Lesson 1 Topic: What is your current vision of your future self?

Consider the reading on identity. You entered this degree program for a reason
and you have a vision of your future self after the program is complete. What is
that vision? In what ways will your degree transform you? What do you hope to
uncover about yourself as you move through this program?

Date: 8/22/18

Well to begin I must say that this question is quite powerful, and reflecting on it
has some very deep implications. So much so, that I almost wish I had been asked this
well before my senior year. 100 level courses should consider imposing this kind of
reflection. Better yet, this question should be posed yearly in my opinion, as the
answer is bound to change as one learns more about the field, matures, and gains new
and varying perspectives, and those changes in themselves offer insight to growth as
well as perceptions.
Two years ago I would have quickly answered: my current vision of my future
self is working inside of a standard public classroom, secondary education or higher,
balancing both health and wellness curriculum as well as physical education. Today,
my current vision of my future self is far more one-on-one based. Throughout my
educational career, I have a slight shift in what I view and value as my core strengths.
Today, I believe I can offer more on an individual guidance level, from an academic
and career seeking standpoint. As of right now, in this moment (and hasn't wavered for
some time now), my goal is to become an academic and/or career counselor. Therefore
my current vision of my future self now appears as to be balancing administration and
academic duties. Within this role I am still able to fulfill my passions of health and
wellness, my modes of delivery have simply changed. I will find myself focusing on
mental health and wellness more than physical; which I am just as passionate about.
Congruently, much of my studies throughout this degree have tended to lend towards
preparing me for this role. So in many ways, this degree has already transformed me, at
least my mindset as to how I can be the most effective and beneficial teacher, leader,
mentor.

Lesson 3 Topic: Reflect on the definition of global citizenship and the policies you
identified that impact the community you are researching. What moves you?
How can one person impact the lives of many? What do the people you
researched this week have in common? What assumptions did the activists make
about the people they were helping?
Date: 9/5/2018

I spent most of this week thinking about Malala Yousafzai and her impactful
Nobel Peace Prize speech. It’s been a few years now since her story was prevalent in
the news, and personally I had lost touch with the impact of her experience and her
words. This week I was tasked to reflect upon the definition of global citizenship and
posed with the question, ‘what moves me?’ Well to say the least, Malala moves me. I
don't know how there was a dry eye in that room! Do I assume many of the attendees
have more experience hearing these kinds of powerful stories, therefore have thicker
skin and can contain their emotions within more efficiently than I? Part of me worries
that some of those people have heard stories such as this so many times, they have lost
their great initial impact; the shock is gone, they can compartmentalize their grief and
horror, they have become desensitized due to overexposure of such inhumanity.
I remember reading an article a few months back about why it seems as though
school shootings have all but become commonplace in the US. Every single year,
without fail, we now awake to or leave for lunch break to the news of another immense
tragedy inflicted by a confused, hate fueled, misled youth. I just found it again for the
sake of this reflection, entitled, The Psychological Explanation for Why We Become
Desensitized to Mass Shootings, by Kate Morgan (2018) of The Cut online magazine.
Its rather simple psychology applied to her notions. Within the article Morgan refers
to the words Charles Figley, director of the Traumatology Institute and a professor of
social work at Tulane University. She quotes him as saying, “When an event like this
takes place, we ask ourselves, ‘Right now, am I safe? Are my children safe?’ And if the
answer is yes, then we ignore it, or compartmentalize, or get tunnel vision,” (Morgan,
2018). He would argue, it is the human condition, to immediately react to protect loved
ones, and as well to tend to grow numb the more we experience/ learn of tragedy. It is
a subconscious defense mechanism, (Morgan, 2018), one that attempts to bring
homeostasis back to the brain and body. Powerful emotions surge hormones, stress
hormones specially, and can change the chemistry of the brain over time. It is the
body’s attempt to bring logic to the forefront when emotion has consuming our
thoughts.
But this survival mechanism has a major flaw when considering society as a
whole. “Figley says the most obvious downside to desensitization is the lack of
response,” (Morgan, 2018). And I completely agree. We may go home and have
intellectual conversations about the event, teach our children to protect themselves, to
be change agents by not bullying, opening their minds to diversity, etc. But for the
average, their impact ends there. And don't get me wrong, those brief conversations
can have great impact on the developing child mind; we are wired for empathy. Most of
the concept must be taught through example and praise, therefore these conversations
hold great weight and can be just as important to the individual as taking action
community wide. But it doesn't mean our job is done, as Malala would say.
After reading about and watching videos of activists this week, my definition of
global citizenship has become much more streamlined, simple. It simply means
humanity, in its most basic form: humaneness, benevolence, serving a purpose other
than our own, knowing needs can and will be met if everyone does the same.

Morgan, K. (2018). The Psychological Explanation for Why We Become Desensitized to

Mass Shootings. The Cut. Retrieved from https://www.thecut.com/2018/02/stoneman-
shooting-why-we-become-desensitized-to-mass-shootings.html

Lesson 4 Topic: Consider the video about life purpose. Answer the presenter’s
five questions. Who are you? What do you love to do? What is the one thing that
right now you feel supremely qualified to teach other people? Who do you do it
for? What do those people want or need? How do those people change or
transform as a result of what you give them?

