Reflection Paper

Margaux Kastleman
Insight to Daily Life Class

REFLECTION PAPER:

In this class "Insight into Daily Life" I had came into this class not thinking that I would end up learning so much about myself and my daily life. Over the months, I have grown and progressed from what seemed like nothing to something. Looking back at all my chunks aka the snowball paper and our "listening and touching" essay, I have came to realize that I learned many different skills. These skills have turned into different criteria’s.
The first criteria I would like to evaluate are “Intellectual Commitment”. What I mean by this is being able to work through challenging concepts, looking at ones point of view and creating your own. In this class, I have used this skill because in the first days, you handed out a paper by R.D Laing, and it was his arguments about humans. For me this paper was very challenging. When I first read it I did not know what I was reading, I was a little confused. It took a couple days to get down his arguments and what he was trying to put across. Once I found out that his argument was that he thinks that humans are less then what they can be, that we don’t try hard enough. After figuring this out I created my own opinion/ point of view on the issue. My opinion on the issue is that I agree with R.D Laing in some senses, I do think that people today follow “norms”. They do what they think is normal, its like the society is brainwashing us with what we should do and what we shouldn’t do. They all act up to what’s “normal”. Overall you can see that from this activity of reading an argument and turning it into my own point of view and argument shows that I can work through challenging concepts. That I have an intellectual commitment!
The second skill I have learned from this class is “Verbal Communication”. What I mean by this is conversing with others, interviewing, listening to others, etc. in this class I have actually used verbal communication in SO many different ways. I’ve learned all these different ways through our “Listening and Touching Unit”. In this unit we learned how to conversate with others in a correct manor. We learned the right and wrong ways to have a conversation. And while learning all these skills, we practiced in class with our classmates. We tried talking about different topics, we tried touching each other while talking, and we tried different body language while talking. We tried so many things that will help me in my “outside” life, for when I have conversations with people. This class has taught me how to have a conversation with someone and them enjoying it, not getting bored, asking for more. And I am very thankful for this skill because I think that a huge important part of your life should be talking to others. I think that its really important to be there for others in time or need, and plus a huge reason why people are loved by many people are because of the conversations they have. So overall being able to have great verbal communication is a huge skill I’ve gained over the semester.
The third skill that I have gained over the semester is my artistic communication. What I mean by this is the way I have used music, art, movies, etc to communicate with others. The first way that I used was that i used my art to communicate to others. I drew a picture of a girl in a field [because I believe that’s very peaceful] with no mouth and a saying that says “it all about the thinking”. The point that I was trying to get across is that I tried drawing a picture that represented Laing’s theory. And when I thought of this all I could think of was myself in a very peaceful place alone, not talking, just laying and thinking [since his argument is all about the mind and how we think and how our minds work], And that is what I tried drawing. The second way I tried using my artistic communication was through songs. I have learned how to use music in many different ways. And I have to thank you for always putting on music when I walk in the class. It’s a good way to set the mood for the period. And from always doing this, I have learned that its always good to have a little music in the background to try and communicate to others what kind of mood I’m in, or what kind of mood I am trying to put them in. so now I have gained the skill of putting on music when I have friends over so I can set a mood.
The forth skill that I have gained from this class is my writing skill, and being able to create a huge paper from little chunks each written on different days. This class has taught me to really take good notes. Because when I get home and I go on my blog to write up a chunk, it’s basically written already because I have FULL complete notes. So that’s one thing I learned, another thing I learned is how to write a huge essay without being stressed. This skill was learned because when it was time to write our snowball paper and when you said it should be eight pages long, I was scared and stressed at the moment. But then when I went on my blog that night, I cam to realize that it was already basically written I just needed to add in topic sentences. This taught me to not write a whole essay all at once, to write it in chunks THEN turn it into an essay. An example where i turned my notes into a chunk is our "childhood" unit.We once observed the 6th grader, then took nothes on what we saw. So then when i looked back in my notes when it was time to write about "childhood" i read what i noticed and wrote it into a chunk that would fit perfectally in a paragraph [in an essay], here is a sample of thwat i wrote ;"Like for example when we went and visited the 3rd floor and watched all the little kids,it reminded me of all the different memories i had in that classroom when i was in 6Th grade...". now all i had to do when i wrote my essay was write a simple transion sentance and copy and paste the whole chunk!This skill will help me so much in life, because number one, my exhibitions are very stressful and this skill will be very helpful. And then second, when I get to college I’m sure ill get millions of stressful essays to write, and ill think back to this class and remember to write up chunks then glue them all together!
Now last but not least, the fifth skill I’ve gained is, my digital communication. Being able to communicate through technology. I’ve used technology to communicate with others through my blog. If you look at my blog, I have so many different ideas up there about my self and others that I want to communicate to others. It’s a way to sharing my ideas.For example, i am a VERY shy person in class so i dont talk that much, but then one day i had a really good idea, but didnt share with the class, so thank you to the blog, i expressed it on there. heres the idea i am talking about "Personally i think that at my age , i cant answer this question. I think that its too early in my life to forget about my childhood. i think that it is very sad for a 16 year old to already have forgotten about their childhood. I would understand that if your above the age of 20...". I have also gained a lot of ideas from other people’s blogs. From reading other peoples blogs, they were able to help me out , and even teach me new things! and when i left comments on three of my class mates pages, it made realize how we all think alike, it was nice to connect to them. so overall, thanks blogspot!
so over all i learned MANY different skills but here are 5 that i talked about. hope you enjoyed.