Turkey Program Reflection

My plan for this activity was to help plan and initiate my advisory's contribution to the Turkey Program. I wanted to stay organized myself and help others stay organized during the activity. This program also raised ethical questions and helped me realise the ethical implications my actions can have.

During the activity, I helped to plan out and organize a list of what everyone would bring for the dinner. I also bought jello to bring in, but I ended up bring it a day late.

The outcome of this activity was that a lot of food was brought in. A couple small things were missing, but a family will have a nice Thanksgiving dinner to enjoy.

I thought that the Juniors in my advisory worked well together. We took different parts of the responsibility. For example, one kid explained everything to the advisory, I recorded information, other people offered to baked deserts and other brought stuff in. We could definitely lead more activities in the future.

I really hope that this activity benefitted the family who received the dinner. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, food can bring people together, and I hope that this act of service provided the family with love as well as keeping them from being hungry.

I think that I set reasonable goals in this activity. The goals were not too high or too low. If I offer to help with something, I think that I should be able to stay organized enough to follow through with it. I also think it is reasonable to help other people stay organized.

I didn't do as good a job at following through on them, though. While the list I kept helped remind people of what they were assigned to bring and met my goals to help others stay organized, I didn't fulfill my first goal of staying organized, because I failed to bring my food in on the correct day.

On the other hand, I met both of my learning objectives. I did help plan and initiate this activity because of the list. The turkey program helped me to consider the ethical implications I can have. For example, as I mentioned before, is it really fair or right to give one fancy dinner to one family when thousands are in need of simple food? I think that helping this one American family is at least a good start. I mean, at least I helped some people. I also think it is good sometimes to help people in your own country who might need food before you send all your resources to another country. This is a very difficult issue though.

I felt good about this activity I really think it benefited a family and it gave me and my advisory the satisfaction of helping others. The only thing I felt bad about was bring the jello in late. That was a good lesson for the future: Make sure you know the correct date and still try to bring in stuff early.

The Dead Line

One mistake I made with this activity was that I got the dates mixed up, and I ended up bring the jello a day late. Although I had been worried about other people bringing their food in, I should have been more focused on doing my part as well. I guess if I ever do this again, I will bring in food extra early to make sure I don't bring it in late or forget it. Even when I'm one of the people planning and initiating an activity, I have to make sure that I participate in the activity itself.

Learning Objective 7

Consider the Ethical Implications of Your actions

It's the last day of Thanksgiving break and I have had a good week. My family came on Thursday and we had a big dinner, watched TV, went for a walk, it was good. Thinking about my Thanksgiving makes me wonder about the dinner my advisory and I put together. I wonder if that family had a good Thanksgiving. (For my part, I got the pick up day mixed up, so the family didn't get any jello, but more about that in the other post.) I hope they appreciated the rest of the food.

As you sit close around a table enjoying good food, conversation and family, a meal can bring people together in a way nothing else can. I hope that by catering to a family's physical needs my advisory and I also bought love and fellowship to that home. yeah, it sounds ridiculous, but I hope it is also true.

Thanksgiving also reminds me of all the hungry people in the world. I was wondering, is it fair to donate my time and money so that one family can have a nice meal when there are thousands of hungry people who would be happy with any kind of food, no matter how nice or gross? I don't know. Maybe the family we donated food to is really poor, maybe not. This is at least a good issue to think about.

Turkey Program Planning

So far for the Turkey Program, we have made a list of all the foods we need for a Thanksgiving dinner and assigned the foods to everyone in our advisory. I am in charge of keeping the list and reminding everyone of what they should bring.

We have collected a couple of items, but we still need a lot more, so I hope that everyone brings their food tomorrow. So that we can be ready for Tuesday.

This activity is really helping me to realize how hard it can be sometimes to lead an activity. Although we have a good plan for bring the food in, there is no way I can control whether the plan is followed through. I just need to stay organized and remind everyone of their responsibilities.

Turkey Program Goals and Description

The Turkey Program will help families all across Cape Cod. Thanksgiving is an important holiday in my family and I would like to make it special for other families as well. I will help plan and lead the activity as well as contribute food. I am in charge of making sure everyone brings the foods they were assigned. This will be a challenge because although I am in charge(along with the other Juniors in my advisory) of planning what foods we will bring, it is ultimately the responsibility of the other students in my advisory to bring it in. I can plan this activity, but I can't "control" whether or not everyone follows the plan. I think this will personally affect me by making me a better leader through practice. It will also help me to appreciate my thanksgiving dinner more. I am realizing how much planning goes into a Thanksgiving dinner and what a privilege it is to have one.

