Sticky Situations

Hey all. Well I thought that the discussion we had to go with some possible scenarios was great. Not the situations, but what we came up with on how to handle them. I think that it's very important to not single our students out, or to treat them differently, no matter the case. Whether it be at a party or in the classroom where a crush my be involved, we need to not loose sight of who we are as people and not judge them.

Last semester when I was a FHP co-leader, there were a couple times that the subject of religions was brought up. It was slightly uncomfortable because I wanted to state my views on the matter at hand, but it wasn't my place. The first time it wasn't much of a big deal and pretty much dropped after just a couple of minutes. Another time there was a rather long discussion about several of their different viewpoints and many of us found out that one of the students was Jewish. None of it was negative, it was just casual conversation, and I think all of us were curious.

I found as the semester progressed that how my co-leader and myself acted toward situations/ how we handled them, is often how our students tended to look and react to them as well. It was sort of a wake-up call to me, just making me realize how much of an influence I had in those freshmen's lives. They looked up to me not only as an older student, but as a role model. Just keeping that in mind made it easier I think to make good decisions and to think more about my actions and how they could be portrayed by others. When we get into sticky situations next semester (it's the inevitable) we just need to take a step back and think about how we will react to it. If we stay calm and collected, it will often influence those around us to be the same. How "bad" a situation is all depends on how we decide to handle it.