mPOL

My mPol is supposed to be about what I have learned so far and how I can improve as a learner, some struggles I’ve been having and what I think is difficult about PLP, how we managed our time, and what decisions we made about how to spend our time. 

The big thing for this term was it started off OK with our Alberta trip. Right after the Alberta trip, I got concussed at Cadets. Most of my time since then has been devoted to getting back from the concussion and getting back to where I was in school and other activities. I have had to manage my time around physiotherapy, doing my work and getting enough rest. 

It has been a really hard road recovering from this concussion, and from my multiple concussions that I have had. It has definitely not been easy but I know I can grow from it and become stronger because of it. 

What I had to do is I had to talk to my teachers about what I should focus more on and what tasks are more important to complete than others because I didn’t have a lot of time in school as I wasn’t able to make it through a full day of classes. So I really had to focus on what was in my posts and things that we do in Humanities or in Maker. Also, what I had to do because I missed a lot of Math and Science is I had to watch a lot of Khan Academy videos to figure out what I was suppose to be doing and understand things better since I wasn’t there for a lot of the lessons.

This half of the year for learning for me has been really shaky. I don’t think I’ve actually learned as much as I should have for this half of the year. I believe I have been really scattered and missing a lot of lessons. I feel like I don’t understand most of the stuff I’m being taught, and I am very confused about some of the subjects being taught. In class after a lecture, I don’t obtain a lot from it, I don’t remember most if it like I did before. I also don’t remember stuff when I have to do worksheets or read stuff or read a book. I hardly remember what that book is about or what I thought of it. 

A lot of it has been very hard and difficult for me and truly understanding what I am working on is very hard, and I don’t feel like I have understood what I am working on. I feel like a lot of the stuff I have been doing, I feel like I am less intelligent while doing it, or I’ve made a ton of mistakes. I have become extremely frustrated with myself because of the multiple concussions I’ve had. Not even just that, but not being able to read. I’ve felt very discouraged with myself and angry, which I have unfortunately taken out on my friends and loved ones. Which isn’t fair to them. 

I have been very angry, aggressive and overall disoriented and stressed and a lot of other emotions because of these concussions and because of how I look at myself. 

I need to stop looking at myself as the thing that is weighing everyone down, and focus on if I am weighing everyone down how can I not weight people down and how can I become better. 

I really need to start focussing on spending my time wisely and not wasting it. I definitely need to focus on becoming more tolerant of other people, less set on what I think, and listen to other people more. I need to stop having my views get in the way of conversations.

During this year what I have noticed is really hard in PLP is the change in how discussions happen. Last year if we talked about stuff or had a discussion about certain things we could normally have a nice discussion and get out our thoughts and feelings. Whereas this year I feel like its really been off the rails. Maybe that’s just because what I think has changed, or maybe its because I’ve matured, or because my classmates have matured. But conversations that have been happening and that we continue to have about certain things that are touchy subjects never really seem to end well. I feel like this year a lot of the PLP students, including myself, have been focused on themselves and not on PLP as a team. I feel like I’ve been focused on trying to just match my work to other people’s and trying to be the same as them, instead of being on my own learning path. I feel like I need to stop focussing on what I haven’t done, or I can’t do or I can’t keep up with, like I can’t write and I can’t read very well, and start focussing on what I have done and what I can do instead of what I can’t.

I think there is one post that includes all of my videos from this year and I am using this post as my learning artifact. The videos that I showcase in this post start off pretty shaky, but improve over time. My best video is not my latest video, it is the one of my Halloween fireworks show. It is the best because I wanted to do this video because I was really excited about blowing stuff up and capturing it on video. I think it’s my best work because it was about me and my learning, not trying to match someone else. 

Video Reflection Learning Post