One goal is for me is to stay organized during the activity. Sometimes I lose track of what I'm supposed to do. I will know that I have reached this goal if I bring in the food and money I agreed to bring. My other goal is to help others stay organized as well. I want to support them by reminding them of what to bring in and if necessary, bring it for them.

Learning Outcome 3

The Juniors in my advisory and I are in charge of this activity, so we have to plan and initiate it. I am in charge of the list of foods everyone has to bring. I have helped to assign the foods to everyone. We are also taking the initiative for this activity. We are expected to lead it and take responsibility for its success or failure.

Learning Outcome 7

I think this Turkey Program will also help me to consider the ethical implication that my actions can have. By simply sharing food with another family, I can show them love and do something good for them. I think that whenever you do a service activity, it could also arouse other ethical issues. For example, is what you are doing really the best way (morally) to spend your time, effort and money? Will your act of service really benifit the people you are trying to help?

This activity will help me to practice leading an activity. I will also learn to value what I have more. Finally, I will get the benefit of feeling good for helping others. This activity will also help a family to have good food to eat and to enjoy their Thanksgiving holiday.

Camp Berea - End of The Activity Reflection

My plan for this activity can be summed up by the three goals I mentioned before.

I planned to experiment with the provided materials and try new things to make art. I hoped that this would help me become more creative. I wanted to learn how to use more materials so that by widening my experience, I would have more options when creating art in the future. And this is what I did. I experimented with string, hemp and marbles while making a monkey's fist. I used duct tape to make shoes, "memory wire" to make bracelets, and painted on slate. I also leaned gimp and rediscovered pipe cleaner animals. After using all these materials at camp, I will remember how they work and be able to use them in new projects. I think it will help me be more creative.

Another part of this goal was to think up three new projects. I ended up making (again) the pipe cleaner animals and also a bandanna hair thing. I didn't meet my goal of three crafts, but I don't feel bad about it. I think this goal was set a little bit high. I also discovered that I learned more about art and new materials by interacting with others. I learned that the campers and sometimes councilors had just as many ideas as I did. We worked together to create duct tape wallets, shoes, and flowers, paintings, a flag, sunglasses and beaded bracelets. By working with them, I was able to help them and also to learn from them. The activities we did were valuable to all of us. It benefited the campers, they ended up with creations they were proud of, and it benefited me, because I learned from them and became for experienced with art.

Because of all of this, I will be open to other people's ideas about art in the future. I will try to continue to learn from them because I learned so much from the kids at camp.

My second goal was to exercise leadership to become a better leader. I was definitely put in a leadership position. During quest, the girl I worked with and I would teach different tables, so it was just me and a bunch of campers. During free time I also had to teach kids how to do projects one on one. I was nervous at first, but it wasn't as hard as I had thought. I interacted with them as an authority figure I guess. They assumed that I was in charge, and I acted like it. They followed instructions and their projects came out well for the most part. I think that this shows that I exercised good leadership; they campers were able to follow my instructions to successfully complete the crafts. This was a valuable learning experience for me. Each quest, I gave better instructions and was a better leader because I strove to prevent mistake I'd made before.

Again, I think this goal was a little bit too high. The monkey's fists were extremely difficult. Many of the campers were unsuccessful not because I gave bad instructions or was a bad leader, but because the project was so difficult. Even so, I kept experimenting and practicing with the monkey's fists and each week, more and more kids were successfully completing them.

Another difficulty was the fact that I often had to teach kids that were the same age as me or older. This was a big "leadership challenge." I overcame this difficulty by treating the Sr. High campers the same way I treated the Jr. High ones. Not belittling them, but I continued to act like an authority, I didn't let them tell me what to do. I also acted confident and in charge. They were very respectful and I enjoyed having them at camp.

This activity taught me that I can be a leader and a teacher. I will use this knowledge to hopefully do more activities like this in the future.

My last and biggest goal was to make a difference in kid's lives. This was really the reason behind everything I did. My plan included acting cheerful even when I was extremely tired, working really hard with kids to complete projects I wasn't told how to do, continuing to practice with the monkey's fists even when they seemed impossible. I wanted to make kid's feel accomplished and confident and I wanted to teach them more about art. This is what I tried to do and I think I was successful. A lot of the time, if a kid came to the craft shop once, he would come again. The campers at the craft shop seemed happy too. I hope that this sense of accomplishment will carry over into the kids' everyday lives. I think that this was a really good goal. It taught me that sometimes, a goal can be difficult, but often the most difficult goals can be the best ones, the ones that have the most impact and make the most difference. I think changing someone's life for the better is worth any amount of effort it takes.

