One thing about this program, they love their end of the year action summaries.

How well do you feel you did this semester?

What did you learn from the class? From your fellow students?

How will this impact your studies and your work in your profession?

or, in the case of this paper:

Students will provide a two page final summary of self-reflection, learning, and action inclusive of

• Evaluation of the students’ own effort, attendance, participation and engagement.
• Reflection on the class and student’s own learning process and outcome from class presentations, discussions, readings, and assignments.
• Student’s insights to ways in which the learning outcomes will be applied to student’s current personal/professional leadership roles and lives.

 

Please note that grades given for this assignment will incorporate class participation, class attendance, and reflection summary paper.

Great. I just love the fact that I have to discuss the fact that I was a sloppy hot mess this semester and have no idea what was said in half the class meetings.

I could have approached this one of two ways:

1. I could have put my rhetoric degree to good use and lied my fucking ass off. I could have spun a beautiful tale about how I am now a better leader because I learned 20 new leadership frames and models, and because I was 100% invested in the class. I could have written poetry about how the class, and the learning outcomes have made me a more take charge person at work who appreciates diversity, acts as a change agent, and is a strong critical thinker.

or

2. I could have been honest, admitted that I was a shit student this semester because I let a while lot of personal stuff get in the way, and talked about the two, maybe three classes I paid attention to and how hard I worked on the papers and assignments so as not to let my group members down.

Door number 1 would have been more fun. I have not had the chance to do much creative writing lately….even this little free writing space has become more of a dark and twisty spiral of my inner thoughts…..not very creative.

Door number 2 is real though.

I of course went with door number 2. I was honest that I was a bit distracted during class, but that I did put in the time and effort in regards to the assignments. That part was at least the truth. I have been working my butt off on the case study work, and I am actually quite proud of the work we did in that arena. Of course, the fact that we will be presenting that to the president of the college, and working on getting it published was a strong motivator. I was honest about how there were a few of the books that were presented this semester that I could use, and how I learned from the ones that I didn’t like.

The last part was challenging. I had to connect the learning outcomes to my job. Right now, my job requires me to dust shelves and read call numbers….not exactly the place to practice being a change agent (don’t get me wrong, I would burn that place to ground and start over to make it more effective if I could. I just don’t plan to stick around beyond August, so I am not going to stir the pot right now). The other thing that I was very honest about was the fact that it is hard to promote diversity seeing as our class is not always the most accepting of diverse opinions. This is something I will probably get smacked for later on, but I feel like it had to be said. If we are going to become great leaders, we shouldn’t pick and choose our words so we aren’t labeled as a racist. I’ve already been labeled a racist twice in this program, and considering I am only vaguely racist when the humor fits, I am not really content with the label.

Last time I wrote an action summary for this professor, I got an 8/10. Apparently I my writing was not that good…..or my participation sucked. I wrote more of a door number 1 option last time…..God help me for the grade honesty will get me.