The implementation of my project is going well. My original plan was to tutor students at their school to help make education more important and as my icon suggests from last week’s blog eliminate empty desks. Because I do not have transportation to get these schools, I am not able to carry out my original so I had to make a few adjustments. I am now a tutor working with Homework Clinic on campus. We tutor students Monday through Wednesday from 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm. Homework Clinic is located in the House of Studies. I love it because Homework Clinic helps everybody, tutors and the students. It helps the tutors because we get to help the students with work that their teachers maybe unable to help with at the time and it also provides a quiet environment to do our homework and studying. Sometimes the students finish with their homework early and other times their may be more tutors that particular day then students so we are able to do our own homework. Of course it helps the students by giving them a chance to have one-on-one time with someone so all their questions can be answered.
Tutoring the students is fun but it is hard work. I have to admit that I have a slight fear of not being able to help the students with their homework. As silly as it may seem, I do not want to be asked a question and not know the answer. I know tutors cannot know everything but I just do not want to feel incompetent in a way. It has not happened yet so I am okay. I also want the students to remember me or want to come back to Homework Clinic. I do not want the program just to be a place where the kids come because their parents dropped them off and they do not have a choice. I want to make a difference in their lives. I want to start changing the world.
This class helps with my future goals to become a doctor because it involves me in the community and it gives a chance to think critically about situations. Having us implement plans to try and change the world was good for me because I got a chance to start trying to make a difference and that is very important as a doctor. Implementing these plans helps me think of bigger plans than just to help people who come to the hospital get better but to help the people who are unable to afford quality healthcare. In addition, this class helps me think critically and differently. We have learned so many different criticisms for studying the Bible that it helps change our thinking patterns a little. Even the Bible Mysteries help with my research skills and it helps to make sure that as a doctor, I sort all my information and try to determine what is accurate and what is inaccurate. The Bible Mysteries help with presentation skills too. I have to get my point across in meetings and to my patients and it helps to try to relay these ideas to the people in my class, especially because they have to learn from my presentation because it could be on a test. This makes it more important for me to have not only accurate information, but also the ability to communicate with people. Also of course, because we are studying the Bible and God, it helps with the decisions I have to make in life. What I am willing to risk in my line of work and for what reason and what is expected of me by God are both questions that can and will greatly affect what I choose to do as a doctor and how I choose to do it. I can also better relate to my patients because I know about different religions.
In addition, this class gives my mind a break from structures and equations from Chemistry and Physics classes. This class gives me a chance to discuss my beliefs and have open discussions about the Bible and God. I do not know of any open discussions that can happen on aromatic rings and their reactions. These concepts have been scientifically proven so there are taught to us and that is it. It will greatly help me in my career to be able to take my patients mind off the problem at hand and make them comfortable around me. I can get the patient to talk to me and engage in conversation with me.
Our Blackboard reading says that Feminist criticism tends to be interdisciplinary because it regards disciplinary boundaries as artificial and confining, and it resists the limitations that the use of any single methodology imposes on interpretation. Feminist Criticism analyzes works of literature to determine what the author wants the reader to think about women and what is really happening in the work. The reading that was assigned on Blackboard used the term androcentric to describe the thoughts, ideas, and society that men rule. Feminist Criticism tries to go deeper than the androcentric layer and focus on the women and their thoughts. It also tries to determine why women were willing to be submissive to men instead of rebelling and taking control, or if they did rebel or speak their mind, what made them decide to do it. It is a useful tool because many literary works depict women in one-dimensional roles that and these works are written by men. Especially in biblical times, the women were always submissive and they were characterized by their relationship to men. Women were the wife of this man, or the daughter of that man along with their names, if they had one. Feminist criticism strives to find out who these women were. On the other hand, women were also depicted as disobedient and dangerous. They were blamed for a lot of problems that fell upon the men. Feminist criticism is fairly new but its use in studying the Bible is very significant and useful.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 at 5:02 pm and is filed under Project Progress, Week 06: Related Readings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.