Reflections

 Whether it was for a long period or short, these students reflecting on their social service missed the point. These students were surrounded by human drama. On every side were loneliness, love, struggle, joy, death, dignity, injustice, need and concern. There were more than a dozen health-related, trades-related, professional-related careers to observe and experiment with. There were people with wisdom to draw upon and pains to ease. From their observations and reflections, these students experienced nothing.

It’s not supposed to be that way. People can learn from experience. In fact, it is not only a possibility but also a necessity. Aldous Huxley says, “Experience is not what happens to a person; it is what a person does with what happens to him or her.”

A necessary part of turning what you experience into what you know is reflection – time to sit down and consider:

§         What you saw and didn’t see

§         Who needed you and why you were there?

§         What did you learn and what did you teach?

Reflection involves observation, asking questions, putting facts, ideas and experiences together to come up with new meaning. Reflection on experience can give you the following abilities:

Taking charge: Being able to learn from experience gives us the power to influence the meaning and impact of things that we do or that happen to us.

Increasing your problem solving ability: Being able to analyze problems, generate alternatives, and anticipate consequences are critical skills.

Power to assess your personal impact: Ongoing reflection helps reveal and even determine what personal changes are occurring in self-image, new skills, and ideas about a career. It can give you the self-confidence to take on a bigger project or to use more of your skills.

It will be through your reflections that you will learn from what you are doing, and we will know whether:

§         your attitudes and values were able to transcend race, class, religion, age, gender, and politics

§         you grew in areas of knowledge and technical abilities, and developed a spirit of discovery and self-reliance

§         you made links with the local community and developed longer-term goals

§         your academic disciplines were complemented by your real life experience

Reflection Suggestions

1. Describe what you learned and felt during your community service project
2. What was the most challenging and best thing that happened to you today?  Tell what you learned from the experience.
3. Compare or contrast your service experience with anything you have previously experienced, read about or imagined.
4. Rate yourself from 1 to 10 for your performance.  Why did you give yourself this rating?
5. What connection does this service have to your academic work, career plans and values?
6. What have you personally learned about yourself and your agency from working on this service project?
7. What changes would you recommend in how this service site operates?
8. Name five things you can do to better society.
9. What was your first impression of the service site?
10. What are two feeling words that exemplify your service-learning site experience?
11. How is the service experience similar or different from what you expected?
12. How has volunteering changed your perspective toward the issue of volunteers?
13. Select a person that you admired while doing your community service.  Explain what you found admirable in this person.
14. How have you benefited from your service experience: personally, academically, and occupationally?
15. Complete this sentence: because of my service-learing project, I am…