Learning My Way Through Life

Lessons from the Past: WWII, the Holocaust, and the Transformation of Canada’s Identity

In our latest Humanities project, we took a deep dive into the impact of World War II on Canada’s identity, exploring how the conflict reshaped the nation’s values, culture, and politics. We started off by taking a step back and looking at the significant battles and events that took place during the war. I already knew quite a bit about World War Two, but it was very interesting to take a closer look at the details of the many historical events. A large part of this learning process was practicing the writing method “Smart Brevity”. We experimented with different topics and took the time to incorporate this method within our own notes. The final product of this project was to create an essay that covers an aspect of World War II, and how it has shaped Canadas Identity. Ultimately, this project not only deepened our understanding of Canada’s role in World War II but also highlighted the lasting influence the war had in shaping the nation’s identity.

“The profound impact of the Holocaust on a global scale led Canada to reevaluate its immigration policies, resulting in gradual reforms that opened the door to greater acceptance of refugees in the years that followed.” As stated, my thesis statement touches on the idea of Canadas immigration policies and the Holocausts impact on its growth and reform over time. I knew immediately after learning about this project that I wanted to focus my topic on something that is closely related to the Holocaust. The Holocaust is a very horrible historical event and it is important to me that I am educated on this topic and I understand the effect it had on the people and countries around the world. Though Canada and Germany are on the other side of the world from each other, Canadas impact on Jewish immigration was profound. Or should I say not Profound, Between 1933 and 1948, less than 5000 Jewish refugees were allowed into Canada – the smallest number of any Allied nation.

Check out my essay below 👇🏼

The Holocausts impact on Canadas Identity

Through this project I learned about Canadas immigration system, and government during World War II. Every country has its flaws, and this project gave me the opportunity to look at those flaws and find out how we have improved these systems over many years. This taught me about the reform of the Canadian government, and how we have shifted and changed our policies to become more welcoming and the Canada we know today. 

The final part of this project was creating a zine. I thought that this task was fairly challenging in terms of the formatting, but turned out well overall. I took my essay and turned it into zine format, as well as adding photos and different quotes to elevate its design. I am quite happy with how it turned out, and now I know how to format text into this kind of layout. 

My zine 👇🏼

In conclusion, this project not only deepened my understanding of Canada’s role during World War II but also highlighted how the war reshaped the nation’s policies and identity. By focusing on the Holocaust’s impact on Canadian immigration, I gained knowledge about the complex history of Canada’s immigration system. The small number of Jewish refugees allowed into the country during and after the war stands as a reminder of the limitations of Canada’s initial approach. However, over time, Canada’s evolving immigration policies reflect a bigger commitment to human rights, ultimately transforming the country into a more welcoming society. This project allowed me to explore the importance of learning from history, recognizing past, and striving toward a more welcoming and inclusive future.

My Transitional Presentation Of Learning 2024 🧐

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

Growth. A word that is used constantly throughout PLP. How do you know you are improving? How do you know you are being pushed to success? That is what I want to talk about today. When I first joined this program last September I didn’t know what to expect, but now that I am a couple years through I feel like I have a better handle on things, well for the most part. There are still challenges and barriers I have to work to overcome, but I feel that I have gotten a lot better at problem solving. 

As I do every T-POL I want to start by taking a look through my 2023/2024 learning plan, and the success behaviours. Reviewing this sheet, I wanted to be as honest as possible to myself. I found that a lot of these behaviours I do really well, and others not so much. That means there is always room for improvement and revision.  I felt that I could always work on my engagement in class by speaking up more and contributing to class discussions. This semester I discovered I had ADHD, for me this means many things. It means struggling with time management, organization, focus, and talking whenever. When I was diagnosed everything started to fall into place, habits I had started to make sense. One success behaviour from the competency agency I want to talk about is resilience. I believe that I have always been resilient, not just throughout my high school experience so far but just generally in life. There is this passion instilled within me whenever I set out to do something, so whenever there are barriers within projects I always find a way to overcome them (sometimes unknowingly). 

