Observations and Reflections

Serving this semester at Ivey Lane has taught so much about the concept of time. What we do with it, how we spend it, and who we give it to. Ultimately, the answers to these questions produce a kinship with people around us. In serving my fourth grade students, I learned to cater to their needs, to develop a listening ear for the things they said and didn't have the courage to say, and to learn discipline when it came to their education. 

Serving, essentially, produces the immaterial quality of being selfless. Our characters are comprised and defined by the choices we make, and being selfless is the choice you make for someone instead of the choice you make for yourself. Giving up time, a commodity people are generally selfish with, enables a person to develop brand new perspective; It isn't always about you. 

Service Learning proved to me, to be a valuable tool in a classroom. In terms of preparing students to work, it was excellent. I really had to put effort and planning behind all those lessons. As for the impact of service learning, I believe it to be monumental. What is the biggest lesson you could give to a student? That is up to you to decide of course, but for me, it was to pour out how much I believed in them and their imaginations. If they walked away with that, then I would say I'd done my best.