I felt good about this activity. It was a lot of work, but it was also very satisfying. I think I did well. I met most of my goals, even though they were very high. I got to interact with the campers as a teacher and leader, but I also learned a lot from them; they ended up teaching me. I thought the activity was great. It meant a lot to me and was worth all the work because I learned a lot about art and people and life. I think it benefited the campers by giving them a positive experience. I hope that this experience might effect their lives, that it would make them artists and make them feel confident and accomplished. Some of my goals were set too high, but I still think I did a good job with them. I would rather set goals too high than too low. I overcame difficulties in leadership and with craft projects. For example, I was put in charge of high schoolers and I had to teach monkey's fists. I learned a lot from this activity about art. I watched people use different materials such as duct tape, marbles and pipe cleaners and became more experienced in using these materials. This will help me do art in the future and gives me more opportunity for creativity. I learned about people, to take suggestions, that I can learn from the people I'm trying to teach, that I can be a leader and that appearance and organization are important (display case). I also learned about life, that it is so important to stay organized, to set goals high, and that sometimes the hardest things are the most worth it. I also met my learning outcomes. This activity was a new challenge and during it, I undertook many more challenges. Teaching crafts by myself, duct tape shoes and monkey's fists are some examples. I also planned two new crafts, the animals and bandanna hair things, and initiated quests every morning.

This activity not only met my two learning outcomes, but some of the others as well. In this activity, I often had to work together with others, especially the other girl who worked in the craft shop. This was a little bit hard for me, sometimes I just wanted to do everything myself, just to make sure it was done right. This experience reminded me that I really can't do everything myself, there is too much to do, I have to trust others to make good decisions and do a good job. I realized this, and everything went really well. The other craft shop girl and I got along great. We divided up the work, and together I think we did a really good job. I will remember this for the future.

July 24, Duct Tape Shoes

Today was my last day at camp, so I was trying to use the different lessons I have learned to make it the best day.
At the beginning of free time, a boy came up to me and told me he wanted to make shoes out of duct tape. Like the girl who wanted to paint a picture, this was a new idea. Because the painting had worked out so well, I went along with it. The craft shop was well organized, so I was easily able to find duct tape and some scrap pieces of cardboard. This again reinforced the importance of organization for me. I wasn't sure, but I thought the kid was in Sr. High and so were many other kids sitting at the table with us. Because everything went so well during Sr. High week, i wasn't bothered by being in charge of kids older than me. I was still confident and could keep control of the situation. I was able to help the boy making duct tape shoes, teaching him what I knew. Another boy at the table, who had made duct tape shoes before, kept giving us suggestions. Because listening to other people had helped me so much while I was making monkey's fists, I took his suggestions and he usually turned out to be right- it helped me a lot. Like with the pipe cleaner animals, I was working with new materials to create something different. Because the pipe cleaner animals had turned out well, I was confident that the shoes would also. I was also reminded of how important it is for the crafts to be useful. Just like the girls who enjoyed making bracelets during quest because they could wear them, I think the boy who wanted to make duct tape shoes liked the shoes because he could wear them. This is a really important lesson when choosing crafts for kids to do, and I will try to apply it again in the future. Lastly, after we had completed the shoes, I made sure to clean up well and put everything back where it belonged. Organization had proved to be very important again and again.
The shoes also helped me complete my goals and one of my learning objectives. I experimented with new materials, which I hope made me more creative. I think I did a good job leading the camper through the activity, showing him what I knew. The project was very successful; the shoes turned out great. The camper even came back later to thank me and show them to me again he like them so much. I think this also helped the camper feel accomplished and confident and learn more about art. I hope this confidence and knowledge will help him in his everyday life. The shoes were a new challenge, testing me in creativity and leadership. I'd never made duct tape shoes before, and I had to figure it out and teach the craft while being in charge of someone about the same age as me.
I think this whole experience will be very useful to me in the future. Today I discovered that each of the lessons I have learned are really good to know and will continue to help me if I continue to apply them. So, this experience not only reinforced the lesson I had learned before, and completed my goals, but taught me a new lesson: that I should always apply what I learn. In the future I will try to do this.