Another success behaviour I want to mention is preparation inside and outside of school. This is something I naturally struggle with in many ways. I felt that this didn’t used to be as much of a challenge for me, but this year something really changed. It is hard to describe, but keeping track of dates, hand in times, and my belongings is definitely something I need to work on. My ADHD definitely has a big part of my school and home life, but it is just something I will have to work at to get a better handle on. The last success behaviour I want to talk about is self regulation outside of school. I find that. PLP homework comes in big waves, when we are in the middle of a project the homework load is heavy, but when we aren’t there is isn’t much. I need to work on finding ways to cope with the stress that is added on through this process. I can do this by continuing to do the things I love and staying active.

Moving on, I want to talk about one of PLP 9s most recent project “In The Name Of Nationalism”. I really struggled with this project in many ways. When It was first launched I was really excited and enthusiastic about learning more about German nationalism and how it relates to my history. However, technology is not something I am good at using, specifically making videos. Finding information was easy but incorporating that information into a solid well made video was difficult. Creating different animations was quite time consuming so I ended up inserting a lot more photos and videos than I wanted too. I became sucked into this loop of procrastination where whenever I started to work on the video I couldn’t focus on the material or get anything done. Lining up the footage and my words was also very time consuming. I think overall, I kind of dug myself into this hole and it was hard to climb my way out.

In the end it was a good learning experience. It taught me about my different skills and what aspects of a project I need to be prioritizing.

This semester I learned a lot about myself and my work habits. My ADHD is not a weakness it is my superpower that I am still trying to figure out. I am trying my best to navigate my way through high school using its advantages to the best of my ability, and battling the disadvantages. I will continue to grow and learn more about myself. I am really looking forward to next year, and I hope to implement more steady work habits into my school and home life. Overall, I think that I have done pretty well this year. It definitely had its highlights and low lights, but then again without failure there would never be success. 

Thank you for listening to my 2024 presentation of learning, I hope you enjoyed!

“Exploring German Nationalism: A Journey Through History” 🇩🇪

Over these last few weeks it has been super chaotic and challenging as I navigated my way through another humanities project. This project definitely had its ups and downs. The main goal of this project was to research and gather information about nationalism in different countries. We then had to create a three to four minute YouTube video about that countries history. I chose to study German nationalism because of my connection to its dark past. I have always been quite curious about furthering my knowledge of German history and how it has had a significant impact on the rest of the world, specifically the Jewish population. 

The beginning part of this project was definitely my favourite, I enjoyed researching and exploring different aspects and details of German history. I found it quite interesting to learn and study more about Germany’s past. it gave me a better perspective on how Germany was unified and how it is perceived today. We put all the information into a graphic organizer to help us keep track of our notes and the details. the next step was to start creating a script and start to form a rough draft of our video.

After my script, I had a general idea of what kind of style I wanted to create. Every day I worked for at least an hour just starting to gather photos and different media that I could incorporate in my video. one thing I struggled with throughout this process, was keeping track of my sources. This is something new that I have not had a lot of practice with. I kept forgetting to source my information and my media and had to go back and gather some more. Another thing I think I could’ve improved on throughout this project was my time management. I felt as though I had been putting enough time into it, but as the finish line slowly got closer I realized I was not as on track as I should’ve been. 

Despite the challenges, I was able to push through and complete the project. I learned a lot about German nationalism and its impact on history. Creating the video was a fun and creative process, and I was proud of the final product. This project has definitely increased my interest in learning more about different countries and their histories. I am grateful for the opportunity to expand my knowledge and skills through this project. Overall, despite the ups and downs, I am proud of the work I was able to accomplish and the new insights I gained.

