I thought class this week was excellent. Anthony and Beth did an awesome job of getting us to reflect about self-awareness. I have never really thought about how my past has truly shaped how I am today as a peer mentor. As I discussed in class, two really close friends of my family past away when I was in high school, one of which was one of my best friend’s dad. This had taught me to not take things for granted and to enjoy every day. Another situation that has impacted my life today happened when I was in high school. The truth came out about a member of my close family and we found out that he was not the person he had been portraying for a very long time. I had an extremely hard time with this and it is part of the reason it takes me a while to trust someone. It has had a negative impact on how I form relationships with people, but in recent years I have tried not to let it influence my choices as a person. After class, it really hit home to me that it does impact me more than I realize it does, and I am very thankful that I had the chance to come to the realization that I did.
I want my past to help me to become a better peer mentor, and for it not be a negative thing that I just let hang over my head. I want to honest with my students so that they will be honest with me and most importantly themselves. I want to help them self-reflect as they are making a turning point in their lives so that their choices can be a little clearer to them. I think it is very important to take a step back every once in a while and reflect on yourself and on the path you are choosing to take. I ask myself constantly, is this what I imagined myself doing 2 years ago and if it is not, then am I taking the right alternative path? I think it would be a good exercise to have students self-reflect at the beginning of the semester and then again at the end as a way to see how they have changed over the semester. It would help them to reflect about the decisions they have made and if they like the path they have chosen.
I also took some time to reflect on the twenty words that I wrote down to describe myself. I was just thinking about why I describe myself the way I do and why I am the way I am. I am a very casual person because I do not spend a lot of time on a normal day to doll myself up. I prefer comfort over fashion because I am such a laid back person. I am very easy going and just go with the flow because sometimes I feel like my opinion is not work sharing or may sound dumb. I am usually more self-confident about things I am truly sure on or are fact based. Overall, I am just really glad that I had the opportunity to self-reflect because I have not dug this deep in a long time.
Have a great week everyone!
Great post Amy! I agree that I never really consciously think about how my past impacts my current self and how that translates into peer mentoring. I'm glad to see that you also want to incorporate some self-reflection in class for your students as well as yourself. As returning peer mentors, its fun to be able to add things to our classes, since we have already gone through it and established the fundamentals.
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You are right in wanting to benefit from your past experiences. The whole reason I believe we as humans make mistakes is to learn from them to make our future experiences better. A gret characteristic to have is to turn negative experiences or feelings into positive ones and that is something I too would like to become better at. Great post!
ReplyDeleteAmy GREAT post!! Reflecting at the beginning and the end of the semester I agree would be a great thing to do. It would make students think a little more about there actions and how they are leading their life. Through reading your blog it made me think a little more about what I have done and if my actions are leading me down the path I want to go.
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