt like the first. This past summer was just as exhausting as any other year, but it was more momentous in more ways than one. Going into the summer, I knew that it would be my last- seeing that I was moving to Charlotte and I would never see that same group of kids ever again. In May, before it was 95 degrees consistently, I made a promise to myself to appreciate the experience because I would never get another summer like it.

“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.

The coaches blew their whistles, a loud, blaring noise compared to the quiet giggles of the seventh grade girls. The whistles had signified that the game was over. Unfortunately, Keystone Oaks had won against the Canon McMillan girls’ gold volleyball team, which meant that my game was next. Our first away game! I was excited, but my joy was ephemeral once I realized how good the seventh grade Keystone Oaks team was. Of course, I would not let that frighten me. I played as hard as I could, giving it my all, and I was not ready to let them win. As fate would have it, we lost. But this event is a great example of how I am awkward, defensive, and somewhat stubborn. I, unlike most others, love competition, as I become a lot stronger, phisically and emotionally, when faced with challengers. One could also say I am funny and mischievous, as I act like a ‘class clown’ when with my friends. But what really outlines me as a person are my family, hobbies, and aspirations.

I stood idle in the waits of a euphoric, broad expanse dressed with the essence of an untainted existence--complete and absolute oxygen coherently ushered by hue-rich grasses. The trees animatedly breathed life, seeming to impart and transmit vibrant frequencies of information. As well, the sun did prove its enlightening, divine omnipresence whilst repairing my DNA. Knowing without experience, seeing without sight, feeling without nerval stimulation. I angled my head up complacently, I knew that I was in total control. Mantras and meditations, “This is perfection, this is eternal, this is my universe. I am God.” Then, I opened my eyes. I opened my eyes to a sudden but weighted sense of guilt. I felt like I was cemented to my bed. I felt more disappointed than shocked by this agitating yet alarming feel of harassment. I’d grown way too familiar to the weird, inscrutable sensation that I address to as, the agent of mortal life. Almost chronologically, I was then brought to the thought of the cessation of life. Prescribed to be just another Earth indigenous anomalistic hominid. Maybe, that candid frame of thinking was the reason I endured such a continual wrapping loop of moral destruction. I understood that the very things I saw on the day-to-day basis persists to be reality and I was also aware that we were born behind the eight ball. But, at 14 years old, the simple concept of managing priorities was hard to grasp. To aid the practical nature of self-reflection, I asked

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”

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.

I was born into a time of darkness. Quite literarily, during the first year of my life, my parents found themselves often not having access to basic necessities that we take for granted every day such as electricity or water. Both my mother and father come from humble beginnings, being born and raised in small villages in the outskirts of Armenia. Never would they dream of one day moving to a city like Los Angeles after the kind of life we lived since my birth. Yet what we perceive as completely unattainable to us was actually much more within our reach than we initially thought. With a hopeful perspective in mind, we applied for a green-card and miraculously won a chance for a brighter future in the U.S.

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.