Last Day of Community Builders!

It's bittersweet that today was the last day of community builders. The time really went by quickly with those kids. There were definitely some that I became closer to than others. Overall though, I think it was a really positive experience! In terms of how well we did today though, I think we were a little unprepared. We thought that everything was going to take a little longer than it did. So at the end of everything, we were just kind of sitting around, wondering what to do. What happened today was not really reflective of our entire though. Every other week we were always running out of time since we had so much planned and were having a lot of fun. I think that it was a good experience to work with someone who I had never gotten to work with before and really learn to grow with the students. Many times some of the input that the students gave was pretty impressive.

Now, how did this experience end up helping me grow? I think for one, I learned how to go with the flow and not panic when something didn't go right or when everything wasn't exactly planned out. In the end, everything always turned out fine. It wasn't perfect, but we definitely learned from our mistakes. I think the importance of communication was very clear in community builders as well. Matt and I needed to make sure that we were on the same page with each of our responsibilities. Communication was really important in those tight moments when we needed to figure out how to transition or what we needed to do next. Sometimes that communication was verbally talking with one another; most of the time it was using non-verbal communication to convey a message to the other across the room. In the future, communication will be helpful with a team or a group and figuring out how to get something done. However, the use of non-verbal and verbal communication will be more prevalent for a work-place that is fast paced.

An area that I still need to work on in terms of leading people would probably taking some of the responsibility off of my shoulders and letting someone else take charge. A lot of the time that we were in the classroom, I would automatically try and get control of the room and ask for the attention to be on me so that I could explain something. I felt like sometimes had fewer opportunities to speak because of my need to be so controlling. I think that in some opportunities I should have let him take control. However, part of me wonders if through our dynamic, it was alright that I did a lot of the marco duties like getting the students under control and explaining activities while Matt did some of the micro duties like taking care of the materials, making sure that each student had what they wanted, and just maintaining some of the conversations during our activities.

From the top of my head, I really can't think of anything else to add at the moment. I imagine that as I participate in other leadership-driven activities that the importance of working in Community Builders and learning how to my improve my leadership will be more apparent.

Thank you for the opportunity, Community Builder staff! It was truly a blessing!