Reflective Essay

I’ve been a learner at Alameda Community Learning Center since the 6th grade. It would be an understatement to say that I learned a lot in the 6 years I spent here. ACLC made me who I am and helped me prepare to be an active participant in this society. This place helped me understand that there will be rough patches in life and that the best way to cope is with a strong community to back you up. If I hadn’t gone to ACLC I don’t know if I would have learned vital skills such as managing my own time or the importance of being inquisitive.
When it comes to my work habits and attitudes I can say without hesitation that I am proud of myself. I have ADHD and have struggled with schoolwork for years. The main cause of my struggle being my lack of “tools” and coping mechanisms. However, as I learned to understand my disability better, I developed better self-management. My gain of a focused and determined attitude really shows itself in my grades and the speed at which I complete assignments. It’s difficult to describe how refreshing it feels to succeed after such a struggle; it’s like a foggy sky fading away to bright blue and you’re so happy that you can’t even remember what grey looked like. I feel immeasurably better about the years to come after high school. I’m ready to pursue a career in the sciences and maybe even in teaching children, especially ones that need help like I did.
English, math and science are what you might call learning basics. At ACLC new learning basics are introduced. Things like listening, participating in democracy, and global awareness are qualities searched for in learners here. I think it’s very important to approach every new thing you learn with a strategy and have confidence. I’m very confident in my knowledge of many different things. I love science because it’s the kind of subject you can apply to everyday life and I love to learn about history and government. I exhibit my skills in the elaborate history posters I illustrate and in my participation in the Alameda County Science and Engineering Fair, during which I was awarded 4th in biological sciences. I also worked a lot with the scientific process at my job at the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum in San Francisco. It was a great experience with lots of opportunities to learn and interpret knew ideas and opinions.
My time here at ACLC has been all about learning how to learn. We even took classes in middle school titled as such. I touched on this earlier but I have developed many skills since 6th grade such as problem solving, making future plans, and utilizing all types of learning techniques. The more skills I learn, the more successful I am. For example, I learned how to be a great problem solver during English ¾ when we did Othello in groups. Many problems arose and if we weren’t creative with our solutions, our play would have been a disaster. I’ve definitely learned how to learn.
Interpersonal abilities have to do with interacting with other people in the community. As an ACLC learner of 6 years, I am all about community. During group projects I always try my best to contribute and be a good member or leader. I’ve been a teacher’s assistant for many different facilitators here and I’ve experienced a lot of opportunities to teach my peers and lower-classmen. I also teach at the USA Kung Fu Studio in Alameda where I lead classes and teach routines on a daily basis. Not to mention my job at the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum where I meet a massive amount of people from diverse and interesting backgrounds. There, I learned customer service skills and how to maintain work relationships and money matters. I consider myself a very hard worker.
At ACLC there’s almost no way to go a semester without becoming a computer/printer fixing genius. I’ve been here 7 years so you could say I’m quite the expert now. Tech is integrated into everything I do; I study on the computer, I check my grades, I take tests, I email facilitators, I edit music and movies I’ve made, all on the laptops at school and my own at home. I help learners out when the printer jams and now, as a TA I’ve learned how to use the very volatile copy machine for very complicated tasks. Like most other problems, sometimes all it takes just a little troubleshooting and a little patience.