Kara Haney
Final Reflection
Even though I know that in reality there is no such thing as perfection, at the beginning of the quarter I felt that – in theory – I had to be a “perfect peer educator.” I had to have all the answers; I had to give brilliant lectures; every word I said had to be perfect, with just the right timing and inflection to make the biggest impact. Even now, I think those were good goals to reach towards because they pushed me to perform better and improve every session. But in the end I wasn’t perfect, and it didn’t matter. Some days I wasn’t as confident as others, and there are sessions that I wish I could re-do with a different format and better activities. But I always cared and tried my best, and that conveyed itself to my students. Many of them told me, both directly and through their assignment work, that Honors 100 has been an important part of their quarter and allowed them to feel connected to a community at the UW, as well as introduced them to the range of resources that are available to them. Despite my imperfections, I was a caring and attentive leader, and any slip-ups did not detract from the overall impact of my work as a PE.
In the future, I want to be more confident and sure of myself in sessions. In doing that I think a lot of the shortcomings I had during this PE experience would figure themselves out. The best sessions I had were the ones where I felt comfortable and didn’t second-guess myself. By the end of this quarter I did become much more self-assured and feel significantly more at ease with my abilities to lead a class and teach content, and through continuing to practice and push myself into leadership positions I think I will succeed in smoothing out any lasting insecurities. Through this, I hope to feel more capable of directing the group dynamic and creating a more lively environment.
Through the various opportunities to reflect and learn through the H397 course, I was able to keep track of my own goals as a PE and assess my experiences in real-time. At the start of the quarter, I outlined three skills I wanted to work on – accountability, communication, and creative problem-solving –and at Brooke’s suggestion I began to keep track after every class of how my progress was going, allowing me to actively reflect on what was working well and what I could improve on. The H397 course itself was great because I was able to get a peek into the kinds of PEs and leaders that my peers were being as well. I got to see how wide a range of experiences we had as PEs, and the kinds of communities we built in our classes. My peers inspired me throughout this whole process, and I learned a lot by being able to interact with them and share our experiences.
If I were to do other student leadership positions in the future, I would want to focus more on community-building, as I think that’s the most important part of the majority of student groups. I struggled with some sessions as a PE finding time (especially over Zoom) to allow students to interact with each other outside of the icebreaker questions I did at the start of each class, and while I think I did a good job I wish I had sacrificed some of the lecture content in favor of more group activities.
Overall, I’m grateful to myself for choosing to go through this experience, because I learned a lot and grew closer to the Honors community through it. As a leader and an educator, I saw significant progress, and what I have learned from these past few quarters are things I know I will carry with me and continue to develop for many years to come.
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