Hi everyone it’s me again and I want to share. I’d like to go back in time a little bit to before I started this course and how excited I was to finally have taken steps towards a life-changing goal. I have to say the excitement is the same which truly surprises me as my past behavior has been to get involved and have it fade as time passed. I have learned so much and there is so much more for me to learn that I look forward to every day I get the chance to go on this adventure as that truly is what this is.
A chance for an education
I thought I knew what to expect in my mind coming in, I wasn’t positive how schooling was going to be but I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the core material. Well that was underestimated on my part, not that I thought it would be easy, there is far more to this than even book knowledge could ever get you. I feel like I have just scratched the surface.
For instance – Marginalized Youth and the amount of care and recognition the issue receives. I find it somewhat discomforting to know how much is available to troubled teens. There are resources that are available but I don’t feel like we, as society, are doing nearly enough. These children are the future of our nation’s survival why would people want to give up on them. I for one, will not give up and I know as this course continues I will learn at least one reason every single class as to why they are worth our time. It doesn’t matter what topic our class is working on I know it immediately involves our future and our future immediately involves our children.
I could go on about this for quite some time because we have to understand how much they need our help and our help can be something as simple as an ear to speak into. It could mean something so minor as a small amount of our time. I know, people say they don’t have time because they are building their own futures and lives. I say this will be working on your future because we need them for our future and I can’t say that enough. Where will we be without them? We can spare some time, an ear, some change and a chance for an education, we can spare these things quite easily when we know what is to be gained at least I know I can.
Integrated Practice Education experience
I want to touch on my Integrated Practice Education (IPE) experience. As I have said before I really was struggling with my confidence. I think this may be because I had so much confidence going in. The IPE portion of this course overall has provided me with some genuine questions within myself and has shown me so much about myself I thought I knew. It truly is amazing how much experience I lack.
Being an alcoholic that has been sober for 15 years I almost thought I had an edge on everyone. I mean really, what could they know that I don’t right? Let me say, A LOT. A couple of my classmates have been sober for 2 years but they have spent so much time within programs and volunteering that I know nothing compared to them. I learn this from my IPEs and the discussions our class has developed the day after IPE. So much I have learned just from my classmates I was wondering if I even knew what I was talking about. I regret that I haven’t spent more time volunteering but from IPEs I have been understanding the field I am getting into louder and clearer each day.
My only wish was that the IPEs last at each location a bit longer than 8 weeks. I would like to be at each one for 16 weeks as I find at week 5 I was starting to make connections with clients and then I was moving at week 8. It seemed like a lot of work just to start all over again but that is the nature of this field, people and environments change often. This again is reminding me that I have so much to learn about and the best thing is I find that I want to learn about it. I am excited to learn about it and I am so much looking forward to the chance to be involved, in fact, I already am involved. Thanks for reading everyone I’ll talk to you all again soon.
