VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, [10] ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 12:30:13 01/14/08 Mon
Author: SS
Subject: Re: UNST421REFLECTION1
In reply to: SS 's message, "UNST421REFLECTION1" on 11:41:15 01/14/08 Mon

Noah Eaton
January 11, 2008
University Studies 421


Reflection #1: Experiences & Expectations


In my sophomore year of high school, part of what I studied were some works of American philosopher John Dewey and his reflections on culture and journalism, which the following quotation of his has stuck with me ever since:

“There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication. ... Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing.”


That is, essentially, what interested me in taking this class; I feel, to a wide degree, these truly relative words have somehow grown at odds with each other as “social capital” diminishes in developed, industrialized societies (Robert Putnam says social capital can be measured by the amount of trust and "reciprocity" in a community, and argues distrust in public institutions and urban sprawl are particularly responsible for its decline in the United States). That emotionally gets to me, and so for these past eight years in particular, I have been emotionally driven to abide by a personal doctrine I call “the three E’s”: engage, experiment, experience.
By engage I mean not taking for granted that we, as a community, are truly a universal family of sorts, and that we take some time each day, between our duties, to acquaint ourselves, one peer at a time, with our spiritual siblings at heart. By experiment I mean listening to your intuition, and also encouraging positive ideas others have so that we can all broaden our horizons, both aesthetically, culturally and individually. And by experience I mean having that sort of mindset where life is a constant living and learning experience, a continuum of sorts where we frequently are experienced by others and we become more understanding, broad-minded, inspired people in result, all giving without remembering, but taking without forgetting, in this community we have and must continue to foster.
That’s why I’m here, and proud to be here, along with that I have always had an immense fascination and appreciation of African culture, dance and their preservation of tradition and familial identity. And, with harrowing current events currently plaguing the continent, from a slow-motion genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, to famine all across sub-Saharan Africa, to political unrest in Kenya and Uganda, such experiences sinew my determination to a steely resolve in communicating with them, but more over convincing them, as a global family, we have much in common and we truly are mutually dependent on each other in this global community.
Previously, I have helped tutor bi-lingual students at a elementary school in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, as well as have worked with members of a Hopi tribal community near Chaco Canyon, New Mexico to raise awareness about land preservation in light of environmental and cultural degradation happening there by the Peabody Coal Company. Also, since moving to Portland in June 2004, I have taken a previous University Studies course at PSU called “Leadership For Change”, where I helped co-teach students at Buckman Elementary School in their after-school extracurricular program. All these experiences have truly broadened my life experience in a way I cannot describe, and I am most thankful for that.
I would consider my primary strengths and experiences that would benefit me entering this capstone course particularly being that I am eager to learn, and thus eager not merely to hear, but to listen, to others. Also, often others have told me in the past that I am very “dependable”, and am great at working with children because I have a gentle, quiet demeanor.
The main difficulties I expect to face are primarily rooted in that, despite having done volunteer work plenty of times previously, I have always had underdeveloped social skills and motor skills due to a high-functioning form of autism known as Asperger’s Syndrome. Thus, I tend to articulate and express myself differently and more eccentrically than others so, consequentially, there may be confusions and misunderstandings at times in terms of dialogue/communication, and there may be a slow start in connecting. However, because many say I’m sympathetic and understand the unspoken needs and feelings of others, I believe I can make up for that deficiency through active listening and emotional support.
Besides that, transportation is the only other potential difficulty I expect to face over these next ten weeks, given that I don’t own an automobile (I choose not to because I don’t want to contribute heavily to greenhouse gas emissions) and I walk everywhere across Portland. Unfortunately, walking is a time-consuming mode of transportation, and that’s why I’m considering offering much of my services on the weekends since it would be difficult getting from PSU to southeast Portland without many school hours being swallowed schedule-wise.
All in all, I am psyched about this capstone experience, and I hope through this I can, along with others, restore that verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication that Dewey spoke ever so eloquently of! :)

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.