Reflection: Teachers

When I walked in to my first day at the Health Systems Academy, there were several funny jokes and lessons taught by all of the teachers. I knew from the very first day that God put me there for a reason. The Academy would not be the same, had there been different teachers than all of the teachers I have had this and last year. I've had a chance to have a class with all of them. They are what brought this academy to home plate, and what will continue to drive it for years to come. They are always on you about being responsible, they teach you everything you need to know. I am closer with these 7 teachers than I have ever been with any other teacher I have ever had. Allen, Cherry, Collins, Fleming, Smith, Spilker, and Swanigan. You all have been the best teachers I have ever had and probably ever will have. This great group always has been and always will be there for me. They taught me this final skill for success that I will take with me forever, "Personally and Professionally responsible individuals take responsibility for their own physical, emotional, and social well being." They all have taught me to be responsible. When I walked into the academy for the first time I didnt know what to expect. Its been 2 years since that day, and I have enjoyed the ride and also the things I will take away from it. I will never forget the things you all taught me. Thank you.

Reflection: Guest Speakers

This year, wednesdays at the academy have been a little different. There have been many things we have done at the beginning, such as promoting, volunteering, and just helping out. Also, working on this project! ;) But one thing that has really stuck out to me has been when there has been a guest speaker. Every time a speaker comes, there is usually something very interesting to listen to. The last speaker we had was an ALS patient, or Lou Gehrig's disease patient. This disease is deadly, and has traumatized families for many years. There is a walk coming up, a fundraising and benefit walk. These guest speakers from the company have influenced me to want to help out, even though I dont know anyone with ALS. These speakers have such a powerful message to convey, and I am very thankful that god put every single one of them on this earth. The 21st century skill that has been learned through our guest speakers is "Active, responsible citizens are well informed and apply knowledge and skills to improve the quality of their lives and community." I want to be a speaker for one of these organizations some day, just as a side job or something, because I think what they do is so powerful, and I want to be able to apply the knowledge Ive learned from experiences to things I will do in the future, and therefore improving the community.

Reflection: Professionalism

In Health Systems Orientation, the first unit we dove into was Professionalism. It was a very hard unit to start learning about, especially the way it was taught. It was more like a self taught unit, which was how it was supposed to be. We were asked to do a pamphlet, called "What is Professionalism?" and boy, that was a challenge. We all had trouble. By the end of this problematic unit, though, we all walked away just a tad bit more professional. It was a very enjoyable unit, and really got me thinking, that in all years past, the teacher has laid out all the materials, information, and guidelines for me. In this unit, Mr. Allen says, "Create a Pamphlet on Professionalism. Go." and that was it. There were many options in creating this pamphlet, and that was a very good way to develop our professional skills. Making decisions is part of the real world, and we really had to do that here. I've attatched the Pamphlet I created in my Links list to the right! The 21st Century skill we learned through this was "Knowledgable individuals understand content necessary to be successful in a variety of endeavors." Professionalism is a skill we will all need sometime in the near future, at college, a job, or even just when talking to professionals. This unit really helped us develop that skill.

Reflection: English Class

One of my favorite classes, ironically for me, the past two years has been English. I used to have a very large despise for English, until I got to the academy. The first year english brought us all close. We all worked together to become the leaders we have become. It makes sense that we all love each other so much. We've had class together for 2 years. I've attached a Power Point from this year's english class, called "Ibsen's Life". It is a very good example of our teamwork and leadership together. Last year Ms. Collins taught us about love, caring about others, and being a trustworthy person. This year, Mrs. Swanigan has taught us about the value of hard work, responsibility and passion in what you do, all at the same time teaching us about english. Those are some wonderful teachers, if you ask me. The twenty first century skill I have gained from English class is " Individual leaders have a strong sense of vision, have passion, and are able to inspire commitment. " If there is one thing I got out of english, that is it. We have learned much about having a strong sense of vision for your future. If I could go back, I definitely would not take English at the home high school, because I can guarantee you that there they don't teach you about real world skills that I have been taught here.

Reflection: Senior Year at the Academy

As seniors, I really believe that we have come a long way from 3 years ago, even last year! There was a lot of growing up to do once we began the academy, and if one sole attribute about myself has increased, I would have to say it would've been my leadership. There are so many things about the academy that in your first year just causes you to break out of your shell. I knew every single person in every single one of my classes, and talked to them every day, had normal conversations with them. This class has been the best class to spend the past couple years with, and I couldn't have asked for a better experience with them. We all have transformed into leaders and can use our experiences here to move on to college and have an even greater experience there. This experience with my class has led me to believe we aligned with the 21st century skill, "Personally and Responsible individuals take responsibility for their own physical, intellectual, emotional and social well-being." Our experiences here will carry us into the college and real worlds! It really makes sense that we have been called "The Best Class in quite a few years." :)

Reflection: CBL

Our CBL wednesdays turned out to be something I had no idea they would be, but I still enjoy them very much! Last year was much different than this year, last year we went to different groups and teachers and worked on different things. One thing, in particular, I am proud of. On our first CBL of last year, my group and I had to think of a community project to help out HOSA. We decided to go to both schools, Monarchs and Titans, and set up a HOSA booth to inform people about the group. We had really great results! We recruited so many people that Papillion South High School actually started their own HOSA group up, so they wouldn't have to come to the hospital. This final product made my group and I very happy. This goes with a 21st Century Skill, "Quality producers create products and performances that reflect high standards." This really describes our time in Ms. Smith's CBL group, because we all came out with a good experience, and a good turnout. This year, we volunteered at places! My group went to the Heartland Hope Mission, and had a good turnout there as well. Overall, CBL has been a great experience that is a part has made the Academy what it is.

