Well, another school year has come to an end and that means yet another TPoL. This one will be slightly different though. I’ve made a keynote presentation, highlighting some of my work this year and how they have helped me along my learning journey.

The way I structured the keynote was all around Ultimate Frisbee and one of the key strategies we use. When we were given the info for our TPoLs this year, Willemse and Hughes suggested that, for us who have done it multiple times, we should try to present it in a different, creative way. I immediately thought about Ultimate Frisbee. The specific strategy the Vertical Stack reminds me of a ladder, just like how Goal Setting works, each step of the ladder gets you closer to the top, where you want to go.

With that idea I segmented the year of my learning into 5 steps/cuts each building on the next to lead to the last step at the top. Then I also realized that this year is one of the steps to the ladder of my overall education too, and it all plays into the grand scheme of things.

So, my first step was the transition to Grade 11. I found this transfer from, grade 10 to 11 one of the hardest transitions of my school career. Going into 3 sciences was really challenging and I had to work really hard to get to the level of success I wanted. I spent hours pouring over textbooks and watching YouTube videos to learn useful concepts and understand a lot of what I was learning. After the first few months I finally had my feet on the ground and I was doing just fine. It took a while to get there but once I got there it was easier.

The next step was the Goal Setting unit in PGP. I found this was really helpful in looking at goals a different way, I had never thought about seeing  goals in the scheme of a ladder. It really helped me to understand how I can achieve my goals and it helped me develop them better and strive for success in achieving them.

The Third Step was the We Shall Overcome Unit. This unit was really a big one for me. We began to piece apart a time in history I had never really looked at before, so I found myself really focusing on absorbing the information and learning the surface, to understand the unit better. The one thing that I struggled with was taking the information and going further, going deeper and twisting the information. On top of doing that unit we began looking more closely at writing through a small unit just before spring break. In the past I haven’t been very strong about academic writing and this unit started to really develop my skills and try to improve them. At that point in time I knew, for the rest of the year, I would need to focus on writing and my realizations from the past unit.

Step Four. During March and April we were looking at the 7 Habits in PGP. Two habits really spoke to me. Beginning with the end in mind and thinking Win-Win. Beginning with the end in mind was really something I have already practiced but going through that habit helped support and solidify what I’ve been doing. It also brought it higher in my mind to always be thinking about what I want to get out things before I start them. Then with Thinking Win-Win I started to see the benefits in everything. I don’t do something unless I gain something from it and someone else gains something from it too.

Then the Fifth and final step. In the last few weeks we have been working on our project for the exhibition and it is all about the Vietnam War. With this unit I’ve really worked to show how I’ve grown in the two areas I wanted to develop in the latter half of the year. I took the time to learn and absorb the information but now I’ve worked to go deeper with it. After many conversations with my dad about the war and how it was fought I’ve started to become interested the soldier experience and how the war became a vacuum for all involved. With my art installation I want to show how I’ve dug deeper to look at a more in-depth perspective of the war and the impacts they had.

Now this year in the whole grand scheme of things is apart of the fourth step of the five step ladder, next year will be the final step. What I’ve learned and worked on this year I hope to continue to improve next year and in the future as well.