Coming of Age Experience

I have always enjoyed the summer fun program ever since that one year I was in it. It is what I would describe with the word... "fun!" of course. With arts and crafts, dance, sports, and games that are engaging, the summer fun program is the best environment for young kids. However, it was not that much of a "summer fun" during this summer of 2010. It was not a summer fun full of plain old childhood fun. It was a summer filled with responsibility and leadership.

With the few weeks I had of summer left, I spent my time volunteering at a summer fun program. Instead of being the child enrolled to have absolute fun, I was Ms. Junior Leader Traci Sahagun! I wanted to be a junior leader in the first place because of one—I thought my older sister could use a hand in leading a group of second graders because she was a Senior Leader and needed the help. And Two—I assumed that it would have been a great experience with helping to lead a bunch of elementary students. After-all, I will become an elementary teacher when I grow up, so being a junior leader would be good practice. So you see, I was already thinking about my future occupation by doing whatever I could to have as much experience and practice in being the elementary teacher I want to become.

Adults out there have to be responsible, follow the rules, do certain tasks they are suppose to. I got a chance to better myself in all these areas from summer fun. I was responsible because when there was something wrong, I had to make it right, when there was a small fight between kids going on, I had to end it, when there were trouble makes, I had to discipline them. There were many times where this certain kid always did not listen and wanted to do his own thing. He did not stay with his group and he sometimes yelled at other innocent kids. I was responsible by raising my voice and stressing that "that is no the right thing to do""You should never yell at people""You have to stay with the group and not wander off or you will get a time-out". I had to raise my voice many times to let the kids understand what was right and wrong. When someone got hurt with a cut or a hard fall, I immediately gave bandages and/or ice packs. When something went wrong, I had to think right away to know what to do to solve the problem. All these actions show what a responsible "adult" would do.

Just like how a teenager's role is to find and understand there own originality, adults' role is to be a part of the society. I was a member of a society because I was part of the City and County, and Department of Parks and Recreation because I helped lead the kids of the summer fun program. I continued to make the transition to adulthood because of having more responsibilities and being a member of society like an adult.

Being a junior leader at summer fun required a lot of responsibility. I was responsible by helping to solve problems, following the rules, being an example to others, engaging kids to participate, disciplining the kids, and many more. I thought about my future of being an elementary teacher. Because of this volunteer work, I now know some of the things to expect in my job when I am an actual adult. Through this, I practiced a lot of adult work and because of that, my journey to adulthood is getting even closer! :)