Reflection Paper

Science Instructional Analysis and Methods class has afforded me countless learning experiences which I have taken into my intern classroom. I have several take away for this fall’s science methods course. The first being, in Methods class I learned to work in distinct groups of with peers of various levels. My peers who are experiencing classroom teaching for the first time and the graduate interns. Surprisingly, I learned from working with both of these groups. From the graduate level students, I was able to actually make a connection with the content we read about in our text and experiences I had everyday in internship. I appreciate the opportunity, as I felt safe and free to ask questions about the experiences they had in teaching science. I commend you on the way you had broken up the class groups, and afforded us to work with different groups. During this process, I feel I have started to find my voice as a professional. This opportunity allowed me to be more confident to voice my ideas to the teachers I worked with in internship, as I contribute to my PLC group.

The first day I walked into Freshman Composition I had the idea that everything assigned was going to be extremely frustrating and difficult, as this is a college class. Equally important, my expectations for the class was to earn at least a B, further my writing abilities, and learn more about college. As the semester started, I noticed that my writing was not at the college level and I needed to learn how to improve it. Along with improving my writing, I was also able to learn about college life. With this essay turned in and handed back, I began to realize my writing needed practice and critiquing. Furthermore, I gave myself goals to achieve in Freshman Composition, I have learned useful tools to improve my writing, and I have learned more

Writing was never a favorite subject in school for me. It seemed so boring to me compared to manipulating numbers and learning about the processes occurring in the world around me. Although, I disliked writing, I was never a bad writer in school throughout my educational career I had always received A’s on essays even in honors and AP classes. My main problem occurred with timed essays because I do not like being rushed when I’m writing, especially when i’m expected to create a nuanced idea to support. When placed into writing 1 I was very disappointed and everyone I knew did not understand how this had occurred, but I did not make the cut so I had to go through the course. I was a bit nervous entering into writing 1 because I hadn’t written in close to a year and needless to say I was rusty. Another reason I was nervous was because I was beginning to think I was a terrible writer and it was for this reason I was placed in the class. The first day my nervousness went away when I saw how many other students in very difficult majors were also taking the class. It made me realize being in writing 1 did not mean I was unintelligent or that I was a bad writer. Throughout the course I was able to scrape away the rust that had built up on my writing skills and even discover new things about myself as a writer.

“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.

This first semester has flown by, and I haven’t had the chance to really process all I’ve done. Looking back on the beginning of the semester to now, it’s weird to see how much I grew as a person.

It was called the washing. Its purpose was to "wash the impurities" out of everyone’s head. Man no longer had morals, and no one followed laws. Brother was scared of brother and sister turned on sister. The bigger picture was, if no one remembered wrongdoings in their past they would not do it in their future. it was kind of like a reset button...but for humans. Really, it was just a way to depersonalize the population because robots are always easier to control than human’s who had something to fight for. They started with small, with inmates, then moved to anyone even accused of a crime. Soon workplaces and schools required it. Some resisted, and they were executed, so if the soldiers came to your door you had to comply or die.

We all know that there is never that one person that is perfect in life, but we always believe that some people are just born perfect. For example, a person that will never get mad and have patience for everything, or a person that is attractive, or a person who has the most improved educational skills. In contrast, on my daily routines, I take out my anger on every little obstacle that gets in my way. I do not bother to take a step on exercising and procrastinate on schoolwork. This has been a routine in my life that I know I have to stop and do something to change it, but I just leave it aside and ignore it as if it everything was okay. Now that I have been reading The Habit and have been assigned to do a 30-day challenge, I have decided to form goals for myself. I had enough with these problems, and I am willing to create a better lifestyle by being a calmer person, living a healthier lifestyle, and being a better student.

I have learned many aphorisms, or lessons, throughout my life so far. My family, friends, teachers, and pretty much everyone has taught me something in one way or another. These lessons usually come through in a change in my life. One change important to me was getting a job. This job has given me a positive learning experience (for the most part) and an education of working with others. Well, here’s what I know about going to work.

On August 2017, I started my freshman year of college. My first class was FIQWS 10108, the sun was shining bright, as I was nervous to start my first day as a college student. We first went over the syllabus and discussed what was expected for the class. I was shocked to find out that we would be writing three lengthy papers. I’ve never been an excellent writer so I was worried about writing the papers. My fears soon diminished as my professor began guiding us through the writing process.

