Goal 2

The second goal of the Honors Program is “Exhibit a commitment to community awareness, involvement, and service.” This is personally one of my favorite goals because I had the most fun in Honors when I was doing community work. Both times that I was required to do community work, I was able to work with teachers in Minot. They were my favorite people to work with because they always appreciated any help they could get. This also gave me an insight into what teaching is going to look like as well since I plan to be an elementary school teacher 

The first assignment I want to look at for this goal is my volunteer experience from HON 191H. In this is experience, I worked with two other people: Emma and AJ. Our goal for this assignment was to reach out to teachers in the area and offer our help for anything that they needed to have done. I remember that AJ had reached out to teachers at Edison Elementary and she had one teacher that needed us. She had asked us to get some math books stapled and some tube filled with water and letter beads with sight words. So, I had went over to AJ’s house and worked. We managed to get our hours done easily. After I had finished, AJ had told me that the teacher we were helping had said that her and her husband were going to have a date night while getting all of this done and that hit me personally. That really showed me how much teachers put into teaching, especially when you are just starting out. I thought that this assignment was perfect for this goal because I was able to provide a solution for someone that didn’t have any other solutions but to do all the work herself.

Another assignment that I think fits this goal is the final portfolio from HON 395H. The portfolio documents a semester-long project for this course. I chose to work with a teacher friend of mine and help her in her classroom with any task that she set me to. Throughout this assignment, I was not only able to be able to help another teacher, but I was able to get the full idea of what a classroom looks like. In the final portfolio, I was able to reflect on all of those experiences. Within my document, I wrote about different goals for the course and how I had accomplished. In that part of the paper, I was able to pull specific moments from working in the classroom and apply it to the goals. I think that this assignment fits well for this goal because I was able to commit my time and energy to this teacher to help her within her classroom. While I was with this teacher, I felt that I was also able to bring awareness to others about the workload that our teachers have. You can hear about it on the news, but you truly don’t see the extent of what these teachers go through until you are really in the classroom.

These assignments bring a great idea to what I was able to accomplish for this goal. They show that I was able to help others within my community and give back to those that helped me grow.