Midterm Reflection

Reflection #3: Midterm At the beginning of this semester, citizenship was easily defined as one of two things - something you were born with, or something you had to acquire. While everyone starts out with citizenship to somewhere, many people decide that where they are doesn’t suit their needs or beliefs and move elsewhere. This is ample cause for a change in citizenship. Often considered to be a birthright, citizenship is more than just that. It is a privilege, to be accepted into a country as one of their members, to be allowed the full rights and respects of someone living lawfully within specified borders, and the responsibilities that come with said citizenship cannot be overlooked. One of the key responsibilities that a citizen of any realm holds is service to others. Knowing that we would never have made it quite so far unassisted, it is the duty of an active citizen to repay that debt in the form of service to the next generation, or even a previous generation, that is in need of aid. At the very root of service is the idea that one who has assists one who has not, but there is so much more to it than that. How you serve, who you serve, even your mannerisms and ideas going into service have an effect on the people you intend to work with. In my experience, citizenship has always been something to be thankful for and to work hard for. It entitles people to certain privileges that are barred to outsiders, and carries the weight of proper representation when traveling as an outsider. Service has always branched out of citizenship in the sense that it is a natural extension of the cost that privileges incur and the expectations placed upon a representative of a foreign entity. While they have always been two separate ideals, they are highly interrelated to one another and the basis of the one relies heavily on the execution of the other. This whole journey from classroom to reality has had several marked milestones of understanding so far where I’ve uncovered one more layer in my understanding of service or citizenship. As I began this with the general idea of citizenship and service, how they related to one another, and how I thought I perceived them, I wasn’t too sure what I would encounter with this course. When this all started, I saw citizenship much the same as I do now, as a birthright that provides privileges that must not be discounted and require the correct respect due. My views on service have not changed in the sense that I’ve overwritten what I previously believed, rather, my ideas on service have been honed and further elaborated upon. As a proponent of service aspects that build up a community or an individual by teaching and preparing them to do well and succeed on their own, the particular models of service that have been discussed in class resonate well with my current viewpoint. As mentioned in McKnight’s article, the idea of service being provided as a greater party to a lesser is self-defeating. It causes the parties involved to have a preset ideal about their surrounding situations and personal value based upon some combination of factors that may not even be within their control. The idea of creating interdependence of lesser parties upon some greater power undermines the traditional meaning of service, as well as sets up a system where failure to succeed as a single entity is allowable. I think this concept of acceptable failure is time consuming and expensive. Therefore, my stance on how service is administered and the methods in which it should be utilized as an aid to the people has remained constant, though new ideas and methods as to how it could be implemented outside the classroom setting in reality have begun to grow and develop. This leads me to be excited and expectant for the future knowledge I hope to be able to glean from this class.

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