My Sibs

As I've grown older I have seen how my little brother and sister look up to me in many situations. I realize that if my little siblings, who aren't so little anymore can look up to me, their tormentor for many years, then there are certainly others who see me as a role model. If others see me as a role model while I'm attending school, my students will see me as a role model when I teach. As a current and future role model, I not only have to do what's right, I have to show others what the right thing to do is not only through actions but also advice. I welcome the opportunity to have the responsibility to shape someone's life and their outlook on the world, but I know that this responsibility also carries with it potentially heavy repercussions.

I have to be careful with what I say and do and even what kind of mood I am in during the day. I can impact the lives of my students positively, or as Mrs. Devries, very negatively. I don't want students to come out of my classroom carbon copies of me, I want them to be able to analyze a situation and come up with their own conclusion. I can attempt to teach them this life skill but one slip of the tongue can ruin it. Like I said, I tormented my little siblings for years. I know that I am more mature now, but I still worry about abusing the power of being a role model

Getting Involved

Even though the Goshen Elkhart area isn't my home, I do feel a special connection. I think that the basis of that connection was started during Celebrate Service Day, when my classmates and I helped to set up the county fair. I know that the small act wasn't much, but it helped to instill in me a desire to get involved in the community. I've started small, getting involved in First Fridays and greeting people on the streets. I also do what I believe is common sense, pickin up trash from the sidewalk and helping to clean up the streets. Like I said, I've never lived in the area, but I have the will and the desire to help out the community, especially during these hard times.

I have started small, but I want to work my way up to bigger and better things as my time here at Goshen College continues. I don't know just what it is that I want to accomplish just yet, but I'm working on setting a goal in a specific area to help the community. I think that by focusing on this goal I can make a real difference in the area during my college years. I would encourage other college students to do the same and I would definetely have everyone work on the common sense things I discussed earlier that can really make a difference.

Louisiana

After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans a few years ago, I had the opportunity to travel down to Houma, Louisiana and help to rebuild and clean up the mess the hurricane had created. I decided to go and worked for a week in Houma with members of my church. We worked with MDS and did various jobs around the community including roof repair, yard clean up and removing of mold in the walls. The devastation down in Louisiana was immense and the lasting problems caused by the flooding would stay forever if they weren't addressed. This community was a part of the working poor in America, with jobs but unable to get ahead in life. As we worked I came to know many of them and appreciate the struggle they went through on a regular basis to make ends meet, and that was without the hurricane wiping things off. I started to become aware of how much these people were ignored and not thought about in the lives of most people. Becoming active in the national community and helping other people out is not only important to them, it is for the good of all of us.

When I was working in Louisiana, I began to realize that it's not enough to volunteer once in a while or just think about your own community. Especially now, moving people in the United States isn't about fixing up their homes, it's about becoming their friend and teaching them life skills and specific skills so that they can get a better job than the one they had. It is about doing everything we can to support this person and get them on the way to be able to take care of their family. Ending poverty isn't just going to be done by fixing up homes or by a government bill, it is going to take the national community waking up and helping out the poorest and the lowest in our country.

Reaching Out

I attend an interdenominational church in East Cleveland that has a membership made up of over ninety percent African Americans. Although people come from quite close and from fairly far away, one thing that our youth group lacks is kids from the immediate area. We've tried reaching out to the area youth in many ways but even if they come to a youth night or Sunday school, they're unlikely to come back. I feel that a main reason for this is that our Youth group is very close, sharing inside jokes and stories of the past. When a guest comes in to the group, instead of tending to embrace these people, we begin to shut them out, maintaining our own little groups at the expense of the guest and their experience in the church.
Recently I've attempted to make a conscious effort to greet and speak with the guests that come to the youth group. While it's easier for me to just remain part of the group or even sit back and say nothing, I know that it is important not only for the youth group, but potentially for the guests future to make them feel welcome and at home. While I control my actions and decide what to do for myself, I cannot choose for the others in the youth group. All that I can do is speak to them as to why being welcoming is important and lead by example. I know that, as someone with influence in the Youth group, I can help to change the group dynamic so that instead of shutting somebody out, they will welcome them in with open arms.

SGORR

In high school I took part in a group called SGORR 0r the Student Group on Race Relations. The leaders of the groups would meet every Sunday and go over lesson plans. These lesson plans were then passed down to the groups of high school students that each of the 20 leaders were in charge of. Finally, the groups would go to fourth and sixth grade classrooms to teach the lessons that they had learned. This kind of hierarchical structure forced me to not only teach the lesson to my group but also teach them how to teach the lesson to the elementary school children. Through the simple lessons designed for elementary students, there was a change enacted in the groups of high school students and even in the leaders. Through these activities, we learned basic social skills like trusting or taking a risk. However, we also learned how these skills relate to relating to people who are different from yourself.
Through SGORR I not only learned about relating to others, I learned about myself and some of the stereotypes and prejudices I hold. I've learned that getting rid of stereotypes and prejudices is impossible, the only thing that can be done to bottle them up is to put them out of your mind as soon as they enter. Through training, I've learned to push these thoughts from my mind so that I have no preconceived notions of a person's character before I speak with them. This is probably one of the most important lessons that I've ever learned. Now, instead of judging others, I wait to get to know them first which allows me to communicate and interact with them in more positive ways than if I had judged them. I know that I learned this lesson and that the other leaders learned the same thing, but I hope my high school students took away a similar way of thinking. I have hope that with the influence of high schoolers on the elementary school children, they will take our words and the activities we brought seriously.