First I would like to mention that I enjoyed reading this Chapter as it hit home for me because the teachers from Loyola Marymount University believe in building family and community strengths and I fit that mold. Even though demonstrating passion and empathy is mostly frowned upon by many in our institutions due to concentrating on teaching to the test. If you provide your students with a safe learning environment, my experiences have shown that they are more apt to flourish. As a result, I provide this type of atmosphere in my classroom. For example, one of the teachers interviewed, Leticia Ornelas, had “Lotion Day” Nieto (2013). I have shared my lotion with students as well. Some of them fall under the English as a Second Language (ESL) programs. And like she mentions, it provides them with a safe, caring, and passionate learning environment because you build that rapport. Building teacher to student relationships is essential to student outcomes.

“The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life."” Upon hearing this my life was forever changed. I couldn’t understand or comprehend why God, God being all knowing and almighty, would have to make a bet with the devil in the book of Job. God began to lose me after this scripture, I had questions before, but this rocked my core and destroyed any doubt I had in my inquiry. It was in this moment I began on a path that would lead me away from Christianity and to Voodoo.

My whole family is very religious. Growing up we put on our best clothes and went to church every Sunday and bible study on Wednesday's. It was a huge part of our daily lives, we said our prayers every night, morning, meal, good things, and bad, we prayed a lot. For most of my adolescences I believed or was forced to believe that being an Christian Evangelist was the only way of life and everybody else in the world was going to hell. Whenever anything good happen in my life God did it; bad it was Satan himself. Around the age of 16 I began to ask questions and wonder if God was real or not, of course my family did not want to hear it and often ignored me or would say you just have to believe and have faith. If I asked what if I don't believe, would I go to hell? my family would say of course you will go to hell so just believe so you don't have to find out. The moment that was a turning point in my life was when I was 17 I had a conversation with my minister uncle. I asked him why would God send me to hell for an eternity just for having doubts? and if god created everything including Satan then God himself is evil. Well that did not sit to well with my uncle and he accused me of being possessed by demons and that I had the devils tongue. My uncle practically held me hostage, called all of my family and another preacher and held an exorcism. They had crosses, holy water and Bibles

When my parents split up, I prayed to God to help my mom win custody over my siblings and me. Every night they would go unanswered, so I prayed that my dad would stop being a monster. That didn’t work either. My parents split up because they would fight a lot and because my dad was a mean person. He would abuse us with anything he could get his hands on because he would get angry at the littlest things. An example, is when me and my sister shared a room but we didn’t get along so one night we got into a huge argument and my dad ‘spanked’ us with a wooden board. I prayed that everything would get better for my family. No, I didn’t want them to get back together, I just wanted all the fighting to stop. Still every time I prayed it seemed to go unheard, unanswered. So, I gave up on religion, I quit praying and ended up resenting God. Even though I quit believing in Him, I never let my mom loose her faith. I would talk her into going to church any time that she could. I went along with her because I was trying to get some connection back to God. Nothing seemed to work for me, so I just stopped trying. I believed that if there was a God then he is cruel and doesn’t care.

When we read a story there is a message that connects with us. The themes and life lessons that are shown in the stories can change the way we think and feel. Sometimes, stories leave a lasting impact on us because we are experiencing similar themes in our lives. While reading a variety of stories, there will be some that are good, and some that never translate well with a person. During class this semester, while not every story may have had a lasting impression, it did always leave room for the reader to think. The best thing about stories is that they give off feelings of pain, love, sadness, and happiness that can be expressed through its characters. The human emotions that are conveyed can empathize with readers because they feel what the author is trying to bring to life through their words. The story I enjoyed the most was “The Best of Everything” by Richard Yates and “Another Evening at the Club” by Alifa Rifaat.” These two stories affected me the most and influenced my thinking in the most positive way. The story I enjoyed the least was “The Five Forty-Eight” by John Cheever. While it was my least favorite story, it did allow me to think about the message the author was trying to portray.

This semester of intermediate comp. Was one to remember. The amount of projects we had made me think of how to write better. Before this class I wasn't too good at writing. I was able to figure out the basics but I wasn't able to word them correctly. The class I took to help me was reading and writer's workshop. It was a helpful class but I feel that I could have done better than I actually portrayed. We typed essays and also made our own magazine as a project. When I first went in that class my writing wasn't too good. I would just do the minimum amount that was required.But since then I have learned to add more description to every story I write so I can try and write to my full potential. My teacher helped me a lot with all my writing last year and she always pushed me to write more so I can always get my full thought out. Some aspects were hard for me but now that i've had so many different classes to help me my writing i've learned how to push myself so that the aspects wouldn't hurt me anymore.there are always things in writing that I still need to work on but i'll only get better if I keep writing. The teachers ive had always made us write essays which I wasn't always to excited for but I feel that it improved my writing and nonetheless made me a better writer. The essays made me think and do research which got me involved into my writing I feel that in this class I could have done a little better then I actually did but I still think that it was a great experience and that I learned a lot in the end.