Throughout my high school career and my time at Seycove I’ve grown up so much as a person and I’ve developed immensely as a learner, and today I have prepared a few examples from my blog, as well as a couple of photos, to demonstrate my growth over the last four years of high school and why I believe that I’m ready to tackle grade 12.
To me it honestly seemed like the first day of grade 8 was only yesterday. However, I know the only explanation to explain this phenomenon is that time flies by when you’re having fun.
When I came into Seycove I didn’t necessarily have that many friends from my previous elementary school so it really forced me to put myself out there, socialize, and try new things, and I think this has honestly had such a large impact on who I am today. Now I look around the hallways and I can honestly say that I know nearly every single person in my grade, and I believe that without my friends making my time here so memorable I would not be the same social, competitive, confident person that I am today without the absence of accepting peers and friendly competition.
The two blogpost below represent my growth mindset throughout the year through utilizing team work and learning various skills from my peers along the way.
So far during my time at Seycove I’ve grown up immensely. Since getting a job at Burrard Yacht Club in the end of grade 9 I’ve gained so much responsibility as an experienced member of the staff, and I’ve learned what it takes to have good work ethic, and to always put 100% effort into every single task, whether it’s fixing decking, ripping off roof panels, or cleaning/painting three boats before the tide comes in. My job is a tough job and going into it I didn’t know if I was going to be ready, and to be honest I thought about quitting many times in those first few months. However, I always stuck with it and pushed through no matter what, and now I actually love my job. This has taught me a valuable lesson in that no matter how hard things may get, never give up because there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. If you aren’t good at something don’t just give up and quit, push yourself to take it as a challenge and I can guarantee that you will be so much happier when you reach success. This is one of the reasons why I believe I’m ready for grade twelve. Life is only going to get tougher from here on out and you need to be ready for anything that comes your way.
Near the end of the year I had an obscene amount of exams and other final projects, and I felt as though I was drowning in homework. For a month straight I literally came home almost every single night of the week and did homework for five solid hours before I went to bed, and at times I felt as though it would be easier to just give up. However, I knew nothing good would come out of giving up and I knew that if I put in the work it would all be worth it at the end. I worked my butt of to complete a 17 minute video essay, while working on the debate project and various other assignments/projects/exams in other classes, and I completed four four blog posts in the last three days. But guess what? I ended the year with 96% in PLP and I have a lot to be proud of going into next year.
I believe my exhibition blogpost below represents my growth as a learner throughout this school year because I really stepped up and surprised myself in a big way, perhaps when I needed it most, and I’m extremely proud to have come in first place along with Chris and Maria. Winning the debate was a big highlight of my year and it made me feel good because it represents a lot of the hard work and countless hours that I put into my individual learning and creating my own success.
In my time at Seycove I have also experienced a lot of celebration and success in my numerous classes, on different sports teams and in choir. However, I have also had many, many, many setbacks over the last few years and made a lot of mistakes along the way, and it has taken me a long time to be able to accept my flaws and identify the things that I’m not good at. So with that being said one of the reasons why I feel like I’m ready for grade 12 is because I finally know what I need to work on in both my school work and within myself, and this largely represents my growth mind set both as a learner and a person. An example of my academic growth can be seen in my Fear Factor blogpost below. In this post I went extremely in depth, reflecting on not only the project and my experiences on the trip, but I talked about the creative processes, the assignments we did throughout the unit, and things I could’ve changed/improved on.
Up until grade 11 I had a lot of free time and I always found school easy, but this year has been extremely tough for me, and I’ve struggled a lot in having to adapt to a tougher workload. At the beginning of the year when I first joined PLP it took me hours and hours and hours to write a small passage and to put together a measly 400 word blogpost. However, now I can blast out 500 words in under an hour, and do it easily and efficiently. I think this speaks to my growth as a learner a lot because it not only shows that I’m getting better in developing my ideas, but it also shows a substantial level of growth in the difference of my writing quality from the beginning of the year until now.
The blogpost below is a recent example of my work and I’m extremely proud of if because I think it accurately represents my growth as a writer and in my ability to express crucial and important ideas.
The Concept of Fear and How It Affects Logical Decision Making