Tpols

This year was different….
In many ways not only the new work ethic or people and even school. But my eagerness to learn new things had changed. This year was different and now i am too. At the beginning of the year I was a quiet kid with good grades and a drive for change. Something different from stacks of papers that I had to study and forget about…. repeat.

I honestly found school boring and dreaded most days and usually only wanted to go to be with my friends. It was a normal situation. And i am telling you right now normal sucks. On the first day of school I knew things were going to be different. Since then Ive fallen in love with presenting, talking and posting on my learning portfolio and even reviewing my work.

All of which I detested before. Even if class was sometimes scary or we had to do something embarrassing or very difficult. I was excited and eager for the first time in a really long time to learn. During this year I’ve changed and my whole life has changed for the better and today I’m going to mention which of these events changed me the most and helped form who I am now.
This year I worked on many projects with a lot of different people and focused on many topics.

One of my favourite projects was in maker, and it was destination imagination.

I know some people have mixed feelings about D.I but I personally really enjoyed this project. I liked getting to know the people in my group, learn about not extremely school related topics and create a solution to a problem through a skit. I will not deny that it was pretty stressful and kinda scary but because of the stress and the fact it was outside of my comfort zone I had the chance to try something new. D.I also gave me the chance to work in a team and deal with other people, which I know doesn’t sound to difficult but it truly is. Even if destination imagination was stressful, scary, annoying, frustrating I could probably continue forever…. I learned a lot about being part of a team and I learned that working together is much better than doing something on your own.

Another project I enjoyed that we just finished was colonizing in a tempest. I really like to perform and present a play of project to a audience so this was the project I was waiting for. For this project we learned about Shakespeare and Canadian history ( one of my absolute favourite topics ) and combined them together into a play.

The idea of connecting two pretty different topics was interesting for me and pretty confusing but
Because of this project I think with more depth and search for deeper or alternate meanings for certain stories or topics. When we presented our play we had to speak in Shakespearean language and I’m not the best with pronunciation so that was a little challenging but overall I found the play to be really exciting and fun. Overall this project was amazing and has helped me understand most topics in general better, I can also kinda understand Shakespeare now ….. Bonus? This project has also taught me to continue trying and has made me more resilient in the sense of work quality. In sciematics this year we weren’t as project crazy but got to explore many other interesting topics. But out of what we’ve learned this year I think I enjoyed learning most about tectonic plates. Before this unit I was already intrigued by natural disasters related to tectonic plates specifically volcanic activity and was really excited to learn more.

While we completed worksheets and watched cool videos and saw interesting images I became more interested. And from some research projects and by creating my own book I learned so much about this topic and enjoyed learning about it. From this unit I learned how to work independently in an effective way as well as demonstrate my learning in a creative way through my book. This project also taught me to enjoy my work and make it more interesting for myself and people that I share it with. This year I was learning certain things I wasn’t used to being taught. How to actually succeed. In regular school they give you rules to follow for everything you work on but don’t teach you how to manage your time, organize your work, prioritize or even how to balance your life between school and work.

In regular school its easy to lose your way and bury yourself in work but because of PGP I learned how to do all these things that would keep me on track. Throughout this year in PGP I’ve learned so much about productivity, goal setting and the seven habits and because of what I’ve learned I’ve been able to apply these tools to every aspect of my life and improve as a learner. A specific project that helped me realize how far I’ve come since the beginning  of PGP was our time machines.

Which were artifacts we created to explain to our former selves about PGP. This project specifically allowed me to review my progress in PGP and was kind of a mini Tpol in a way. Everything I’ve learned this year has been amazing and has changed my perspective of school and learning in general and I’m very happy that I applied to PLP, I was looking for a change and I got one and now I just have to continue to work hard in this program I adore so much. I believe I can continue to do better and grow to love learning more and more. This year has been amazing and I am really excited for more years in PLP, thanks for reading, Kaia