The process of blogging has been surprisingly helpful, despite my lack of enthusiasm for it in the beginning. It's forced me to take all the thoughts in my head and organize them in a way that's meaningful and useful. Conclusions I'd made but didn't quite know how to articulate, patterns I noticed, and routines I observed have all been given a greater context and meaning because I've had the opportunity to reflect and blog about them!
It's also give me a greater perspective on the variety of challenges teachers might face and how they've had to adapt. I never thought about how much non-school stuff teachers are worried about on top of learning, like whether their students have food to eat at home or if they're living conditions are difficult. I never thought about the challenges of teaching students whose first language isn't English. I knew that there was often a lot of bureaucratic constraints that make teachers lives (and sometimes students, too) more difficult, but to listen to my service learning teacher talk about the differences between the previous administration and the current one was really eye opening.
I'm really grateful for the opportunity to do service learning. I'm such a hands-on and visual learner, and that made doing the work in this class way more meaningful. I tend to have the perspective that online classes are easier and much more low-pressure, and in some respects that still is true, but having the opportunity to get out into the field and get to work has been really great.
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