Week 10- Finally Some Service Learning Hours!

What?

We completed the volunteer/teaching portion of our service learning project! It is an amazing feeling to be done with it! I have worried about it all semester. It was not as bad as I thought it would be. We taught several classes at American Fork High School about nutrition and reading nutrition labels.I thought that the students would be very difficult and that we would not have enough activities/lecture to fill the entire 80 minute blocks of the classes we taught.

We learned about essential oils in class this week. I have thought about getting some to help me relax but I didn't just want to buy some at a big retailer because I was pretty sure that those oils would not be as effective. I was surprised at how many oils there are and how many things they can do.


So What?

I think I learned a lot about myself during this teaching experience. I learned that I am not as shy as I thought I was. Speaking in public is really getting easier for me and I think that's because I have to force myself to do it all the time in my classes. I also learned a lot of organizational skills necessary for preparing lessons and activities for learning activities. It is definitely a lot of work and I gained a lot of respect for my teachers.

I learned that maybe essential oils are not for me. I have always been very sensitive to smells. Strong smells in particular give me very bad headaches. After being around the essential oils in class I learned that I might get headaches, not relaxation from using essential oils.

Now What?

Now all we have to do is finish up our project by putting together our presentation for class and writing our paper. I really do feel like the hardest part of this semester is over. I also believe that now I can be more confident in my abilities to present information in front of large crowds. The beginning of this project was a nightmare but now I am actually glad that I had to do it. I feel like I have grown a lot and learned a lot about myself by doing service learning at American Fork high school.

Since I don't believe the essential oils will work for me, I will have to find other ways to relax. I hope that when I do find a way to relax I will have far fewer headaches. Maybe I should start doing something like yoga. My parents did that for a while and they seemed to really like it.

Only 1 more month to go until 2nd semester is over! Only 1 more year until we're all registered nurses!