Reflection Paper

I have never been more vulnerable than at the end of my Junior year of highschool. I was exhausted not because of my work load, but because my best friend was in love with me and I was, for the first time, in a class that openly talked about race. The English class, taught by a black woman, was predominantly white (as was my school) and not only discussed race, but specifically discussed whiteness. For the first few months of my year, I was closed off despite believing I was participating. While the year went on, I realized I had been cruel to my (white) best friend. I had been completely unaware of the harm I was causing until, in December she told me that I didn’t actually listen when people spoke to me. I apologized in January and her forgiveness was something I had never before experienced. Over the last semester of my Junior year, while she reminded me how deeply important love is, I begun to see myself as white. On the last day of my English class, I thought of how hard I had worked the past few months to accept and express love, how I had come to believe that love was the most important thing in the world to possess, and I wondered why I had never known this before. I realized, suddenly, that whiteness can, and has, prevented me from feeling and receiving real, unconditional, and unracialized love. I began to sob. As my whiteness became visible, so did my deficit of love. I realized the comfort I, a white person, felt in isolation, narcissism and apathy enabled me to

What is life, who sets the rules, who tells us what is right from wrong? One important question I always ask myself, which is my place on this planet earth. A lot of time, as a female that comes from a country that values men more than they value a woman, I feel as though, I am constrained to act a certain way for the fear of being singled out as a bad seed. Even though we all feel that as humans we have the free will to do whatever we want, a lot of times culture and religion might get in our way of freedom and free will. Growing up in a Nigerian home, as a female you don’t have much say in your life or the choices that you make in life. Growing up I always felt like I had no say in my house which was true. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I was a female and most of it had to do with my culture and my role as a female

Nothing has affected my life so much as the street that I lived on. Almost all my childhood memories were on this street; countless games of tag, races with my siblings, and imaginary games that entertained us for hours took place on the asphalt of Dale St. The street I grew up on was what made me who I am. What we played, where we played it, and everything that is important in between has now become a part of me, and ultimately shaped me into who I want to be.

April 11th, 2014. It was the day that I can remember in which a teenager such as me must take a big step through the next years living in a new country. My mother, my sister, and I arrived thanks to the petition my dad applied for in order for us to immigrate to the US. I was stunned when I see people with different ethnicities walking outside the airplane to the tarmac. It was a long wait in the airport due to the long lines of immigrants. I was beginning to be impatient when my mother explained to me to be silent or else we’ll face an altercation with security. As soon as the process was done, we walked outside and at first glance, I saw my father smiling at our direction.

Looking back at my life even just a couple years ago, I would have never thought that this is where I would be. I was born in Florida in 1999 and have lived there my whole life. I grew up in a wonderful home with Christian parents. My mom worked at the church and we went every week. Both my parents have always been huge spiritual role models, when I look at them I can see the love of God in them. They always point us to God and remind us that he is what is most important in life. Ever since I was little my favorite part of my week was going to Church. Growing up in the Church I got to know a lot about the Lord and hear all the stories in the Bible, but it has been the past few years that I have grown my own faith and relationship with God. In 2012 on a beautiful day it was super bowl Sunday, I made the decision to get baptized because I knew that I wanted to live the rest of my life with Jesus knowing that I Could not do life without him. I remember going to my dad and telling him that I wanted to get baptized and he would sit down every night with me and tell me the reasons we get baptized and we would go over stories in the Bible.

Looking back on my education career in my life so far I have been one that is highly motivated to do well in class. Even though I am highly motivated to succeed in all my classes, I am not always highly motivated to be taking the class or completing 100 percent of the work assigned. This motivation may be connected to Carsten (2017) ideas of competence, relatedness, and autonomy and how they can play a role in a subjects learning.

Why am I feeling so warily towards this trip? Why now, and never before? Similar questions kept pondering through my mind when boarding the plane that would take us to our home country, Peru. It had been close to five years with the absence of my birthplace, my early childhood. I never realized how my childhood environment differed from my present life, but somehow, this year I felt more aware of where I stood. My parents would tell me to value the luck we had, but I never gave it much thought. Back then, I would consider it but not in depth, until I was smacked with it in the face. Though I didn’t know at the time, I contemplated the idea of being exposed to a new perspective. However, the feeling wasn’t enormously overwhelming, so I would force it to reside in the back of my mind where it was hidden but kept haunting.

During this course, I have developed a new and useful skillset. One skill I can away from this course is that developed better argument skills. We have been assigned several assignments revolving around what is an “argument” and learning when and how to argue. My arguing skills have since increased and become more polished. I can use my new-found skills at work, in conversations, and at work. These tools will help me advance my conversations and language. I believe that this skill will benefit me primarily in work settings.

