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.

“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.

Reading and writing is a fundamental part of our learning experience. Reading allows you to enter worlds and experience things you wouldn’t be able to experience anywhere else and writing expands your knowledge not only on a specific topic but you learn more about yourself, you’ll be surprised how far your imagination can take you as soon as your pen hits the paper.

This semester, in HPE3200, I worked with students at the KSU Play program, Kennesaw Elementary (KE), and Big Shanty Elementary (BSE). Within the Play program, my student, Troy, was a student with special needs. Troy lives with autism; therefore, he requires a more complex set of teaching skills, behavior management, and instructional strategies. However, while working with Troy and other students in the Play program in contrast to those at KE and BSE, I found the challenges offered me growth as an educator.

I grew up in church and in a Christian home which I do appreciate because some people do not have the opportunity as I do. Personally, my domination is a Methodist because my father is a full time Methodist pastor. My faith when I was younger was weak, because we for example had a dress code for my family on Sunday we had to wear Sunday best (girls are not allowed to wear blue jeans). We had to set examples for others. My dad talked about it does not matter what clothing you wear if you have clothing on. All that matters are that we are here to worship the one and only savior. Now that I look back my view on Jesus as a little kid would have to be a Judgmental God and a Gocha God because my step mom would want us to seat an example while we were at church and we would always get in trouble if we do something wrong in church. In the summer of my Middle school year I went to Camp Loucon and my faith grew stronger because one night during worship I felt a tug on my heart. The tug you cannot get rid of. I knew Jesus needed a home in my heart. So, I went up to the alter the Dean of the camp came up to me and said what do you want me to pray for I said accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior. When he was done praying I felt this piece of calmness, and such greater joy that I can’t explain. I felt so happy I started to cry. (I usually never cry). Later that night my cabin laid on a basketball court at camp and looked at the stars. I said, “there’s a lot of stars up there”.

I was talking with my brother about how terrified and nervous we both felt. Everything was new for us and he told me, “I hope everything works out and we can make new friends”. We felt wear and silly. We didn’t know nobody and we missed our old friends and our country. When we boarded the bus we saw new people happy for their return to school. We listened children talking and laughing with their friends. When we entered our first class the others looked at us weird, they made us feel uncomfortable. At the end of the day it was difficult for us to return home, because we had been given the wrong bus number; But finally we arrived to our house we felt happy because the first day of school was a test passed.

While I was duel enrolled in my local community college and in high school, I was wrapped up in the day to day aspects of my life because I had a lot of little things going on and hobbies that I enjoyed. My future career and being in a university seemed so distant so I didn't think about it much. It didn't occur to me until my first week in college that I really needed a plan and that my life is moving incredibly fast. It wasn't until then, that I really started to think about what I wanted to do with my life after I got out of college. I now find myself thinking about it every day, calling friends and family and researching different career paths for different majors.

This summer has been quiet a busy time to say the least. Since I recently started a new job, I was unable to partner with an organization for my community engagement project. Instead, I worked with my neighbor, Betty, who is 78 years old woman who has recently transitioned home from a six week stay in a rehabilitation center due to a severe fall that prompted her stay. Betty was discharged after Medicare would no longer cover her stay at the rehabilitation center. When she returned home, she returned to home where her grandson stayed but could not relyed on. Betty was basically on her own at home, unable to walk, care for herself the way she was used to, and felt that her needs were not being met upon her return. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on how my personal involvement has been service oriented, helped her achieve her goal, and ¬¬¬to critically reflect on the integration this course has provided in carrying out this assignment.

Writing is a tool that will be used throughout my lifetime. It is a tool that is worth taking the time to perfect because it will only be beneficial in the long run. On my writing assignments, I earn A’s, but I still have areas that I need to work on. The areas that I struggle the most would be with simple grammar errors such as the use of commas, writing with an active voice, and writing short,simple sentences. First of all, I often do not know where to place commas in my sentence. I struggle with this because I tend to add commas in the wrong place, so I have become confused with the proper use of commas. This is a small grammar error that I can easily correct by learning where and when commas are needed. I have also found and been told that I write in a passive voice when I should be using an active voice. This is a technique that I have to work on by practicing it and noticing the difference while I am writing and reading. Finally, I often write run on sentences or sentences that include unnecessary information. This makes my writing unclear and difficult for the reader to understand. I could improve by writing shorter and simpler sentences that include only the essential information to get my point across. I have noticed these mistakes in my writing and it has also been brought up by others, so I am currently working on improving it.

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.

My father is a proud vintner of the United States Army who dictated twenty five years of his life severing our country. Growing up as a child, and not understand that life was so subjected to changes. I remember asking my father why we have to move from place to place; having to deal with going to new school making new friends all over again, and leaving old ones behind was not a pleasant feeling to me. My father informed me that travel broadens the mind. As me now developing into young adult who enjoys traveling whenever fined to time

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.

Unlike Paul, I've always gone to church. I grew up in a Christian household that held strong Biblical values. As a kid, I read the courageous acts of Esther, the perseverance of Noah, the obedience of Abraham, the desire to follow God in King David. I have always thought that they're great stories. I would sit in services on Sunday listening to the songs sung, the scriptures read, the three-point sermon preached. But in all of it, there was no personal connection. Here is the story of how I came into an intimate relationship with Jesus.

Last summer my cousin and I were enjoying a meal with our families in China. It’s been 7 years since I last saw my cousin. We are about the same age and my favorite memory of her was celebrating her 11th birthday. I remember my uncle and aunt sitting to my right and my grandparents sitting to my left singing happy birthday as she blew out her candles. It has been so long I almost couldn’t recognize her when I arrived at the airport 2 weeks prior. My mom receives a call and leaves the room to pick up her phone. She comes back 10 minutes later in tears. She breaks the news to the family and that our trip would be cut short. She was diagnosed with breast cancer. In the following week, we pack up our bags and head out to the airport. She had to start treatment as soon as possible. I knew I would become the man of the house to take care of my mother and brother, who has autism, while my dad worked in New York.

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.