Filed under: PGP
This year in PLP 11 the we entered the school year we had our normal class. Humanities. It is a combination of Socials and English class, and it repeats every day, rather than once every two days. This is what we were expecting. What we weren’t was a new course. PGP, Personal Growth Plan. PGP takes the mystery out of what grade your work will receive and shifts the conversation to how you can continue to grow as a learner to achieve the targets you set. PGP is the foundation for the grading conversation that happens between you as a PLP learner and your teachers in each PLP class.
I want to start at the end and then work my way backwards. So that way, you are baffled by what I say and then as I go you can start to understand exactly what I mean in my product. This product had to answer the question, What do I know now that I wish I knew before? For me not only did I learn everything that I mentioned in the essay, but I also discovered something. My own writing style. I started by wanting to write like Michael Ondaatje. The deep, vivid description and imagery. I then also drew from Roald Dahl’s Skin (left image). It is a collection of short stories that pack deep, vivid storytelling and characters into a short period. Then end with a huge twist that draws back the curtain.
So, I am sorry if this paper is confusing at first, it was meant to be. It is not only an essay telling my learning’s and understandings in the PGP course, it is also a step into my writing style, and my head. Enjoy.
Untitled
Adam Gerbrecht
May-June, 2019
As I am poised in my room, standing, just a few feet from the door that moments ago, I had entered the room from. I am confronted. I have encountered, yet again, the token of my past. An illustration of not only what was, but also what will be. An owl. It is the commanding general of my antiquity, leading legions of memories and adventures. Efficacious and adverse, side by side as they charge across the battlefield of time. Hellbent on the future.
The future. The outlook. Eternity. Some would even say destiny. What is it? It is the newborn baby of every moment we live in. It is the expectation of yesterday, and the fate of today. Society these days is too centralized on the present. How we appear in the very moment we are in to ourselves and those around us. We all do this, yet, we are all gravely, horribly incorrect. This is even true for myself. Especially true in fact. There was a time, not so long ago, that I was treading water. I was fighting to stay in the moment, kicking, writhing, persistently fighting the deep, dark water that sucked my down. The past. I was to busy worrying about Davy Jones’s Locker swallowing me up, and not looking upward. Above the waters of my past, higher than the struggling of the present, to the future. My lack of wisdom cost me months, even years of my life. Back in my room, the image staring back at me, scoffs. With its gaze that dances along the line of piercing and caring like a prima ballerina, walking across the stage of my thoughts. Every moment I stare into those eyes I feel the motivation. To stop treading water. To calm myself, and to reach for the hand helping me out of the deep blue. And into the future. What do I need to do to get there? Just look up.
That sounds so easy doesn’t it? Sounds as easy as 1-2-3 or ABC, but it is actually very burdensome. Gazing towards the future is not the difficulty, it is in fact what is inside you that is the driving force that helps you raise your head towards the future. The seven little voices inside your head. Like little sailors on the exploration vessel that is your head and personality. They can fight in a gladiator arena of your cranium, but when you control them and understand them. They sing in perfect harmony. A symphony of perfection and peak performance in academia and life. So, allow me to introduce you to my cohort of seven voices.
The first voice is the leading projection inside my head. The captain. Not because it is the first that I am unveiling to you. But because it is the most most general and it summarizes a lot of what the rest of our friends do. It is about being proactive and in charge. The captain of your own ship. On this ship, when navigating the open, reckless oceans the captain does not react to every action immediately like a compressed spring. You must step back, asses situation and then decide. Step back and look back at the problem with an analytic eye. Similar to the gaze cast back at me inside my bedroom.
The second is the leader of the future. Earlier this little voice in my head was leading me in my building of the future, and when I am accused with that gaze. The gaze that is on me challenging my future. This is the voice in my ear telling me what to do. To start everything with the end in mind. To look through the telescope before setting sail. Not worrying about what is on the sides of the tube of glass that lets me see afar. And then, as the telescope is lowered from my eye I look ahead, into the distance I have already seen. But now, I can see what it will take to get there.
Third. This is the moral. Floating above the ship perched upon the restless sea. All sailors love the water, they breath ocean air, and saltwater runs through their veins. Surrounding them are distractions that Mother Nature brings in her endless vast ocean. This moral floats in my head, my head that is a boat full of sailors. That I must work. Hard. And then once all the tasks are done, when the ship has reached its destination, then, the sailors can relax. And put play at the forefront.
