The Year In Review
This year was a fresh start, a new life for me to build and navigate, and can I just say, I think I did a damn good job. Starting off by scratching everything I knew about school, and focussing on a new way of learning, I instantly felt the difference. I remember walking to school on the first day, without any friends, just the new kid that had entered the school only twice before attending, I was nervous. I remember eating lunch on the floor with kids like Marshall, Lucas, and Luca, the same people I now call my best friends. I just tried to go with the flow, and let whatever happened, happen. The next month from there was a blur, so many new faces and personalities to try and remember, I don’t even recall what my day looked like. I was so fortunate enough to be welcomed in to this community with such kindness, I couldn’t believe how easily I made friends. Even to this day, I am still making friends with new people, just goes to show how great of a school Seycove is.
While my schoolwork was pretty good at the beginning of the year, I had to balance the time it took to become good friends, with my strong work ethic. I remember the first student-teacher conference where the most important thing that was stressed by both teachers was that the level in which my effort was at was low. At one point, Ms. Willemse asked me, “Out of 10, how much effort do you think you are putting in to your work, and I said 8. She then said she thought it was more like 6. Then Mr. Hughes chimes in from the back, “I think it’s more like a 4!” Thats when I knew that I wasn’t going to find better teachers anywhere else. They are so honest and I have such respect for them because of that. So from then on, I definitely tried my best to put a little more effort in to my work, all the while strengthening my new friendships.
Now let’s take a look at some specific learning I have undergone as a student in Humanities, Scimathics, and Maker.
If there is one thing I feel like I have improved the most in Humanities, it’s the way I present my work, the quality and overall effort/aesthetic that my work is showcased in. At the beginning of the year, if I was given a blog post, I would simply write up a few paragraphs, copy and paste that writing in to my blog, add a title, maybe a couple images here and there, and boom! I thought I was done. But if we take a look at my more current blog posts, the difference in effort is so clear that it makes me feel like such an idiot how bad my posts used to be. If a blog post was assigned now, the list of tasks would be much longer. I’ll add links, make a special thumbnail, add a video, etc. An example of the extra effort I put in is that I was looking through plugins one day and I came across “Jetpack“. I read the features and thought of how nice my blog could look if I had it installed. I had a hard time getting it to work and download, but once I got it and saw the features in use, I have to say, I was pretty impressed. So now, if you look at one of my posts and see a slideshow or a gallery of images, you’ll know that that’s something I went out of my way to add.
Scimathics is one hell of a class. Mix the endless energy of Mrs. Klausen with chemicals and 24 students and you’ve got yourself a handful. For some reason, Mrs. Klausen just gets me. Whenever I have a problem, she always knows the perfect way to help me figure it out myself, I don’t know how she does it. The way I have progressed in scimathics is basically summed up by that sentence. At the start of the year, if I didn’t know how to do something, I would slowly give up. I would ask and ask my friends for help and then when it came time for a test, I would rack my brain for the answers. This just wasn’t the way I wanted to learn. Now however, if I come across a problem, I take a step back, evaluate it, break it down, and go about solving it that way. Even if it take longer, it helps me with my confidence and ultimately helps me yield better results. This improvement can be hard to find evidence for though, because my grades never changed, instead, my mental capabilities did.
Maker is definitely the subject I had the most trouble with this year. It was something about the onslaught of big projects that played with my head. I had a really hard time getting anywhere at the beginning of these projects, and I had little confidence walking in to class, knowing I wouldn’t be making much progress that day. This is a problem I still face, and one that I am ready to work on in grade 9. Maker wasn’t a bad subject for me though, I still feel as though some of the projects I completed were very well executed and I am proud of them. One of these projects was Destination Imagination. Even though I don’t think I’ve experienced a more stressful time in my life, this was one unit I will always want to remember. I have always struggled with teamwork, it’s not one of my strong suits. In fact I wrote a blog post that talks a bit more about this; here it is. DI forced me to come out of my shell and work with others as a team. I think the pressure of performing to an audience really helped with my teamwork building. I realized I didn’t have the time to let my group do the work while I sat back, so I stepped up, and got to work. We ended up absolutely crushing it at DI. We were invited to go to Globals, and our group couldn’t have been prouder. I wrote a couple posts on Destination Imagination; Regionals and Provincials.
Here is some of the work I am most proud of from this year…
OREGON:
One of the first major units we underwent this school year was our advertising unit. If I can recall, we began it about a month before we went to Oregon. We learned all about different techniques used in the advertising industry, and we made ads of our own. I am pretty proud of this work as I remember being excited that we were using photography in one of our units.
Another assignment I am proud of from Oregon is the book we made using Book Creator. I tried really hard to make a quality book not only for my grades, but because I wanted to be able to look back on my experiences in a few years, and understand my times in Oregon. I remember looking forward to updating it every night before I went to bed, and ultimately it turned out really good.
DESTINATION IMAGINATION:
I’ve already talked about DI quite a bit, but I’ll say it again! I’m really proud of how well it went. Thinking about it brings a smile to my face, just knowing the hard work my group and I put in to it payed off.
BLUE SKY:
The last big thing I am proud of from this year is Blue Sky. This is a perfect example of overcoming one of my struggles and ending up being successful. At the beginning of the unit I was lost, I didn’t know where I was headed. It took me a while to get my footing but once I did I made something I can say I’m proud of. Being the first student to use the new 3D printer was pretty cool, and I’m even more happy about the amount of compliments I was given at the exhibition. I am most proud of how I was able to turn a potentially devastating project in to something I am happy about.
Overall this year has been a roller coaster ride. All the many ups and downs both academically and socially have help me become the better student, and friend I am today. To my teachers and my friends, thanks for the good times .
danielw • June 19, 2017