Month: June 2024

Cat and Maus

faiths Humanities

This project was based around the question “How can multi-modal communication enhance our ability to humanize and understand complex issues?” While I’ve always wanted to know more about the Holocaust (since all I had known before this project is what’s in the Disney plus show called A Small Light), I’ve always been cautious about the topic. The first thing Ms. Madsen said to us about this project is that we had to watch what we were saying because it is such a horrific and serious topic that still greatly affects us our world today. 

For this project we learned about the Holocaust and the events leading up to it through reading articles, lectures, video testimonies, a symposium and a visit by a granddaughter of a survivor. Each one of these sources added more and more horrible information that I couldn’t imagine. We started with learning about the rise of the Nazis, and then the growth of antisemitism ending with the Holocaust itself. For the first investigation, I wrote a paragraph talking about which type of format resonated most with me and why. 

This assignment got to me more than I would’ve thought. When I’m in class listening to every horrible thing about this time in history I would try to focus on just writing things down, or on the content, and not the person side of it, but for this assignment all of it was the personal and thinking side. This assignment was meant to demonstrate my analyzing skills and I think I really did that. I not only shared what I learned from the activity that most resonated with me but I believed I showed in depth thought into why. I chose the activity about the granddaughter of a survivor because she made it seem more real and not just statistics. Every person she mentioned was a cousin or uncle or dad of her grandmother and all I could think about was my own family. If you want to see what my paragraph was listen to the voice memo below (I chose to do a voice memo because it seemed more personal to me).

Investigation two was reading Maus which is a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman and the only graphic novel to ever win a Pulitzer Prize. This book is about the author learning and writing about his father’s experience during the Holocaust. Reading this book was crazy because  every few pages there was a way his father could’ve been caught or died. His father was also treated terribly and went through so much pain and loss that you could see still the experiences affecting him when the book changed between past and present. With this book we were instructed to do a literacy critique in an essay format. While we were supposed to choose to write on the psychology aspect of the trauma depicted in the book, or on a comparison of two characters or on the literary elements, I chose to combine the first two because to me they seemed very intertwined. I wanted to show how the trauma Vladek experienced affected how he interacted with everyone around him and how those people then reacted. I’m actually very proud of my essay which isn’t always true for past essays. I had so much to write (maybe too much …… 7 pages…..) and had lots of examples of everything because unlike reading novels, I could remember it because I had pictures to go with the words. I have very strong narrative memory skills. I liked my writing and my friends thought it was good so I decided to see what Ms Madsen thought. Earlier this week I got the essay back with few parts needing revision so I changed those but most parts earned an ✅.  Overall I thought my essay showed in depth thinking and is an essay I’m actually proud I wrote. 

The final product was “With a partner, choose an upstander (historical or current), research who they are and how they stood up against intolerance, and create a multimodal exhibit to contribute to our class showcase celebrating difference making!” Which was meant to be showed at the spring exhibition. If your curious what an Upstanders is here are a few definitions my teacher gave us:

My partner for this project was Fraser and together we came up with awesome plan to research the incredible Irena Sendler who saved 2500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto and then make an interactive timeline in milk bottles. At the same time in BCFP I had started to research the mistreatment of Indigeous people in healthcare. While I was trying to manage the two projects the plans for the exhibition changed. Ultimately, the new choices led to Fraser and I merging our “Upstander” project and our BCFP project although there was plenty of confusion. Personally, I  wanted to do both from the beginning so was glad when they got combined. I am very proud of how I acted when they got combined too, as most people got very stressed and didn’t know where to start but I just got a white board and a pen and started planning. In the end our exhibition exhibit was educational and engaging. Fraser and I had multiple interactive parts including our original timeline idea, effective visuals including orange origami roses to make into a heart, and a call to action which was a physical card the visitors could bring home. Everything was presented well from the crisp edges of the paper, and the interesting layout.  I was super passionate about both topics (Irena Sendler’s life and the terrible mistreatment of Indigenous people in the healthcare system) and really enjoyed telling everyone one about it. While all of those things alone were great I was really impressed with how I explained the project to everyone who walked by. I really enjoyed explaining and showing everything I knew from when Irena got in a fight at school to when she was almost executed and found myself realizing how in the younger grades I wouldn’t have been able to do that so confidently.

This project was filled with horrible history that I’m glad is being taught, because it is so important to where we are today with antisemitism rising. Please check out the links and read the images below to learn about Irena Sendler and her incredible her life and as check out my BCFP post connected to this as well. 

BC First Peoples Exhibition

faiths Uncategorized

This semester I took a newly required course called B.C. First Peoples.  While we did a lot of work in this course this year, which you can look at some of work here, this post reflects on our most recent project answering the question “What can I do, even if only in a small way, to be a part of Reconciliation?”

First here are some of my products from other projects and weekly notes that I wanted to highlight:

 

I knew from the start of the year that I would have an exhibition for BCFP and one for PLP and while I hoped they would be on the same night, they actually turned out to be back to back. Originally we were told that PLP 11 would be showing our humanities Holocaust project (which you can read about here) but a bit over a week before the exhibition the plans changed. Firstly we were going to only create something small for humanities and focus on BCFP for both exhibitions, then I heard we would be able to choose, finally it settled on a combined approach where students could combine the humanities and the BCFP. 

This is the part of the project I’m especially proud of because when some people heard this they started to stress and I know I can get like that, sort of stuck, but that day I found a white board and started writing down everything I wanted to do and how to connect them. 

