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Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Community Essay
Anja Mayr
Jessica Pisano
Lang 120
18 April 2014
A
Multigenerational Community
Community
means different things to different people.
According to the Oxford Dictionary website, community is defined as: “A group of people living in the same place or
having a particular characteristic in common.” To me, this definition is a
beginning, yet what strengthens a community is often the characteristics we do
not have in common, such as age. For my service-learning experience, I coached
a Girls On The Run team at Sand Hill Elementary School. Working with these elementary
age girls and getting to know them, as well as the other coaches, was an
amazing opportunity. Over the time I’ve
been with the group, though short, I have developed a connection with the girls
and the other coaches. Our group ranges
in age from eight to sixty years old. As
I reflect on my experience, one element of our community seems especially
significant. Within the group of girls,
I saw them look up to me as a role model, to the other coaches as role models,
and the younger ones also looked to the older girls as role models. I was expecting and prepared to be seen as a
role model as were the other coaches yet what I didn’t expect was how much the
younger girls looked up to the older girls and learned from them. Of course, the girls were not the only ones
learning something new every session, I was learning with them. Community thrives when multigenerational
relationships exist and are nourished because it creates an environment where
different generations can learn from one another. Even though being a role model is not always
a conscious decision, it can have significant effects, whether the role model
is nine years old or sixty years old.
In
“The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies,” I found a strong connection
between the ideas and my service learning experience at Girls On The Run. One of the many things we talk about in Girls
On The Run is body image and the negative stereotypes that exist. We talk about how the media is one of the
main culprits and different ways to overcome these stereotypes. There are many
articles that talk about body image and advertising’s negative effects on body
image, but this was the first article I read that mentions the increasing
importance having a variety of strong role models and the profound impact it
can have on girls and their self-esteem.
And, as with Girls on the Run, athleticism also plays a significant role:
When
I see young girls being diminished and harassed by the culture it feels even
more personal to me now. I'm grateful that there's a new generation of female
athletes to inspire and support girls like my daughter, Cassie. That our icons
are no longer just tiny gymnasts, but powerful soccer, softball, and tennis
players, broad-shouldered track stars -- Mia Hamm, Sarah Walden, Serena
Williams, Marion Jones. During a recent visit to a high school, I saw how the
eyes of a 14-year-old athlete shone as she talked about what Marion Jones means
to her, and that fills me with hope. (Bordo)
While benefitting from the positive
behavior powerful female athletic icons, girls are most influenced by ones
closest to us, women, such as our mothers, who can model behavior without being
conscious of how closely they are being observed and ultimately emulated.
For
example a mother may look in the mirror and sigh or talk about how she needs to
loose more weight. Though in the moment
the mother may not think of herself as a role model for her child, her child
still observes her mother’s acts and attitudes and adopts the same expectations
and criticism as her own. During my
community service experience, I noticed similar subconscious interactions
occurring in two different situations. One
day near the beginning of my coaching, I was discussing diet and healthy eating
habits with on of the girls in the in the program. She mentioned she was afraid to eat snacks
because she thought she would get “fat.”
The snacks provided at GOTR are healthy snacks that the girls need to
keep their energy levels up while they are running. I asked her why she thought
she shouldn’t eat a snack and she said, “I’m fat and when my mom thinks she is
fat she sometimes doesn’t eat dinner.”
Though it may be okay for older women to skip meals, it’s not okay for a
growing child to skip meals to try to loose weight. The young girl’s mom never
told her daughter that she looked fat or to skip a meal, but she did set an
unhealthy example for her daughter. Mothers
are role models for their daughters and though sometimes they may not think
about it, mothers should act the way they want their daughters to act in,
especially pertaining to body image and healthy eating.
I also
noticed something similar occurring between the oldest and youngest girls in
Girls On The Run. Some of the girls are four years apart in age, which is a
significant difference in elementary school.
Some of the older girls do not realize they are being observed and that what
they do might be copied by some of the younger girls. Two of the older girls were joking around and
teasing each other in a seemingly innocent way. Even though it seemed harmless,
I asked them to stop because teasing each other is not what Girls On The Run is
about. They complied at first, but a
little while later, out of habit, preceded joking around. A few of the younger
girls observed this teasing and seemed to think it looked fun, so they tried to
joke around with their friends; however they took it a little too far and ended
up hurting each other’s feelings. The
older girls knew the limits to what was okay to joke about and what was not,
but the younger girls did not understand this yet. The younger girls merely saw the older girls
having fun and joking around, so they wanted to try. Though the older girls did not realize they
were being observed as role models, they were.
People often look to anyone as a role model and often younger girls
idolize any female who is even a little older then them. The only requirement for a role model in a
young girls eye is that it is someone they might want to be like when they are
older, usually a chance to try out a new behavior. For these young girls, they saw the older
girls having fun and wanted to do the same, so the older girls became role
models, without even knowing it.
Friere
writes of a similar dilemma:
In
the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who
consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing.
Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology
of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The
teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by
considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence. The
students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic, accept their
ignorance as justifying the teachers existence -- but unlike the slave, they
never discover that they educate the teacher. (Freire)
This is a statement I whole-heartedly
agree with. “The Banking Concept of Education” encourages creativity and
questioning. When teachers and students learn from each other, they are going
against the norm, they are questioning, their learning is more authentic and
valuable. In my opinion, this fear of creativity is a fear of learning. Though this can sometime be a negative
consequence of a community, it can also be positive. Younger girls can look up
to their role models and mimic someone’s positive attributes instead of their
negative ones. Having a
multigenerational community allows for multigenerational learning, the young
can learn from the older and the older can learn from the young. Every generation brings a different perspective
to a community and the more perspectives a community has, the more it
thrives. This season I have learned lessons
from the older coaches and the younger girls.
The younger girls have taught me lessons as well as the older
coaches. In a multigenerational
community there is a lot of give and take when it comes to knowledge and
influence, and that is what makes a community thrive. In Girls On The Run, I did not only coach,
but I also learned how to be a leader of a community, keep young girl’s attention,
and be conscious of the multi-level influences.
I
found Girls On The Run to be an amazing community to be a part of, not only in
the coaching setting, but also in the administration setting. I worked with Amy Renigar on my other
service-learning project. She is an
inspirational and supportive leader and was a role model for me as I developed
my first fundraising event. The Girls on
the Run program gives many girls, and women, the chance to be part of a
community that consciously encourages girls to develop positive body images,
exercise, and intergenerational relationships.
Any community can benefit from a multigenerational community members
because the is helps members see different points of view. I will continue to support and be involved in
the Girls on the Run community --- at every age.
Works Cited
Bordo,
Susan. "The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies." The
Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 Dec.
2013. Web. 19 Apr. 2014. <https://chronicle.com/article/The-Empire-of-Images-in-Our/6115>.
Freire,
Paulo. "Excerpt: Paulo Freire, The Banking Concepts." Writing and
Community Action: A Service-learning Rhetoric and Reader. By Thomas Deans.
New York: Longman, 2003. 69-72. Print.
Research Paper Reflection Essay
Anja Mayr
Jessica Pisano
Lang 120
7 April 2014
Reflection
Essay
When
I began working on my research paper I had a feeling of dread. I hated writing research papers! I have
always found that I write best when I am able to add my own opinion to the
piece of writing. It is also not much
fun to write about something that you have little connection with. I thought that this research paper would
elicit these feelings, even though I was interested in my topic. What I did not expect was that this to be
one of the most challenging papers I have ever had to write, but it was not
because I did not enjoy writing it, rather I cared about it so much that I
wrote multiple drafts and was constantly revising, editing, and thinking of
ways I could make this paper the best that it could be.
The
first step of the research paper is to inquire. I began my inquiry by trying to
find the best search term for my topic.
This seems like a simple task, but it ended up being much more difficult
then I had originally planned. I knew I
wanted my research paper to be something about why Girls On The Run is an
important program and how it positively affects young girls lives. From my experience with Girls On The Run I
knew there were many ways that is was beneficial, but what was the biggest most
important one that could be measured through an experiment? I finally landed on self-esteem. Self-esteem is one of the biggest effects
Girls On The Run had on these girls and it was fairly easy to measure and
physical activity is a big part of how Girls On The Run positively effects
these girls. I finally had a search term
that yielded many results, I used “self-esteem and physical activity and
children.” I found many sources, but a
lot of them were repetitive and some of them I was not able to access. I ended
up finding a the majority of my sources through the library database; it just
took a little digging. I found this step
of the research paper interesting and not too frustrating.
Applying
the research that I found, was by far the most challenging part of the research
paper process, I knew what idea I wanted to support and I knew the research I
found supported it, but I could not figuring how to format the information I
found into a paper. It took a lot of
planning and rewriting, but I finally found a style of organization that
worked. Applying all of my research was
a very tedious process and was the longest parts of the research paper writing
process for me and also the most frustrating.
I often had to cut different paragraphs and paste them in other places
to help the research paper flow. Making
the research paper flow was very challenging because I often ended up just
listing facts and did not connect it very well to the rest of the paper.
Reflecting
on the paper was very beneficial part of the writing process for me. After the peer review I ended up reviewing my
whole paper and finding things that my peer reviewer did not even mention, but
I found would be best to change. I really
benefit from a multiple step writing process. Something that really clicked for
me after my first revision was the conclusion.
I ended concluding with the “I feel…because…I would like you to…”
statement, which is now one of my favorite parts of the essay. After my wring
conference I revised my paper and found that I was so invested in the paper and
wanted to make it the best that I could make it, so I asked for another
revision, which really helped me see problems with some of my writing habits
that should be changed for this paper and in the future.
Usually
communicating my ideas is the hardest part of writing for me, but I felt in
this paper it was pretty easy to do. By
the end of the paper I felt I had successfully conveyed my thoughts and ideas
effectively. I think the format of the
research paper allows for an effective way to communicate ideas.
