Karen Fuentes

Topic: Health and Disease

Issue: How safe and regulated are schools for the well-being of kids and teens.

When our teams were being chosen I was in the lookout for other classmates as I knew I could benefit from
working with while stepping out of my comfort zone and approaching other people from different friend groups as
they may have skills that I lack, however, I ended up teaming up with my two best friends whom I’ve known for
years, this isn’t the first time we’ve worked together, so I knew what to expect and recognized each of our
strengths and weaknesses.

I was eager to start working as soon as possible to develop a great outcome, we went through lots of ideas,
however, none of them seemed to interest us enough, and for the ones that did we had a very hard time coming
up with a good social experiment, so we moved on to another idea. I now realize we weren't thinking broadly
enough because we always chose health-related issues. By the time we had a month left for the due date me
and my friends had a conflict, so I thought I would end up doing all of the work by myself, I created a survey, went
outside to record but people weren't willing to participate, so I went back home sad and defeated.

Stressed out by my failure at time management and the lack of communication in my group I finally left my pride
aside and asked for help. My friends were enthusiastic about the idea and we all went to work, weeks later
Stephanie and her sister managed to gather over 80 worldwide surveys and Sofia, who is very social, reached
out to her friends and asked for help with some videos. From this, I learned that it is okay to ask for help when
needed and communication is key to make things work.

For my personal contribution I came up with the idea on a topic that interests us all, I went to record the social
experiment right away and was in charge of the website, I also took on the leader role on my group and told my
friends the expected results and tasks we had to complete to get it right.

I had very high expectation for the social experiment but ended up disappointed with the outcome, as it became
twisted, was unclear and only showcased one very small portion of the message we wanted to transmit, this
could have been improved with more planning time and development of a better strategy, however, it was hard
since on winter break we were all traveling on different weeks and the chances to meet up were slim to none. On
the other hand, the amount of different perspectives we had from all over the world on the survey is something
that continues to amaze me, I had lots of fun while reading so many other student’s struggles and the effects
school has on their health, as I could even relate to some on a personal level.

While developing the website I made a lot of research and learned how kid’s in Tanzania have to walk miles and
miles facing harmful and unhealthy conditions to get an education, and they don't even have access to clean
water at schools, while American and Chinese students are overwhelmed with long school hours, pressure and
stress. I also learned a lot about things I do in my daily life at school that were affecting my health without me
even knowing like sitting all day and stressing too much, I am now practicing meditation to calm myself on
stressful times because a study in Bali showed students were benefited mentally and physically from this. I was
also amazed when I found Colombia’s Ministry of Health had a whole paper written on this topic when I thought it
was something not many people paid attention to.

Meanwhile working on this project I’ve learned a lot about teamwork and communication, things I didn't know
about my life-long friends, about my role as a team player and even discovered some of my strengths and
weaknesses while in the process, for example, I never thought people considered me a leader until now, and
even though I thought my time management skills were good and tried to start as soon as possible I found myself
procrastinating a lot, thinking about how I was afraid I wouldn't meet my own expectations and didn't want to face
the issue. I was able to put myself on other person’s shoes across the world and became deeply humbled and
grateful as I started to realize other kids around the world and even in my own country face issues I never even
realized were never a problem for me and found myself in such a lucky and privileged position I didn't even know
I had until now.

Word Count: 821

Karen Fuentes

King, K. (2020). What’s So Bad About a 10-Mile Walk to School? Two views of educational challenges in South
Africa - Harvard Law Today. Retrieved 5 January 2020, from https://today.law.harvard.edu/whats-so-bad-about-
a-10-mile-walk-to-school-two-views-of-educational-challenges-in-south-africa/

Lawson. (2018). Teaching TM in the Schools of Bali [Video]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LweSPslIV2U