Week 1 of class
August 25, 2020, at 2:10 pm
Tuesday afternoon was my second day of classes at Howard University. I did not have any classes before my 2:10 class. The previous week I had been trying to figure out what exactly the class, Ideas in Antiquity, would be about. I asked the HU24 Groupme if anyone had that class and only one person answered. They also had no idea what the class would be about. When I got off work on Tuesday, I checked my email to see if the professor had said anything about the class. I made an account on Kallion and Medium as the email had instructed. I read the article about leadership and leadership qualities. When class started, I was still confused about what we would be learning. After talking with the professor and the students, the class started to make more sense. Having my other classmates explain their understanding of the readings made me feel more comfortable because no one knew what to expect from this class. The first discussion was mainly focused on the 5 key points which are: Knowledge, reputation, relationships, behavior, and decisions. People shared their thoughts on the five points and it made me review and think about my own leadership and how I had an impact on other’s life. I took notes on my classmate’s thoughts about leadership and what they thought a good leader would be about so I could go over it for myself. Going over the notes made me think to see if I had these qualities of a good leader. I realized I had a few qualities, however, there were things I could approve on. The discussion helped me realize that I needed to work on certain decisions I made. So far I have been working on those qualities.
August 27, 2020
It was time for my second day of this course. I got off work at 10 in the morning so I went home to do my homework for class. The assignment was to Google the word “portrait” and scroll through the pictures until I saw a picture that caught my attention. Then I was supposed to write down all the details about the picture we chose. Then I was supposed to write about my impression of the person in the picture and keep the main 5 points in mind as I analyzed her. After this, I wrote about what I thought the person might have wanted to accomplish in their life. next, I wrote about what I thought the person would be passionate about in terms of a crisis or a human problem. Then I was to come up with a caption for the portrait. Lastly, I compared and contrasted the person in the picture to myself and answered a few questions. The picture I chouse was of a Middle Eastern woman who seemed to look scared and concerned about her surroundings. When class started, the professor had certain people go over their pictures and go through the steps. A common picture was found and used for the remainder of the class. I described the woman in the picture, it was a portrait that another classmate had chosen, as closed off to the world. I thought she was secretive to protect herself. She also had a fierce look in her eye as if she was an important person and had the ability to be a great leader. Other people said she looked welcoming and ready to go against anything she set her mind to. The class as a whole had different opinions, but we all agreed the look in her eyes was fierce and meant she was meant to do something important.
September 1, 2020, at 2:10 pm
It was the third day of class. When I got off of work I started the assignment for the new week. The assignment was to spend about 20 minutes writing about a person that I know or had observed in history, song, film, or literature who I thought would be extremely good at bringing out the best in other people. Along with that went a few questions. Then I had to read books one and two of the Odyssey, which I had done the day before, and write about what I thought Athena did to bring out the best, or mentor, Telemachus. I also had to answer a few questions about this part. The last part of the assignment was to look at a few passages from the Odyssey and listen to the commentary on it. I had to keep in mind some ideas on how I could be a mentor, or become a better mentor, and what I would look for in a person who would mentor me. In class, we listed some qualities and behaviors of a good leader. A few that we named were: Patience ( willing to answer questions. Spend more time than required answering questions or helping people, and answering the same question multiple times), having a positive attitude (smiling usually, not focused on the negative aspects of life, using positive reinforcements to help the mentee work better, and talking about new opportunities for the mentee to discover.), and letting a person speak ( do not take over the progress, checking the impulse to speak over someone and let them get all of their ideas out, and they will allow the mentee to have space to try and fail before they step in instead of giving the mentee all the right answers.) A random fact I learned was that Kratos meant Dominance or supremacy.
