Jasmine Postell

Describe a situation you encountered during your community service where you felt things could have been handled more professionally. What about your community service experience do you feel embodied professionalism? (Prompt for 2 additional hours from attending Spelman Pathways “Secure the Bag” workshop)

When I had first attended volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club, we didn’t take the time to introduce ourselves to each. I feel like first encounter are very important and they set the tone for a professional environment. Although during the time I spent at the Boy and Girls club I was able to truly introduce myself to the director while also having them be able to too. During my time at the Boys and Girls club it’s very important to try to stay professional as you are working with kid and what you do impacts them. I have been working with a young girl with her reading, letter, and writing, during this time I have seen other people not be patient nor professional while helping her. However, when it was my time to help her I reminded myself to be patient and stay professional with her because in that moment I am her teacher. As her teacher in that moment she expected me to be understanding and patient with her while she was learning. To be able to stay professional in any situation buts you ahead in the world because a lot of people struggle with that

Provide an example of effective or ineffective communication at your community service.
How did it benefit you or how would you improve it? (Spelman Pathways Prompt for 2 additional hours)

While being at the Boys and Girls Club, I spent a lot of time interacting with the kiddos there. I learned very quickly that I needed to communicate with them differently. An example of ineffective communication that occurred was when I was playing memory with two of the little girls there. While trying to explain to them the rule and why I wasn’t cheating since they felt I was, I could hear my tone changing. I knew that as my tone changed the message that I was trying to get to them wasn’t there and I needed to take a new approach. I learned that it just wasn’t what I was saying it was how as well as how my body language was. An example of effective communication was when I was helping a little girl with her homework. I automatically realized that she wasn’t try to do her homework so we began to communicate with each other on how we were going to get this done. During this time I payed attention to not only what I was saying but how I was saying it as well as my body language when talking to her. In this moment I realized that she was going based off of me, so the fact that I was communicating my excitement to her to do homework it made her just as excited. To be able to learn how to communicate with different people is very important. It gives you an opportunity to not just walk in your shoes to reflect in others people’s shoes as you communicate to them.