Baltimore, Maryland
Teacher: George Kropp
By Zach Blake
11th grade
Calvert
Hall College High School
Baltimore, Maryland
Teacher:
George Kropp
By Zach Blake
11th grade
By definition community is a social group
of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and
often have a common cultural and historical heritage.
Many times when one thinks of community, they think of family, school,
church, etc. Basically, community
seems to be any type of social connection between people with similar interests.
Although this is fine and well, there is a different sense of community
for every single person. Some may
value certain social connections over others, or feel better connected to
certain groups of people. Although
there are many different ways to find community among others, I embrace
community because of the values it teaches me.
I feel the best sense of community when my teammates and I train in the
off-season for football.
Various communities that I belong to exist in
the worldly, nationally, and local levels.
Worldly, I belong to a group that everyone belongs to.
This group is the human. Every
single person belongs to this group, and it provides us with a natural social
feeling towards others. As humans,
we are social, and desire to be loved and treated with respect.
This sets the grounds for other types of community.
Nationally, I am part of the community of Americans.
Although there are some visitors that don’t have citizen ship, most
people that reside in the United States happily pledge allegiance to the flag of
our forefathers. This is a
community that shows many values to me. I
learn how to respect those who built this country and also to help those in
America who aren’t as fortunate as I am.
A more familiar level of community is that of my local area.
Locally, I belong to a group of people who live in the same neighborhood. This type of community shows me values such as respect for
others property as well as other types of subtle values. These communities are much less personal then those such as
family and friends.
Some of the most important community comes form
the family. My blood relatives
teach me more about values then anyone. First
off, I look back to my ancestors. I
cannot have first hand experiences with them, but through family trees and
stories, I develop a deep respect for those he came before me.
They made my legacy and make me want to protect it.
My extended family is also somewhat similar.
My grandparents provide the same type of legacy, except I can experience
their love first hand. They can
show by example how to live and to keep alive a long line of family values. My nuclear family is probably the most important.
As I spend every day with them, most of the experiences I will have to
look back will have been spent with them. My
parents have raised me as a child and instilled in me the ways of life and my
brother has been a living example to help me make choices that I find hard to
make on my own. My friends are also
very important. I spend many a time
with my friends who I learn values from whether it be easy or hard.
No matter what happens, my friends will always be a positive influence on
my life.
One way that I think is unique that I
experience community, is through athletics.
Although I am friends with a lot of people on my football team, there
seems to be a difference when we are competing and when we are hanging out.
The most community I feel is when we are weight training in the
off-season. On the field, we only
go through rote memory, but off the field is when we really put in the work.
Without my teammates, lifting sessions would be worthless. Although I may develop muscle memory and strength, it would
be meaningless if there weren’t fifty other guys developing the same thing.
This sense of togetherness in the weight room makes us strive as
individuals and as teammates. We go into the off-season ready to improve as a team, and
when it comes to the season, we feel a sense of camaraderie that can’t be
established anywhere but in a competitive atmosphere.
There is no greater sense of fellowship than celebrating a victory either
on the field or in the weight room.
A dictionary definition cannot do the word
“community” any justice. It is
not just a term, but also a sense or a feeling.
People existing together can be called a community, but unless they are
learning form each other and existing in companionship, they are not
experiencing the true sense of community. We
all find community mainly among family and friends and social organizations, but
everyone has their own feelings when it comes to how they feel part of a
community. Personally my experience
with communities is shown through the values that I learn and live by each day.
I see others in my community living this way, and I strive to learn from
[them] and help them learn. As
anyone on my football team would share, sometimes a feeling of community can
turn a loss on the field, to a victory
in a sense of community, off the field.
“Community”. <www.dictionary.com> 2006.