For my first artifact as a second year member of Mount Leadership Society, I decided to include an image of what I see myself doing in the next 3 years or so. Last school year my major was Early Childhood Education. Over the summer I learned more and I grew as a person, and in turn I decided that the field of education was not the right fit for me. Although, I knew I still wanted to help people. I came upon speech pathology, and all of my research led me to love the career more and more. I can’t wait to see what the future holds including internships and shadowing other speech pathologists in the area.

For my second artifact, I have chosen to use a picture of a trip I went on my junior year of high school. Out of everyone taking French in my school, only twelve people were selected to go on the two week trip to France. I was fortunate enough to be selected, and the experience was one I will never forget. Half of the time we spent in Paris, and during this time we lived in our host families’ apartments. I shared a room with a girl my age, and the fact that her entire family only knew little English was definitely a challenge to overcome. During this trip my classmates and I were also graded on speaking French. We were instructed to only speak French- the whole entire time! Even if we were just talking to each other, we had to converse in French. I believe this artifact is meaningful, because I definitely grew as a person throughout these two weeks. Not only did my French improve, but I had to learn how to overcome challenges as well as take on big responsibilities. I was living on my own in the host family’s house, and when we were in hotels, we were also on our own. The experience was unforgettable, and no doubt prepared me for adulthood.

My artifact is a picture of one of my campers and I. This past summer, I worked as a camp counselor for the five year olds at my temple, Solon Chabad. It was such a meaningful experience, because I was able to experience working with young children, which is my main academic interest. I am planning on majoring in early childhood education, because I want to spend my life building relationships and impacting young children’s lives. In the summer, I was able to get a feel for doing so, and the outcome was more than inspiring. I gained a love for the children I looked after for eight weeks, and I had a desire to teach them how to be the best people they could be. Throughout my experience, I learned that disciplining young children is not a simple task. While many teachers believe punishment is the right way to discipline a child, it is not necessarily the best way in approaching the situation. I’ve learned that the best way to discipline a child is through Conscious discipline. Conscious discipline is a shift from an obedient model of discipline, to a relationship-based model of discipline, which will have a more positive outcome on the students’ school experience as well as the teacher’s. I would love to become a preschool teacher in order to integrate this method into the classroom.