In September of 2015, I took a class that I never imagined myself taking; teen leadership. A speech class, taught by my band director and involved a lot of socializing with others, creativity, and on the spot thinking. These things- I was not the greatest at. Unfortunately, reality later dawned on me, and I realized that to become- and be great at being- a physical therapist, I would have to be more social, more approachable by others. Unfortunately again, I was neither of those traits. I was deathly shy, and I always had been. So as I sat at the computer deciding classes my freshman year, I made the decision I told myself I wouldn’t make, and I signed up for teen leadership. Now, as I sat in my first day of that class, I instantly developed
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Rickert had us all pick a partner, someone we didn’t know in the class, and share some things about us with them. I paired up with the guy who had looked like a lumberjack, and to my surprise, he wasn’t all about hunting and plaid. He liked the same music as I did, loved to make jokes, and was very very friendly. We became friends instantly, and I was able to wave and say hello to him in the halls during passing hour. This exercise and others like it were carried out, and I found myself friend with everyone in the class, all of my stereotypes gone, and replaced with good, straight facts- that I loved about them. In that class we practiced how to go about a good job interview, have a good impression on others, how taxes and bank accounts, and many more valuable life lessons that I could use for the rest of my time. But the best thing I learned in that class, was to know my values. A list was handed to each of us, and my instructor told us to check everything we considered an important value to us. Things such as money, religion, having a job, getting married, and going to college were options, and for some of the options, I didn’t know if I valued them. Money for example: if I were to check this, I may appear to look greedy, but if I didn’t, I knew I wouldn’t be very happy if I didn’t have money to survive and thrive on. I heard other’s opinions on the matter, and I’ve decided on this- having money is not an important value to me, having enough …show more content…
Now, a whole semester later, only five out of the eighteen classmates I had will wave and say hello back to me. How this changed so much from what I thought would happen, I don’t know. I felt as if I was the only one who still cared about the class, still wanted to talk to my classmates as we were back in that room, discussing prejudice and world problems. I felt like Tom did in Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, reaching this new plantation only to find that, he was the only one there who still had hope, still wanted to reach home and believed he would with the power of Christ. As one of the most influential classes I had ever taken, I couldn’t believe it had also led to the least recognition from my classmates in
Rickert had us all pick a partner, someone we didn’t know in the class, and share some things about us with them. I paired up with the guy who had looked like a lumberjack, and to my surprise, he wasn’t all about hunting and plaid. He liked the same music as I did, loved to make jokes, and was very very friendly. We became friends instantly, and I was able to wave and say hello to him in the halls during passing hour. This exercise and others like it were carried out, and I found myself friend with everyone in the class, all of my stereotypes gone, and replaced with good, straight facts- that I loved about them. In that class we practiced how to go about a good job interview, have a good impression on others, how taxes and bank accounts, and many more valuable life lessons that I could use for the rest of my time. But the best thing I learned in that class, was to know my values. A list was handed to each of us, and my instructor told us to check everything we considered an important value to us. Things such as money, religion, having a job, getting married, and going to college were options, and for some of the options, I didn’t know if I valued them. Money for example: if I were to check this, I may appear to look greedy, but if I didn’t, I knew I wouldn’t be very happy if I didn’t have money to survive and thrive on. I heard other’s opinions on the matter, and I’ve decided on this- having money is not an important value to me, having enough …show more content…
Now, a whole semester later, only five out of the eighteen classmates I had will wave and say hello back to me. How this changed so much from what I thought would happen, I don’t know. I felt as if I was the only one who still cared about the class, still wanted to talk to my classmates as we were back in that room, discussing prejudice and world problems. I felt like Tom did in Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, reaching this new plantation only to find that, he was the only one there who still had hope, still wanted to reach home and believed he would with the power of Christ. As one of the most influential classes I had ever taken, I couldn’t believe it had also led to the least recognition from my classmates in