Working with my partner, Fraser,  we created an amazing project. I originally wanted to do something with making people aware of the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples in the Canadian health care system. I got interested in this because of a weekly note I did which you can find here and after reading many articles I knew it was a very pressing and important topic. Then when planing for this exhibition my mom actually told me about what she saw the last time she was in the emergency room. She saw an Indigenous Staff member come and connect to Indigenous patients waiting in the ER. She heard him talk to them and assure them that he would be checking in wth them during their time in the hospital that day. In my research, I learned that in multiple hospitals in BC there are Indigenous Patient Navigators who are Indigenous people who help other Indigenous Peoples through everything in the hospital, basically being their spokes person. So I decided to do a project talking about the mistreatment, the statistics, and the systems set in place and where. So when the two projects had to combine my humanities partner Fraser and I decided to use my BCFP project idea and our humanities one and connect it through the idea of people needling to be up-standers today. 

We created multiple interactive parts including a physical timeline, an online quiz with statistics, effective visuals one where some of my friends and I made orange origami roses to make into a heart, and a physical card the visitors could bring home with a link to our calls to action describing how you can be an upstander even in a small way (look below if you want to scan the QR code yourself to see what you can do). Everything was presented well from the beautiful painting of BC (I did the islands and Fraser did the mainland) to the edges of the paper on the table, and the layout was eye catching.  I was super passionate about both topics and really enjoyed telling everyone one about it. I would end up in discussions with people who would tell me what they knew about the topic as well and personal stories they had heard.  

 

In the end I am really proud of the project Fraser and I created and I think it answered the question “What can I do, even if only in a small way, to be a part of Reconciliation?” And if you want to see a few things you can do please check out this link. The link shows some of our research as well as places you can sign your name, volunteer, or donate to in order to help stop the mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian healthcare system. I’m very glad I took this course because not only did I learn this information but in multiple exhibitions I was able to help raise awareness to others who I hope might tell it to even more people causing even a small step forward in reconciliation. 

tPOL 2024

faiths TPol

Driving Question:
How can you showcase evidence to demonstrate that PLP Success Behaviours have prepared you to advance to the next grade?

 

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.” 

 

I’ve loved the growth I have shown and the work I have done this year and by looking at these success behaviours I understand why I feel like I’m doing much better.

Yearly Update on Communication with Teachers 

  • I have set goals each year to talk a lot more with teachers and this year, I am finally really proud of my growth in this area.
  • On plp trips I would engage in conversation.  
  • Will never been super comfortable talking to teachers about school work but I’m getting a lot better at casual conversations making talking about school easier. Mr. Hughes knows a lot of facts about Los Vegas Hotels including how one of them had people trapped in the top when it was on fire. I also learned Ms. McWilliams does not like silence during hiking but would choose to talk about her favourite TV shows with me and Gwen. 
  • BIG WIN FOR ME 

 

Agency

Resilience

  • I can tell that I have improved in this part of agency this year based on how I felt and responded when everything with the exhibition projects were changing.  For this past exhibition I felt like the plan and expectations for us changed a lot and we didn’t even fully know what was happening till the Thursday a WEEK before the exhibition
    • I  argued for us to be able to do both the Humanities project and the BCFP project, because I was really invested in both, but especially the humanities one where Fraser and I had a great idea. 
    • Then when we were told to merge them, instead of being paralyzed by anxiety like I have been in the past when expectations were changing,  I was the one in my group to started planning it out – I got a white board and wrote down all of the ideas we were coming up with then after checking with a teacher we were good to go.

    • And as you saw at the exhibition, our final projects were educational and engaging!
      • Fraser and I had multiple interactive parts, effective visuals, and a physical card the visitors could bring home with a link to our calls to action. Everything was presented well from the edges of the paper were crisp, and the layout was interesting. I also felt that I was super passionate about the topic and really enjoyed telling everyone one about it. That feeling shows growth because it was not something I wouldn’t have like doing in the younger Grades.

 

Engagement 

Enthusiasm 

  • This year I have made so many products and presentations that I am really proud of. In other years there were maybe one or two projects I would maybe show off to my relative or something this year I have so many more!
  • In the “Who Cares? Why Bother” government project, I made really good notes and shared my insights in the seminar which makes me feel very proud of myself.  I’m pleased that I spoke first and more than once.
  • I notice that enthusiasm also influences how a group works together.  In the “who Cares? Why Bother?” My group worked together so well and was able to create an informative and engaging project with a memorable performance from Noah.
  • Also in BCFP I created an awesome final product for the honouring the children project. In that one I really did have a good idea that inspired me to make it great. This is the project where there was the tree that had a residential school built around it and everything from the ground to the disconnected leaves had a connection and purpose for it. 
  • Lastly, my overall engagement and enthusiasm was really evident in our “fear factor.” I am so proud of this product. Like in the BCFP project I was inspired. I took my animation abilities from BCFP and decided to make an interactive keynote animation that was like a choose your own adventure to show the decisions people had to make during the Cold War. Not only did I have simple animations, I had drawing animations and I embedded YouTube videos that looked like they were playing on a tv, and I had audio of videos and interviews. It can be a bit glitchy and I needed an extension but that was because I had so much I wanted to say. I also had taken a risk to do it in a format that I love to see from others, but don’t usually choose for myself. I am not an artist!  However, I am very proud of this product and I definitely did it to the best of my ability. 

 

While for this TPOL we needed to focus on just three success behaviours, when I looked over my chart I could check off the “consistently” box for all but one. This helps me see why I am doing so well this year. Who knew walking around a NEON museum would actually be interesting? Or learning about a small town named Kingman. Or why we should never go to a Barbed Wire museum.  Overall , with these consistent success behaviours, my stress levels have gone down and my abilities to take risks have gone up.