Good morning and hello again!
Welcome to my first tPOL! So… For a while, I have been wondering how exactly to present my answer “Why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level”. I felt that it was a question that could be answered in so many ways and each with it’s own pros and cons yet I only knew one thing, I wanted a tell a story. I wanted this story to be a journey of me; entertaining, insightful and yet justifies why I am ready to enter grade 11. However I first felt we needed to define what exactly were the conditions that make someone ready for this senior transition.
–
So what separates a grade 10 and a grade 11 learner? To me, I think of grade 10 as a transition year, not a junior yet not a senior however, grade 11 is no doubt a senior. This would be the first year post secondary institutions would look at my grades and performance so this is very important for someone like me who aims to attend one. After thought, I believe there are four aspects that someone needs to ascend to the senior years and they are the abilities to time manage, understand teacher intervention, social integrety and pure foundational knowledge. Lets talk about each one.
So first is the ability to time manage. This is a skill thats taught from elementary and is something everybody knows yet do we understand the significance of this. This was the first year of PLP I felt the greater preassure of handing things on the deadline. When I ask has excused abscenses in class and missed work, I would ask teachers in class what to do and unlike last year where they would tell me, they would say “why weren’t you here in tutorial time”. This happended often in the first semester during due to in class musical events so sometimes I would miss class. Overtime I would eventually start coming to tutorials, not a lot, but when I felt I was falling especially behind and this only began towards the end of this year. This tutorial example really emphasized the importance of being resposible for your own abscences and personal issues and how it effects your learning and I can only imagine the increased preassure in the later years. I believe I made a start, but I hope to further manage this in the upcoming years.
Next, we have teacher intervention. I want to turn back to my Loon Lake goal all about knowing when to ask for help. Not to confuse this with “speaking less in class”, I made the goal of trying to solve my own problems before consulting others. Although it was orignially a personal goal I aimed to complete on the trip, I thought this would be important in the projects in the upcoming years. I want to use this recent exhibtion as an example, I found that during the portrait making phase, the lack of consulting teachers had lead me to create something ineffective. I feel that this is an example of taking it too far and this resulted in me having to change my portrait up in various ways before the day of presentation. I think this is a goal that will require balance and I know moving into grade 11, will definitly improve over the next two years.
Now let’s talk about group work. My idea of “social integrety” is someone who can work well with their groups. I think the seven habits especially the public victory is something I can compare it to. It talks about seeking to understand first to using each others skills and flaws to cover and create a product with the best of all’s ability. Similar to time mangement, this is a no brainer for most people and a curricular competency but I really do believe this is something I have and will continue to need to hone for grade 11. I think examples of succesful group work this year include my Romeo and Juliet project as well as my politcal party work!
Finally, another curricular competency and something I just want to celebrate is everything I have learnt this year. From music in WWII to how to understand our own worldviews, like all subjects, you need to learn the basics to advance further. All this knowledge from this grade whether it be an applicable skill or not will prepare me for grade 11. This truly should be a celebration as it just shows how much more that I know than the me a year ago.
This is it for my tPOL and thanks for reading till the end!