I just completed the “believe in good” project for Maker 9. This project revolves around ideas of self reflection, renewal, and becoming a more effective person.
We based all of our learning off of Sean Coveys “7 habits of a highly effective teenager”. Sean covey wrote this book as a teens version of his dad Stephen Coveys “7 habits of highly effective people”. I really enjoyed this book and think it was written quite well. The 7 habits e learnt were:
1 Be Proactive. If you live life reacting to everything you will have no time to prepare. Proactivity lets you finish tasks before hand and have time to prepare and plan for the future.
2 Think With An End In Mind. Staying on similar themes habit 2 is based on preparation for the long term. How will your decisions now affect in 2 months, or years?
3 First Things First. Prioritize!!! If you have multiple big projects to work and your time is stretched thin, then learning to prioritize is a big one.
4 Think Win-Win. Others dont need to lose for you to win. If you can create an environment where everyone wins in some way, then ultimately you can achieve a lot more as you have more people to extract ideas from.
5 Understand Then Be Understood. How are you supposed to effectively communicate your ideas and understanding to someone if you have not taken the time to understand them first? You cant just blindly shout at each other
6 Synergize. Synergy to to work together in sync, and to play off of each others strengths in order to get the best possible result.
7 Sharpen The Saw. This is all about renewing yourself. Spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Being able to identify what this is for you is extremely important in being able to function well in any life. It is essential in keeping up with the crowd.
These habits were categorized into 3 different sections, The Private Victory (habits 1, 2, 3), The Public Victory (habits 4, 5, 6) and The Renewal (habit 7). Before we learnt abot each section too in-depth, we created a personal mission statement. A personal mission statement is a statment for the ideas we believe in and want to represent in life. Here is mine:
For each section we learnt we did an “assessment choice board” these were a visual, written, or audible way for us to demonstrate our understandings of these topics.
After doing all these choice boards we now understand each habit and are moving onto our final product. We were given a pitch form, where we had to put each habit our curricular competencies of “Communication” “Thinking” and “Personal & Social Awareness”. We also had to decide on a final product that would represent the competency and the habits we put with it.
Communication product:
This is a little podcast interview I did with a friend and former PLP learner. We discussed habits 5 and 6, to think about times in our lives when we used these habits. The goal of this was too be able to identify where the habits happened about how they changed the situations we were in.
Thinking product:
Now I know what you’re thinking: “You can’t just turn in a photo of a bird and call it origami!”. Rest assured this is completely hand made. In all seriousness I don’t build so this whole kinaesthetic product was challenging. Here is Gilbert the snow owl, owls typically represent knowledge. The Thinking competency focused on habits 1 2 and 4. Critical, reflective, and creative thinking all come from and give us knowledge, so a bird felt like a good fit.
Personal & Social Awareness product:
This is my word-art, it is comprised of words, ideas, and some projects i’ve done that I have recognized as the habits “First things first” and “Sharpen the saw”. I am demonstrating that if I am able to identify traits of these habits I will be able to use them more and get better at them.
These habits remind me a lot of worldview, which we’ve done 2 projects on now (project 1, project 2). The habits are definitely something im going to keep with me, as they are so helpful and insightful to everyday life. It would be such a waste to let go of the habits after only just learning about them.
“How can I be my most effective self?” Is the question we are ending on today.
I think in order to be your most effective self is to identify, evaluate, plan, and achieve. The 7 habits can very easily be categorized in this way. Becoming your most effective self means understanding what your current self is, where you want to be, and how to get there. The cycle must be constant and honest. I think the 7 habits have shown me that quite well.
I am very glad we did this project, these topics of self improvement and renewal are important in every stage of life.I will continue to learn and improve my use of these habits for the years to come.