week 7

this is a great book that i found while doing the service learning project. it is important to promote intellectual health too.

week 7

The service learning is DONE!! This week we went to the school two times and taught five classes. That makes us have a total of about 25 hours at the school not counting the preparing time. Now the next step is to nail down the paper and the presentation.

So what does this mean? It means that I have learned a valuable lesson, that if I have a semester long project that I need to get started on it right away. Because it feels so good that this project is done and it is not due for a few more months. The service-learning project meant a lot to the teachers and to the school. A teacher stopped us after our second to last class and she told us thank you and that our presentation was great. She was just so appreciative for us coming to her class. Also one of the kids said that he was approached by some fifth graders and said that the nurses said that he needed to wash his hands better.

This project will help me prepare for the future. I now know that kids are really dirty and gross. So I will be more prepared for prevent kids spreading germs on me! Also this has really helped me to learn how to teach the kids, I assume that in my future as a nurse I will have to do some patient teaching to some kids; this project has really helped me to learn how children learn and what makes things stick to them.

week 6

This is Beckham promoting health to all those people that don't bathe. It not so hard.

This week was so great! I love my new son, and my new computer. As for WHAT I am learning, well I learned the hard way that I need to read my health promotion book, and keep up with the class. In addition I found out that I hate true/false questions. I always thought that they were good because they gave you a fifty/fifty chance, but no. I think that I lost the most points on that test because of those questions. Also we went to the school again this week for the service-learning project. That is about 12 hours of teaching at the school with two more visits scheduled.

SO WHAT? Well this means that I am almost done with the service-learning project!! That is a big step. I remember at the beginning of the semester I looked at the criteria for this project and cried (in my mind of course). But now it is almost done! This means also that my group and I can start on the paper soon and be done with it all in just a little bit. (Maybe once we finish it all then I wont have to blog about so much?)

NOW WHAT? Well I am slowly seeing the effect that we are having on these kids. This week one of the kids looked up at me with a disclosing tablet in his mouth and said, while drooling pink drool, “Doug, I want to be a nurse just like you.” It was touching and a little funny. But it made me realize that these kids are learning what we are teaching AND they are watching all the things that we do. Before we leave the class we teach the kids that we are promoting health so that they need to take the next step and promote these principles to others. This is so that we can extend the ripple effect and reach the most people possible.

week 5

I got a new computer!!! an imac(so i could be more like Dena), and this is me and Beckham

This week was great. Class really was an eye opener. We watched a film called FAT, and it made me rethink the way that I think about fat people. It really made me think of the effect that I can have just by the way that I treat people. For service learning project we did another 4-hour stent at the school. It went really well. We only have about 4 visits left.

I really am enjoying my service learning experiences. At one time in my life I wanted to become a biology teacher and this service leaning opportunity has enlightened me so that I do not want to be a teacher anymore. The kids that we have met with are unruly and they give me even more confidence with my career choice in nursing. I know that we have made in impact in at least one girls life. Her mother reported to us that after we visited her class and did the demonstration she walked around for three days asking her mom for hand sanitizer and saying often that she needed to go brush her teeth.

The future is what this service-learning project is based on. In the small amount of time that we interact with these kids we most likely will not see the far-reaching arm of our influence. As we leave these kids we instruct them to teach at least two people about what they learned and the demonstration. Through the completion of our service-learning project we will have taught over 400 children. If they truly share it will one to two people the rippling affect could reach over 1,000. So that is now what…preparing these children to make a healthier and better future for themselves and the community.

Nutrition plays a key role in everyone’s life, especially in my life as a future health care worker. It is bound to be one of the things I will run into a lot, so it is important for me to learn the physiological background of being overweight. I thought it was interesting that they said new research suggests that the intestines have a brain of its own. Overall good nutrition is something I will have to apply continually in my life as well as advocate for my future patients.

Round 4!

This is my little baby, Beckham Ray Sommers

By the way he gets more cute everyday!

This week I decided to take the nursing experience to an entire new level. On Wednesday my wife and I went to the hospital to have a baby! I took that time to sharpen my nursing skills and practice on my wife, and she was such a good sport. I put in her IV and her catheter, it was a first for me on both accounts. For the service learning project… we started!!! We went to the first 3 classes of the school, and just 12 more to go. We should have 3 classes a week for the next few weeks. So that is WHAT is going on. And sorry I was not in class, I got some concerned comments from my awesome fans, I was supporting my wife and baby.

For my service learning project we started by going to the elementary school for the first 3 classes that we were to teach. We are doing this to teach the children about disease prevention. I was thinking this last week that if everyone knew a little more about disease prevention then germs would spread slower and a lot of lives would be saved. I can remember and still apply the things that I learned 16 years ago in elementary school about saving water. Hopefully for these kids they remember at least a few of the things that we say to them about asepsis.

That is the entire reason that we are doing this service learning project is so that in the future these kids will be a little more aware of what kind of a difference that they can make in preventing the spread of disease. My classmates and I are enjoying working on this project together, and we are enjoying the children.

As for my future as a nurse, well let’s hope that I will be better at IVs than I was with my wife’s. I really feel like my service learning project is going to help me become a better teacher in the long run. And that is a great thing! And it is also preparing me to work in a health care team in the hospital.