Transitional Presentation of Learning

Hello fellow PLPeople, friends, family, nut enthusiasts, and random internet surfers! Today is a good day to reflect, because today is the second to last day of school this year. Throughout the year I have reflected so many times that this is a reflection of reflections, and since I did TPOLs and mPOLs last year, this is technically a reflection of a reflection of a reflection of reflections!

– insert Coldplay song here –

Goals

Usually I would be reflecting on my mPOL as well as everything else, but as you might know already I was sick for my mPOL (and months before that) //thanks mono! So I don’t have an mPOL to reflect on.

This year’s goals were:

  • To become a leader
  • To deal with stress better
  • To self advocate
  • To be assertive
  • To hold myself accountable
  • To edit my ideas and use simplicity to create creativity
  • To trust. – myself – my teachers – my peers

Becoming Accountable

This year my main goal was to hold myself accountable for everything. All the good I do I should take credit for, all the wrong I did I should accept without excuses.

The whole year I’ve been pushing myself to stop making excuses. This started with making promises to myself that I knew I could keep, and hold myself to those. I stopped making promises that I couldn’t keep, which was a main resolution for this school year. I’m proud of myself for that, and I accept that I still have further to go, and am exited to embrace that even further.

Becoming Assertive

Letting others know what you want and expect, and holding yourself to that.

It all starts with learning what you want. If you don’t know what you want… how are you going to get it? I have always known what I want, and what I want is always changing. However I have never known why I want what I want. Through reading “What Do You Really Want?” In the beginning of the year, I learned why I want what I want, and refined my hopes and dreams and goals.

Throughout the year I’ve become more and more assertive. From something as simple as what you’d like for dinner, to who you you want to work on a project with, to what you expect from your friends. Being assertive is useful and makes everyone happier in the end. I have also found that it is easier to do that I had thought, as soon as you make up your mind to tell your truth.

Becoming a Leader

Last year around tPOLs I had an epiphany, I had always thought of myself as someone who sees things from multiple perspectives and because of this never thought of myself as a leader (my ideologies and perspectives are not decided enough to lead).

One day I was writing about politics, and realized that the problem with politicians today is that there’s little middle ground. I realized that in groups in school, leaders told you what to do, they didn’t give suggestions or listen neerly as much as they should. I realized that this is something that if I worked on, I could this fix in my group with more fluid leadership.

All year I’ve been working on being accountable and assertive, the two main things that build trust and reliability in relationships… which is what leadership is built from.

It was DI, and my team was reasonably functional (which is a real plus). My group assumed Kiera our leader (since she’s decided and strong), but nobody talked about it, we just thought of her that way. Whenever we made a decision, we’d talk about it as a group, but we would all turn to her for a final decision. It turns out that Kiera did not want to lead, and over time that became clear to us.

At one point Kiera stopped leading and we didn’t know what to do. This was the point where I thought to myself “this is my chance”, I knew that it was time for me to guide my team on. At that point I suggested a democracy, and we spent a little while like that until the subject came up again and someone suggested that I take lead. We could not decide what to do as a whole, so I made a point. “It doesn’t matter who’s in charge, as long as we are a team, that is all we need. I’d be perfectly happy to lead, but honestly I don’t think we need a leader”. From that point on, we were an even tighter group than before, and though I was never technically “The Leader” I know that I was definitely a Leader!

Want proof that our team was close? We won 1st place for Instant challenge (which is mainly about teamwork)!

 

Simplicity

 

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace. To make the complicated awesomely simple, now that is creativity!”

– Charles Mingu

 

 

This year simplicity has been a major goal of mine. Through editing, or simply not overthinking things, I’ve been simplifying my work, my writing, poetry, art, goals, plans, timelines, first drafts…

I showed this really well through my heritage minute. My group and I collectively came up with a story, and planned it out thoroughly. This is where we narrowed down our ideas down to one, how lord Stanley Impacted the world of hockey. One very small sentence, to encompass our entire story, I’m proud of that!

My group worked well together to achieve this, and my goal for next year is to continue this in both my group and especially my individual work.

 

Passion

Passion is never something that I thought I was lacking, but this year has really thrown me some curve balls, and because of it some goals got buried and some dreams got smushed. To cope with this, I buried my passion and “turned it blue” (into depression), and eventually forgot about it.

To go into some more details about that read my book. “The Girl Who Turned Blue”

One project that really brought back my passion, and started a new one was the “Clone Army” project. Here we cloned plants and studied their cells (specifically cell division and cell cycle). This project reminded me of my love of gardening and plants, and started a new passion within me for making slides, and studying microorganisms. I loved this project sooo much that I started a more long term version of the same project at home, I’m cloning Acers (Japanese maple trees). – to create my own Bonsai trees.

I loved dealing with the poisonous liquids while creating the slides, and how when I did something wrong, mr gross would encourage me to try again (which other teachers need to allot more time for). I loved caring for the plants, and learning about what each one needs, and naming them, and watching them grow. I loved the khans academy course and how much I didn’t know before. I absolutely fell in love with microscopes this project and two passions were restored within my heart, starting a chain reaction which lead to my passion igniting once more.

 

Time Blocking

Time blocking is a magical magical thing. A magical thing in which (surprise surprise I doubted at first) but now has saved me from million time management corners. This whole year I’ve been behind, either feeling behind or lagging behind the rest, the effect has been the same over and over. A red “late” mark next to my homework.

I’m looking forward to a new start next year to wipe the slate clean and start over with all of these new tools in my arsenal!

Why I am Ready to Continue to Grade 10

Last year I learned about things that I needed to work on myself, this year I worked on those things no realized more things that I need to work on to become a better version of me. These things are:

  • I will hold myself accountable
  • I will be kind to myself
  • I will refresh every day
  • I will Time Block more effectively
  • I will give myself a bedtime
  • I will think positively
  • I will think Win-Win
  • I will constantly add to my Personal Bank Account
  • I will reflect more often

Next year will be a bit of an experiment for me. To see where my new tools and knowledge will take me, and to expand on them wherever possible. During my year I will learn where needs the most improvement (other than sleeping and timeblocking), and I am exited to go wherever my lessons lead.