Reflection: Rotations

My rotations experience has had its ups and its downs. I do believe, though, that I have become smarter, more aware, and more experienced through these rotations. Certain rotations taught me certain things, like Med Surge taught me to be patient with people as they are crippled in any one area, and cannot function the same way as me. It also gave me CNA experience which I'm grateful for, because it showed me that being a CNA or nurse is not something I want to do later in life. I gained many positive attributes from Rotations and as always have remained a hard working individual. "Information processors access and analyze information from a variety of sources for different purposes" is a 21st Century Skill that has been learned from these rotations. A time before, I started with a patient in ER, went with them to Diagnostics, into surgery, and up to med surge. All of these places gave me information that was a big jumbled mess to me at first, but soon as I visited the next place the previous information I recieved made perfect sense. The ability to analyze this information is going to be a good skill to have, because Doctors are one of the prime users of this skill. They will look at everything that the patient has on record, to decide what kind of treatment to use. Overall, I will walk away from this knowing much more than before. Rotations were a great experience here at the academy.

Reflection: CNA experiences

In everyone's first year at the Health Systems Academy, they must take a class called Certified Nursing Assistant. This is a very good opportunity, because usually this is a paid college class. Last year, I indeed took that class. There were some good experiences with it, and there were some bad ones. It did help me develop two 21st century skills, though, and that was a positive of the whole thing. I do specifically remember one situation, that opened my eyes to being responsible. One day, before going off to Papillion Manor for my 4th clinical rotation there, I checked to make sure I had everything. Yes, I did. I got to Papillion Manor, and for some reason, my badge was missing, and Mrs. Leaders wouldnt let me go into the home, because every single one of those residents has a right to know who I am, and thats exactly why I have a name tag. This really showed me that I need to be more responsible, otherwise I will absolutely not get the same experiences as everyone else would. Plus, being irresponsible is just plain rude. I do not have an artifact for this section, plainly because most of my experiences were real life experiences, and not digital copies or written essays. The most positive experience I did have from my CNA class was getting to meet one of the greatest nurses and teachers that I probably will ever meet, Mrs. Leaders. Near the end of the year the CNA program was going down hill, and I neednt say why. Nonetheless, Mrs. Leaders swooped in OUT OF RETIREMENT and with a month and a half left of the year turned the whole program around by helping us with skills and knowlege that would prepare us for our State test. I want to thank her for all she has done for us, she has been just fabulous. The two 21st century skills I have taken away from this are "Effective communicators apply their reading, speaking, writing, and listening skills to communicate effectively" and secondly "Critical thinkers and problem solvers assess the situation, gather important information, and develop relevant, effective alternatives to reach a solution." I used the first one a lot at the end to communicate with Mrs. Leaders that I was not understanding what was going on for awhile. This effective communication between her and I lead to us meeting after school in the CNA room and her re-teaching me any skill I needed re taught. Second, I used the second one with all of my classmates at Papillion Manor. We were kind of able to go on our own sometimes and we would stick together and help eachother out in trouble situations. These skills developed will help us in college, and also later in life. The CNA experience will be something I will never forget.

Reflection: Cultural Research Project

Here was another part of the cultural unit that I, myself, really enjoyed. We picked a partner and were told to pick somewhere that we considered "culturally different from us". Kelsy and I chose Hawaii, and made a research project out of it. We were informed we needed to present our information, also to present a script to Mr. Allen, and that's exactly what we did. The attatched link in my links list, "Cultural Script" is the artifact I chose to go with this, because it is the exact script Kelsy and I turned into Mr. Allen. This part of the unit really forced us to get into another culture and make sure we knew basically all about it, so much we could teach someone about it and they would walk away a smarter individual. This one really also relates to two of the 21st century skills for success. The first one being "Collaborative individuals value teamwork and the results achieved from multiple viewpoints and talents working together toward a common purpose." and the second one being "Active, responsible citizens are well informed and apply knowledge and skills to improve the quality of their lives and communities." The first one really relates to this, because working with someone else usually isnt my thing at all. I usually like getting things done my way, fast. This forced me to break out of that shell and allow other viewpoints to sort of guide me and help my project to turn out better than it would've. It relates to the second one because we became active, and responsible enough to read about things we may encounter in life that need to be addressed. It really makes sense that these projects help us improve the quality of the community's lives because there may be people in that community that are different than others, and they deserve a chance, too. That is what this part taught me.

Reflection: Learning about Cultural Differences

Last year, in a class called Health Systems Orientation, we learned a variety of things. These things were all things I could have used in this project, had there not been requirements of using other classes as well. There was just so much that we learned, that I still remember to this day. Mr. Allen taught us a lot about tech-savy type of things, like websites, such as Delicious.com, which I still use, by the way! This one in particular was amazing to learn about: becoming culturally competent. This means being aware of what goes on around you, making sure you are considerate of all cultures, and being able to understand why certain people act in certain ways. This is going to take us very far in the medical field, because there may be a lot of patients that actually are from different cultural settings that are different from a typical U.S.A home. There are two 21st century skills that will go hand in hand with this unit of H.S.O., and those are "Knowledgeable individuals understand content necessary to be successful in a variety of endeavors.", and "Self-directed learners take the initiative to actively and independently inquire and apply learning to new and different situations." The first one relates to this unit because this unit definitely gave us all content that was necessary to be successful in a variety of Medical endeavors, which is always a plus for any of us. Second, we were taught in this class to become independent, and learn basically on our own. We were able to apply this learning to when we went on our clinicals at the nursing home at the end of the year. The cultures of some of the residents were different than our own. This unit definitely taught us great things, and I will continue to use those great things in my life. I've attached an artifact to my links list, called "Culture Reflection", which is an exploitation of exactly what we did in this unit.