Hello! Long time no post! I’ve been super busy with school, work, and attempting to maintain some sort of social and emotional balance within the last few months. Though I should be reading for my English course right now, I need to talk about a disconnect within teacher training that CANNOT be neglected. However, here are a few updates to give you all a heads-up on how my life has been functioning thus far: Read More »
A Lengthy Reflection of Summer 2016
Oh boy! I have not posted on this blog for various reasons, including work, vacation, etc., but I am back! More importantly, I am writing this entry to reflect on my how I spent my summer, and how I feel now. This post is being made for 3 reasons: 1) I had wanted to write it for awhile, but I needed to collect my thoughts 2) My kind friend told me she’d want to read all about my summer (thanks for the support! xoxo) 3) The topic is too important to not talk about. So, without further ado, here is my blog entry to detail summer break 2016!!!
This summer, I decided to work for a fairly affluent Christian summer day-camp in the mornings and volunteer for my local Boys and Girls Club summer day-camp in the afternoons. During those warm months, the opportunity gap was a 22 minute commute with traffic. It was a stark $200 weekly payment difference per child. It was monitoring the growing lines to drink tepid water from a water fountain after having picked up forgotten Camelbaks on a different playground hours prior. It was communicating in my broken Spanglish after reading glossy Scholastic books to a classroom of soon-to-be kindergarteners. This polarizing routine was painfully, unapologetically real.
My time at both camps revolved around 3 main, invaluable themes to note. Resources, Family, and Potential. Read More »
A Short List of Favorite Books by POC (And how we can use them in classrooms)
Reading is so fun. It is like warm butter croissants on a winter day. It is that gaiety children experience when told they can play for 5 more minutes. It is an escape and an entrance to an alternate world where pretend traverses reality. If it’s not clear by now that I like reading, I should probably state that I like reading… a lot.*Read More »
The Ripe Fruit of the Spirit
To start off this blog entry, I must confess that I have sinned, though I personally do not think my actions were of malicious intent. For the past several weeks, I have been working at a Christian summer camp, but I do not identify myself as a Christian. Did I sign a paper with a new Paper Mate ballpoint pen agreeing to become a born-again Christian? Yes. Am I now a born-again Christian? No. Did I still assume my responsibilities as a camp counselor/teacher aide morally and with good intentions? Absolutely. Judge away as you may, but please understand that I applied for this job to be around children and to help make the most out of their summer break.
Awesome! Now that that weight has been lifted off my shoulders, I can honestly begin this first blog entry.
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The “Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, kindness, patience, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.” Essentially, good Christians should live their lives with these attributes at the core of their values.
Having been in a classroom environment (for the past 7 weeks) that indefatigably reinforces these virtues, I genuinely believed that He got all of the basics – these characteristics could really create a foolproof, pristine society. This conviction was soon challenged when one of my students, Michael*, showed me the possibility of another fruit that He could have more explicitly stated – understanding.Read More »
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