Final Reflection over Volunteering at Fortis

   This year, I had the opportunity to volunteer in a 4th grade classroom during my release days for Senior Capstone. I have been able to work with students that are not quite up to their grade level academically or have learning disabilities. Through working with them, I learned more about myself. I learned that I want to help kids either by teaching or working in Special Education. By using what I have learned in Senior Capstone, Psychology, and Connecting, I was able to better work with students in the classroom. Some of the many things which I did while volunteering were helping teach subjects to the students who are behind, read to students who are not at the grade level reading level, make copies for the teacher, teach math to some students, help with spelling and writing, and I helped out in the library at times.
   Some of the things I learned are that students all learn at different levels, how to organize book orders, put together boards for displaying work, copy pages from textbooks, and how to put together assignments for students.
    I have really enjoyed working with the students and each time I went, I looked forward to being able to work with them another day. I discovered that helping kids learn and working with them is something that is rewarding for them, and also rewarding for me.

World Population

   I feel that there is a current population in many countries. For example, if you go to the country of China where there is a limitation on the number of children, you will notice a) there are more males than females and b) the number of children in orphanages, mainly girls, have greatly increased. If there is a limitation on the number of children, then there will eventually be a large decrease in the population. If there are more males than females, then that means there are not enough women to marry and have a family. This hurts the population, because once  the older generation begins to die off, it becomes harder to repopulate if there is not a close ratio of males to females. On the other hand, if you look at countries with high fertility rates such as Uganda or Niger, there are about 6.65-7.52 babies born per women. These countries are those with low literacy rates as well as low economic opportunity whereas China has much higher literacy rates and better economic opportunities. I feel that the population problem can be somewhat resolved if countries with poor literacy rates have opportunities to increase the literacy rates, economic opportunities, and environment while decreasing the number of children being born to women.

Students Responsibilities

Today, students have many different responsibilities. Some of them for themselves, then there is responsibilities for others around them. Students today are responsible for their learning and seeing that they make choices which may or may not change an aspect of what they have to do.
For example, after graduating high school, we are to decide what we would like to do and where we want to go to college of we so chose. But it is not us being responsible for ourselves, but in a way we are responsible for helping others. Many people chose to show responsibility for helping others who are not able to help themselves properly, others are responsible for making sure that their family has money and good on the table, some are responsible for taking care of younger siblings and having a job, others are responsible for defending our country in the line of duty. There are many different roles and responsibilities people have, but these roles that seem quite small are in fact quite large.

I have seen this in senior capstone while I help out in a classroom.when I first began my service, I didn't think that helping kids would change anything. After working with students I see that by helping them learn in different ways and showing them that serving in a nearby community is good. Some of the students I work with don't have educational support from home so they are struggling in the classroom. One thing I have noticed is how students there manage responsibility and how some seem to have a little amount of it. Also I see how teachers have a responsibility to help students understand the material and that they would learn more.
Teachers are important because they are the people who have an impact on a child besides the parent. If the teachers are wanting to help the students learn, then the students will want to learn. If some teachers don't care about teaching students, then that may impact how much work they put into education. Senior Capstone has helped me see what it is like for people who have jobs such as teaching and see how large the responsibility of a teacher as well as a student is.

Senior Capstone Service Video

Media Day Reflection

Media Day went quite well in my opinion. I spoke with several perople who were quite interested in what we as students thought of the class, what we would change, and what we think about the technology. I feel that through sharing our thoughts and experiences with important members of the community, we were able to learn more about how our service has helped us. I was able to reflect upon how my service has helped me see things in a different way by seeing how kids learn things differently and teaching things such as matter to students so that they are able to understand it in a different way.