Date: 9/12/2018

Who am I? Jessica Anne Batayola

What do you love to do? Organize
What is the one thing that right now you feel supremely qualified to teach other people? How
and where to find the answer to something, anything.
Who do you do it for? Team members (co-workers or friends/family, professional or
personal)
What do those people want or need? Information, answers, examples, resources to further
their understanding/learning
How do those people change or transform as a result of what you give them? Gained skill sets
for future use; confidence.
In the video Adam presents these questions and expects short, often one word
answers. This is fascinating to me, as we are often challenged to define ourselves in
descriptive terms. I can think back to countless exercises throughout school, or at
summer camps, for example, where one is asked to describe them-self in three words.
Or the many times I have seen value in journaling, or any form deep self exploration
that evokes extended descriptions of oneself. Normally I would answer the first
question with a paragraph, unintentionally showcasing the complexity of my mind. An
answer such as:
Who am I? I am a leader, a manager, a student, a partner, a listening ear, an influencer.
I am confident with familiarity, yet ambivalent in large and new settings. I am my greatest
cheerleader and my worst critic. I am an over-thinker, a planner. I am a Leo, strong willed yet
open to perspective. I am a knowledge seeker, a question asker. Like the 20% Adam mentioned,
I am a learner for the joy of it (Leipzig, 2013). I am empathic to a fault, yet wouldn’t want it
any other way.
Yet it is so interesting to see just how this kind of detail can derail the process
of finding one's purpose. Like Leipzig stated, “the unexamined life is not worth living,
but if all you’re doing is examining, you’re not living,” (2013). Has this kind of detail I
have always assumed was helping me find my true purpose actually been a chain of
anchors weighing my instincts down? I am not quite ready to answer that question
except to say that if I think back to the dozens of times I have introduced myself at the
beginning of a new course, I can admit there were two to three years worth of
introductions in which my statement said something along the lines of, ‘my many
passions pull and tug me different directions, challenging my ability to fully recognize
my career path’.
When I first began writing out this reflection I thought it was once again be the
many times I launched into an assignment with a million things to say, struggling to
condense my ideas into relevant, necessary information. Yet after typing out these last
few paragraphs I find myself contemplating his lecture so much I am now lost in my
head and struggling to keep even a remotely linear train of thought. Which is
disturbingly ironic; I just learned the benefit of not overthinking and shouting out the
first real answer that comes to mind, yet have now found myself in a rabbit hole even
Alice would fear more than her own.
So I will change course quickly to distract my thoughts, if I can.
Another notable quote from the lecture that stuck in my mind was, “If you make
other people happy, life teaches us, we will be taken care of too,” (Leipzig, 2013). I
found this line quite impactful as I relate his perspective to my own definition of
global citizenship, shared last week, above in this journal: It simply means humanity, in
its most basic form: humaneness, benevolence, serving a purpose other than our own,
knowing needs can and will be met if everyone does the same. The similarities to his
statement and my own are striking, believing that aiding others comes full circle. So
while I end this reflection a bit disoriented, I leave knowing that I am capable of
profound insight. Now, how to wrangle and implement…
Leipzig, A. (2013). VIDEO. How to know your life purpose in 5 minutes. TEDx Talks.
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVsXO9brK7M

Lesson 7 Topic: Your changing view. What do you know about yourself and your
community that you didn’t know before? How has the new information impacted
you? In what ways has the design process impacted your thinking?

Date: _9/29/2018___

Throughout this course I learned a lot about my community; I strengthened

some preconceived notions as well as came across some hard truths. I originally chose
the local homeless population as the community members I knew I wanted to design
an innovation for because of the amount of time the topic receives in my local media.
Daily there are reports on the subject, all most all of them reflecting the negative
aspects of the lifestyle. Most of what I hear I consume though news radio. And I always
found it ironic that on the same station I would hear these negative reports of crimes,
some of them truly horrendous, such as vandalism, property damage and brutal sexual
assaults committed by the homeless community members, during commercial breaks
of these same reports I would hear advertisements for the organizations that support
this same population.
The dichotomy between the messages was not only jarring but unfortunate. Not
only do these organizations mainly run on public funding, the same public we are
bombarding with horrific news about a small minority of the homeless population, but
I also realized that the end user was most likely not listening and hearing this
information about how to get help. Which had me thinking further…I always hear
about how the public can help to fund these organizations, yet I never hear or see
them advertised to the end user in places that they are likely to see or hear them the
most.
Within this anecdotal decision making described above is where I first really
learned about both my community and myself, at the same time. I learned that I am
capable of making connections to ideas in ways I never quite have before. Never in the
past would I have spent months hearing negative things and then linked them to such
an irony if I hadn't really been focusing in my local community in such a way. Which
tells me about how much goes on around me that is so much deeper and more
complex than the stories reported on the news. I have always taken news reporting
with a grain of salt mind you; I understand the basic psychology behind fear
mongering. But never before had I really payed attention to the fluff, the wrapping, the
packaging per se; the message as a whole when combined with fact, opinion, history,
politics, and even outside advertising.
The design process we learn throughout this course, from the gift-giving
exercise (d.School, 2017), to the inspiration - ideation - implementation flow of human
centered design, was completely new to me and totally pushed me outside my comfort
zone when considering how I usually brainstorm. While I found value in the free
thinking approach to the start of each, it was actually really difficult for me to think of
the kind of crazy, out there ideas that were always destined to be trashed in the end
but were purposeful at getting one's creativity flowing. I felt silly, which I understand
is somewhat normal, but it held me back at first. When reflecting back, I think I was
kind of lazy, creatively speaking, in the ideation part of the gift-giving assignment. I
was really thrown knowing I had to make a prototype in the end, and I completely
limited my creativity knowing I would struggle actually designing a majority of the
ideas I had.
I over thought it, completely, and then pulled back. It actually wasn't until I
read one of my group members post about their concept that I really understood how
the process could have gone so differently. As Cissy described her experience with her
husband and the prototype angel, I really began to understand the significance of the
process. And on that note I must say I learned a lot from my peers this session, more
than any before. So thanks guys.

d.School. (2017). A virtual crash course in design thinking. Hasso Plattner Institute of
Design at Stanford University. Retrieved from https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources-
collections/a-virtual-crash-course-in-design-thinking