Rallying the troops is the fourth. The over-jolly cook of this bateau. When the tired sailors sulk into the galley, he is the voice of positivity that greets each with a hot plate and a motivational dialect. In the realm of my head, this is the thought that every situation I set sail for is a win-win situation. That even if I fail, I fall victim to the constant nagging knowledge that a failure is only the first attempt in learning. This motivational voice in my head keeps the other sailors on the SS Adam moving at a high pace, motivated at all times.
The fifth is essential. The listener in my head, this is the part that interprets information and then thoughtfully thinks each action through. Seeking to understand then to be understood. This is essential on a vessel that travels many countries and lands. A translator. Taking information from the outside and relaying it. So that for the greater good of the future, both the information given and the opinion or angle being outputted is the highest caliber.
The sixth. Who could forget? Synergy. The first mate of my brain. My brain boat. Having a second in command of my head helps me be able to make all of these voices sing together. It is command as well as a witness to the rest of the workers in this busy life. Returning to our sailors, if the captain cannot understand his men, he is useless. This is what the second in command does. Communicates all ideas to all people so that the collective good is reached.
To cap it all off is the seventh. Not exactly a voice. Not exactly a person on my ship. It is more the keel. That part that site below the water, out of sight and mind. Yet, it is the one that keeps us going in the path that some call life. That some call sporadic. I can sharpened. In my head this is just the constant need for self- betterment. Making sure that everything that I do is the best for my life.
Suddenly, my eyes open. I hear the robotic chirping of my alarm clock, like a buzz saw cutting through relaxation. ‘That was a weird dream,’ I think to myself. At first I was just standing in my room looking at the picture of the owl I keep in my room to symbolize wisdom, of course. And the next I was fighting for my life. Treading water in the deepest, coldest water I have ever been in. Until I could finally bring myself to to look up and lunge for the hand to help me up. Then it got weirder. As I step onto dry land. It changes. It’s started to get really weird. Everything changes. Suddenly I am on a ship, on a turbulent sea. They’re are sailors running this way and that all constantly talking to some all-seeing power it seems. Weird. As I get out of bed to stop the mental assault of my alarm I thought I saw movement in the corner of my room. ‘Whatever,’ I think to myself as I get up and leave my room.
In the corner. The owl winks. Always watching me. Always helping and guiding me.
So, how did we get here? Well it all started way back in the beginning of the year. We started by reading a book, this book was called What Do You Really Want? How to Set a Goal and Go for It! A
Guide for Teens. Written by Beverly K. Bachel, this book is a step-by-step guide to goal setting for teens includes fun, creative exercises, practical tips, words of wisdom from famous “goal-getters,” real-life examples from teens, and success stories. We used this to complete various activities that are outlined in her writings. We documented them in our little journals, writing everything from goal lists, to step by step ‘ladders’ on how we were going to get there. And we made a dream board. (right picture.)
This was the first part of the PGP course that opened up my understanding and ideas that i used in my essay. I drew a lot from the goal setting pieces, as well as just the general notion of what really want. In school, life, career and more. This book was long, and at times the activities felt tedious, but over time the significance and usefulness of the ideas rooted in this section of PGP have stuck with me.
Then we did the last part of the “learning” in PGP. This was called the “7 Habits.” This was a series of media creations we made along with a workbook that we were working through. All surrounding the ideas from a book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens is a 1998 bestselling self-help book written by Sean Covey, the son of Stephen Covey. The book was published on October 9, 1998 through Touchstone Books and is largely based on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. As far as the creations go I made 4. Here is my favorite.
So. That brings us here. My capstone project. The time machine. My essay. When I first pitched this project I was expecting to find my way through and around Michael Ondaatje‘s complicated yet beautiful writing style. I started writing like that, but as a wrote more and more I started to see something amazing. Something I have never seen in writing before. My own personal style. What I mean by that is that in this situation I wasn’t writing for marks, or a teacher, it was for myself. So I let my imagination and mind run. What I came up with was something fascinating. My style, like I mentioned earlier is a blend of Michael Ondaatje and Roald Dahl, but with my own twist. A twist of confusion caused in the reader, that is then followed by clarity. I discovered my writing style.
To bring it all back to PGP. I started this year expecting one of two things. Either a layup of a course that I would breeze through, or a grind that would make me pissed off. What I ended up getting was a constant gentle push towards self betterment and discovery that just got better as the year progressed. In the end, what I learned was not material, facts, or an idea. I learned more about me. And that, is the best knowledge.