Students all attend school, for the same reason, and that is to learn. While most of the time we are being taught the same material, our school experiences vary from student to student and from school to school. Some countries schoolings are known far and wide for their academic performance and then there are some that don't even have basic schooling necessities. Some experiences are so wonderful, you never forget them. Others are so bad it's impossible to forget about them. I have had my own fair share of experiences be it domestic where I was shunned or foreign experiences which gave me a whole new perspective on education. It is these very experiences that have made me who I am today, a strong, critical-thinking and compassionate person.

This past year has been a learning experience that has led me to where I am today, attending Citrus. I graduated from Glendora High School in May of two-thousand sixteen with the intention of moving away to school and attending the University of Arizona; however, within the week post-graduation I decided it would be in my best interest to take some time away from the books. I love education and every ounce of learning. My school work, grades, and attendance have always been a top priority, but I began to feel as if I was a car running out of gas, I knew that if I went into my freshman year at a university with the mindset I had and the drive I was lacking, I probably would not be very successful nor would I get very far. For me to figure out myself and where I desire to be a break was needed from not only school, but also this town. Unfortunately, my gap year wasn’t filled with any crazy stories of finding myself while lost backpacking or traveling, but it was filled with personal growth amidst new coworkers, a newer environment, and a boyfriend as well as some family. I moved to Arizona anyhow and that is where I did most of my recent growth. Now you’re probably wondering how I landed myself back in Glendora, a question I now have the confidence to answer. Arizona was great, I love it, and it holds such a large part of my heart however I could not muster up an ounce of motivation to go back to school. I felt too comfortable with what I had and feared going back with

When I was about three years old I was no different than any other kid around. My physical appearance was like any other toddlers. Then one day I started walking around with a limp and it didn’t look too bad or my parents would have token me to the doctor right away. It was on and off for about a year, but nothing to severe. That’s what my parents said anyways, I don’t have much recollection of myself back then.

Every student deserves the best chance at getting the highest level of education they can, however, some students need a little extra support that others may not. A student, Axel, who is currently in my classroom has had a hard time keeping his focus and is often avoidant when it comes to his work. It has become clear that his avoidance becomes a distraction to the whole class. His behaviors currently include but are not limited to: rolling around on the floor during rug lessons, yelling across the room, walking around the room talking to friends, sharpening his pencil five or more times throughout the day, asking to go to the bathroom at inappropriate times, spending fifteen to twenty minutes in the

From the early moments of my childhood, I remember seeing my parents go to Russian Orthodox Church a lot. They would explain to my younger brother and me what was right and what was wrong from the religious perspective. On my 4th birthday, my grandma gave me the Bible for kids as a present, and I remember my mom reading it to me before going to bed. Back then it was just another interesting story that happened somewhere very far away. And yet mom would always find a way to tell these stories in such a manner so they translated really well into the reality we were living in. The more I grew up the more I realized that there was something missing in the big picture of my understanding of the world. I saw a lot of suffering that was happening everywhere, death, natural disasters, and I thought there must be a reason for all of it. Otherwise, the God does not care about any of us. I started to look for the answers everywhere: in the philosophical and religious books, movies, wise counsel from the people who lived a long life. I could not find the truth in church because the whole purpose of its existence with all its rules and restrictions, its idea of God who is something or someone out there, separate from us, and the only being that knows all the answers, was totally alien to me; mainly so due to my unwillingness to accept the fact of transferring all the responsibility for everything one does to someone else. I believed it to be a weakness to acknowledge one’s bad thoughts and deeds as something natural, as an external influence of the evil spirits. For me, it sounded like people who agreed with this concept simply wanted to escape the punishment for what they had done, choose an easy way out.

The way we view the world makes a huge impact on how we live and chose to do things. One of the most fundamental things which guide how we live and think is what e believe to be the ultimate reality. Within my cohort since we all go to a christian University and have grown up relatively with the same belief system we all agreed that God is the ultimate reality. That when everything else disappears God is who created all matter and without God there is no matter. I believe we live in a world that is two dimensional; physical and spiritual. Meaning that there is a world that we can see as well as one that is visible with the naked eye. However one of my cohorts said that she believed that God is matter, saying that all that is around us contains God since he is who created all. We contrasted in this belief because I believe that God created all matter and then allows it to move as he designed it, interacting only when disruption is needed to move things according to Gods will.

Many governesses before Maria considered the von Trapp children to be incorrigible. They hated the children for the mischief that they do and the children hated the governesses in return. Hate begets hate.