The assignment should include your beliefs, thoughts, experiences and personal observation as it relates to the following questions: What type of school did you attend, public, private, boarding, homeschool, Etc. Describe either a difficult School experience or a positive School experience, and explain how that experience impacted you. How will those experiences influence your work with teachers, Children, and Families within a school setting? * a difficult setting- in elementary school my brothers and sisters and I qualified for free lunch due to extreme poverty. When we lined up to go to the cafeteria the teachers asked all of the free lunch kits to step forward to give them a coupon. It was incredibly embarrassing and I was teased by the other kids for being poor. I stopped eating lunch at school due to the harassment of other kids and the embarrassment. This lead to severe malnutrition. Who were the key individuals in school who made a significant impact on you? Describe the person’s role within the school, teacher, principal, social worker. What was the impact? How will your experience with those individuals affect you in your current work in or with schools? * the school social worker realized that I was not eating and sent me home with a box of Cheerios every week. She didn’t embarrass me, or try to make me eat school lunch. She just help me out the best she can. That’s probably why I’ve become a social worker today. Describe any experiences of inclusion or exclusion that you experienced in school related to your socioeconomic, cultural or ethnic background, your physical appearance, physical or learning disability, or other factors. How did that influence your experience of school? How will those experiences influence your work with teachers, Children, and Families within a school setting? * extreme poverty, lack of supervision lead to my inability to go on school field trips because I was unable to pay. I was also never able to play sports because my mother would not drop me off or pick me up. At that time the school system did not have truancy officers. If my mother slept in and couldn’t help us get to school on time we just didn’t go.