Overall
this was one of my favorite writing assignments I have completed. Though it was difficult and time consuming I
felt I learned a lot from writing and reflecting on this paper. I discovered some of my writing habits that I
need to break, but also gained some confidence in my writing in other
areas. I feel proud of my research paper
now. I put a great deal of effort into
it and I hope it shows through the paper.
Personal Narrative
Anja Mayr
Professor Pisano
Lang 120
31 January 2014
“I
feel…because…I would like for you to…” this phrase pops into my head every time
I am frustrated with someone. It’s a
simple phrase that can make all of the difference on how you approach someone
when you are frustrated with him or her.
In third grade I started Girls on The Run. I was not into many sports as a child. I loved skiing and swimming, but that was
about it. My mom wanted me to do
something in a team setting and she had heard about Girls On The Run, so she
signed me up. I was a fairly she third
grader especially in larger groups, so I was very nervous about starting this
new activity with a lot of new faces. I
had a few friends who were going to do it as well, but just the idea of a big
group setting made me feel butterflies in my stomach. It turns out Girls On The Run was one of the
things that shaped me into who I am today and pushed me to explore new things,
for instance child development, and health and wellness; which has now led me
back to Girls On The Run,.
Girls On The Run is an afterschool
program that teaches girls not only how to run and exercise, but how to deal
with bullies, how to eat right, the harms of gossiping, and many other life
lessons girls need in 3rd- 5th grade. I don’t remember all of the lessons, but the
overall themes of the lessons have stuck with me throughout middle school, high
school, and now college. In Girls On The
Run one of the lessons we learned was how to talk to someone when you are
frustrated with them. What we learned to
say was the quote from above, “I feel…because…I would like for you to…” This
simple phrase helped me through countless encounters with my friends, my
brother, my parents, and even now my roommate.
When you have these guidelines for how to confront someone about how you
are feeling it makes the actual confrontation much less intimidating and much
more pleasant.
I have talked about how Girls On The Run is
important to me and this is of course part of the reason I wanted to volunteer
with Girls On The Run, but being an alumnus of GOTR is only a small part of the
reason I want to volunteer with them.
Girls On The Run and my Elementary school years were a very important
time in my life. During this time I
found that I love to work with kids, even though at the time I was a child my
self, I found my passion for working with kids through helping the younger
students and seeing them succeed. I
always knew I wanted to do something in the service of others, so I landed on
the pediatric medical field. I went back and forth between many
professions in the pediatric medical field and teaching, but I landed on
Pediatric physical therapy and am almost positive this is the path I am going
to take.
I
started to think about physical therapy my freshman year of high school. I was looking for a volunteer opportunity and
had recently started riding horses. My
grandmother was reading an article about a therapeutic horse back riding center
and like many grandparents do, she cut out the article and gave it to me. Horses are a big part of my life and have
been since I started riding in 8th grade. Riding gave me a hobby, an interest, a sport,
an outlet, and a community. With out
horse back riding I would basically be lost.
When I read about Life Span Therapeutic Horseback Riding Farm I knew it
was meant to be. I began the training on
a crisp October morning in 2009. Therapeutic horseback riding is a form of
therapy that helps people with mental and physical disabilities. Therapeutic horseback riding helps with physical,
emotional, social, cognitive, behavioral and educational skills for people
young and old. I volunteered as a side
walker. Side walkers walk beside the
rider when they are on the horse to make sure they are safely secure on the
horse and if for someone reason they fall you are there to catch them. I worked with one rider named Ben he was a
jumper. He loved to just fall off
because he knew I was there to catch him and he had so much fun doing it. But
over the weeks he learned to also love riding the horse and felt confident
playing games while riding. After about
a month he stopped wanting to “fall” off.
It was a difficult job, but it was also a lot of fun! I worked with kids on a weekly basis and got
to see them progress as the weeks went by.
I found it very interesting how riding on a horse showed kids (who have
never been able to walk before) the motion and pace they needed to be able to
walk and it really worked. With the help
of a physical therapist and trained therapeutic riding instructor they were
able to help kids who were never able to walk before take a few steps with
assistance because they were able to feel the motion on the horse. This is when I started to think about
Physical Therapy as a career path. Girls
On The Run pushed me to see the importance in helping others and how to
interact with people who have had different experiences and abilities then
myself. I was also able to work as a
team with other side walkers and leaders, which aloud a safe riding environment
for both the volunteers and the riders.
My
experiences in Girls On The Run and the lessons I learned through Girls On The
Run brought me back to GOTR as a college student interested in working with
kids and helping them maintain healthy, active, and fun lifestyles. I hope to gain experiences learning about
young girls development both physically and mentally. Though GOTR does not directly relate to
Physical Therapy the experiences I will gain and the general knowledge about
exercise and youth at this age, I believe will be very beneficial in the long
run. I can not wait to start working with the girls and see them learn and grow
from Girls On The Run, just as I did when I was their age.
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