I have greatly valued my experience as a Peer Educator already this quarter, and we haven’t even started Peer Educating! This class has been an excellent opportunity for me to reconnect with my own leadership style. Leadership is one of those things I remember being super passionate about as a kid, diving into every opportunity to learn more about how to ‘become a leader’ and seeking out chances to take charge. As I aged and naturally fell into more positions of responsibility and command, I feel like I started to take leadership for granted. It became something I just did, rather than a goal I was striving towards, a skill I sought to refine and improve. Becoming a Peer Educator, being challenged each week to think about my inborn leadership tactics and encouraged to explore others that don’t come as naturally, re-awoke that childhood spark. It reminded me that however far I think I’ve come as a leader, I should always remain inquisitive and humble. There is always more for me to learn. Becoming a Peer Educator also was a wonderful step on my journey towards finding community. I don’t think the process of finding community is restricted to your freshman fall quarter of college; I think that everyone, in every stage of their lives, is constantly building and restructuring their communities, old and new. Being from Seattle and having come to UW alongside many of my high school classmates, my community didn’t change all that much in the initial transition from high school to college. However, I definitely felt pressured to branch out and make new friends upon arriving here – as a college freshman, that was what I was ‘supposed’ to do. Since then, I have come to the realization that having community to love and support you is what is important, not at what point they entered your life. Nevertheless, Peer Educators has been a wonderful new source of community for me. I valued getting to know and connect with peers in the Honors Program, preparing for the triumphs and challenges of teaching a classroom full of incoming students alongside them. Peer Educators has expanded my sense of community at UW. I hope to do the same for the students I teach in the fall, giving them one more outlet where they can feel supported and loved. Moving into fall quarter, I hope to continue to grow as a leader and student alike. I hope to improve upon my teaching abilities, employing new strategies while still employing my own signature techniques. I hope to face challenges within my teaching and my own learning with grace and poise, not allowing stress to overwhelm me. I hope to be able to laugh off mistakes instead of dwelling on them, while still taking their lessons to heart. I hope to be both respected and liked by my students: a difficult balance sometimes to strike, but an ideal I strive for nevertheless. I hope to stick to my values, inside the classroom and out. I hope to let my passion shine, to never let the spark that got me started go out. The artifact below is a compilation of all the previous Discussion Posts I wrote each week for Honors Peer Educators. I include these both as a record of my leadership journey this quarter, and as a resource to return to as I pursue my teaching adventure this fall.
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