Month: January 2022

mPOL-2022👻

sophiaw on

Hello lovely readers, welcome to my mPOL! This is my second time doing mPOL, the first, I miserably failed at. Now that I’m the expert on my own learning, I’m also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can trust me to give an honest and accurate evaluation of my growth. Thank you in advance for reading and please comment below feedbacks that I can use to improve as a learner.

I “Failed”

Just like other student in PLP I get really proud of myself when I get a rainbow, which in PLP it literally mean A++, AKA the best mark you could possibly get. I had some rainbows but, of my work completed this year, I’m most proud of was at the beginning of the year when I finish the quiz on government responsibilities and structures first, not just in time but in grade too. Evan though our party didn’t win, I learning that discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and small minds discussed people. Our party didn’t focus on idea we focused on event and people that influenced our country, while other groups were coming up with creative ideas that lead them to a interesting new party, and my group practically copied existing parties.(read post on the project here!)


Standards

although not all the work I completed met my standards, some did. I really enjoyed working with my group in our Romeo and Juliet project. Despite the lack of time we had because of the delayed started form covid, all of us had put in our own efforts to make the video dramatic and funny (Shoutout to Keenan for the main idea of the story). During our previous project Ology of apology, I think my group did a very good job of team work and presenting, so even though we didn’t win I think we did a good job, lets just blame the fact that the other group’s name came before us in alphabetical order.

Valuable lessons

In the learning plan I said that should use my creativeness to its advantage, and so, during story writing of our Act of Romeo and Juliet, I helped my group-mates by contributing creative ideas and getting creative with editing like the many sound effect we added to make our film original. Although we were short on actors we still work it out, there would be no way that we would have ever succeeded if we didn’t worked together. On the other hand, I wished we had a better way of introducing our character. For example, Jordan, Dries, Nathan, and Jakub’s group had introduced each character of their story in a smooth way, while still matching with the theme and the background music of their film.

Demonstrate

I have improved greatly as a learner because of the support I have been getting from my peers. In the beginning of the year I rarely contributed ideas, afraid of making revisions, but as I follow my learning plan I saw improvements like, not getting distracted by other homework, less procrastinating, not being controlled by my own moods, and so much more. I even changed my habits for the better, like having a good sleep schedule! I used things and craft, things, and calendar regularly to help me meet my criterias as this is one of the reason why my habits need to be changed.

Improve!

In the remainder of the school year, I’m going to try my best to stay focused on my main goals, and do a better job of time management. To achieve this, I will sharpen my learning plan by writing my goals in details, sticking to what I wrote down, and being honest.

Thank you

At the end I wanted to say thank you to my teachers, they always helped me when I’m stuck with problems, because of them my grades improving which to me is a huge success.

Ology of Apology 🙇🏻‍♀️

sophiaw on

Welcome back wonderful readers, I hope that your winter breaks went great, if you have not read my recent blog post, I recommend you do so. Not only might you learn something new, but you will also hear a bit about what my current project is.

The project that we just wrapped up is called “The Ology of Apology” (meaning the study of apology), and our driving question is: How can we create a public memory of past wrongs so that they are remembered, and not repeated in the future? We looked at three past wrongs enacted by the Canadian government: the Komagata Maru in 1914, anti-Chinese racism in the form of the Head Tax and the Anti-Immigration Act from 1885-1947, and the Japanese Internment during the Second World War.

We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go on six different field studies throughout this project. Being able to learn about what we are talking about in class by going to museums, cultural spaces, and by walking around the actual sites where these events have occurred made it easier for me to visualize what the victims and survivors were going through during those times, especially the quotes on the walls we saw at Nikkei Museum.

  • The first trip was to a Sikh Temple (ft. Indy and Erin)

  • This photo of our second trip ft. Indy, Erin,Nate, Annie, Amy, Ryan, and Quinn

  • This shadow from our third trip was inspiring for a group project

  • On the fourth trip, we went on a walking tour in and around Chinatown. In the pouring rain.

  • On the fourth trip, we went on a walking tour in and around Chinatown

  • We also when walking rain during our last trip for the Japanese event

we were asked to create a concept, as well as a scale model, of a practical, contextual, and impactful memorial that would educate the public about one of the three acts of injustice that we studied.

We were put into groups, and then assigned topics from the three main events. My group was Keenan, Nate, Josh and me. Our given topic was Japanese internment camps during WWII. There were six groups, and three topics, so each group was competing against another group.

During all the trips, something we saw a lot in memorials was some kind of landmark, but we also wanted our memorial to be interactive, and one specific landmark my group had in mind was a statue, in the morning there will a garden accompanied with the statue providing scenery, but at night a bright light will be shown onto the status making a shadow. Our group had the idea to create a statue with a shadow that can be interpreted into many things but the status itself must have a meaning, we wanted to tell as much of a story as we could while remaining interactive, cultural, and historical.

My group wanted to tell the story of the hard times that Japanese people were faced with, and the wrongdoings of the Canadian government at the time. The shadow which is only visible during the night time is there to represent the resilience and the strength within every Japanese Canadian that was wrongly treated during World War II. It also shows the lengths to which the Japanese Canadian parents went to keep their children from suffering during this terrible time. The foot falling off the edge represents how close their lives were to falling apart for both the parents and children.

Overall, I am proud of my group, and how much work we were able to get done in so little time. Even thought our memorial wasn’t as attractive as the other groups,  I felt that I gained a really good understanding of my topic, and the other topics that we learned about as well. And honestly if I was ever to pitch this to the city hall I don’t think I would pitch it any more different than this way it is. We were given the opportunity go around and and learn more about this event while other kids were stuck in their classroom reading textbooks, I think this project let me realize these special privileges I have.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this post please leave a comment and check out my other classmates post!