Check out my video below. ⬇️

My mid year presentation of Learning 2024 🧩

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

These past few months have really had an impact on me a a learner, I experienced many new situations, feelings, and opportunities for growth. This semester has had its ups and it’s downs, but thats what helped shape me as a person. I have learned from many mistakes, and I will continue to learn, and continue to fail throughout the rest of high school. In this presentation I will highlight some of my key learning experiences, habits I would like to build and improve on, and my goals for the rest of the year. 

To start  I would like to talk about my 2023/2024 learning plan. I always like to review my goals from the beginning of the year as a reminder of the skills I want to build and improve on. Looking back at this form I noticed that a big goal of mine was to be more engaged and talkative during the the lessons. This has never come easily for me and it has been something I have struggled with for a long time. This doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions and ideas of my own, but I find it difficult to share and express them. Going forward this is definitely something I will be encouraging myself to do more. I want to raise my hand more and share more within groups. This means setting small goals to slowly progress to becoming a more vocal and active speaker in class. 

A goal that I think I have definitely worked and improved on was my ability to become a more positive role model around the class. I have felt that I have had an overall more positive attitude towards my projects and work. I would like to continue to use this skill to my advantage, always having an open mind and looking on the bright side of things. 

One significant experience I would like to mention was the field study in Alberta. This experience was more about building relationships that hadn’t existed before, it brought me closer to a lot of people I wouldn’t have thought I would even talk to much in the beginning of the year. And although the trip was quite rough it taught me about finding people you can trust and that are kind and supportive. As my mom always says “ Find your people “, and I think this year I really settled into a nice group of people. The trip taught me integrity, and how to advocate for myself. And I think that I did end up learning a lot, maybe not what I needed to be focused on, but it still was quite the interesting experience. 

Humanities 

A big project that I completed in Humanities was the metaphor machines project. After reflecting back on the process of this machine it got me thinking about the skills that I developed throughout the work. Whenever I am actually completing a project I never really feel like I am growing much as a learner, but when I take the time to reflect and note what went well and what didn’t, you notice change that has occurred. In metaphor machines I took on a more leadership role in my group. This was one of the first times I stepped up for a group, and it was a bit intimidating. I ended up taking a lot on in this project and felt as if I did contribute quite a lot. The machine did end up working in the end, maybe not consistently, but it did. I know my group and I put a lot of time and effort into getting this to work, and I was really proud of us when it came together on exhibition night. We were able to display our work, and our newly found knowledge on the Meiji Revolution. 

Overall, I think that this year has taught me a lot about my ability to step up and take on leadership roles. My willingness to push myself out of my comfort zone, and my capacity to build relationships and find my own support system. I know that I want to continue to grow as a student for the rest of the school year. The skills that I start to develop now are the ones I will use for the rest of my life. For the rest of the school year I would like to focus on being more engaged in class, and becoming a more active speaker during class discussions. I would also like to stay organized and on track with work to make my school-sports balance more manageable. This past semester has honestly been amazing and I can’t wait to keep growing and progressing as not just a learner but a person. 

Thank you for listening to my  Mid year presentation of learning. 

DI regionals blogpost 💭

These past few months have been quite chaotic as Destination Imagination put everyone’s capabilities and skills to the test. Through this process unlike any other, I developed and expanded various skills. Skills like communication, collaboration, problem solving, and time management were used throughout the process. I found myself in situations I hadn’t experienced ever, and I think that it was very beneficial for me. This helped me develop important life skills and further my knowledge. When Starting this project I wasn’t expecting to experience that much stress, frustration, anxiety. I found myself working on DI for hours at a time.

Destination Imagination is described as “A project based, kid-driven program that teaches kids to be innovative problem solvers. Using STEAM, teams of students collaborate, think outside the box and create unique solutions to one of seven different challenges in preparation for a fun, problem-solving competition.” – https://www.destinationimagination.org 

Students are put into teams and they are grouped into different categories. There are 4 categories:  fine arts, technical, science, and engineering. I selected Science as my category because I was most interested in the science part of DI, and the idea looked interesting to me. I was then put into my group with Esther, Gino, Christian, and Charlie. Right off the bat we were struggling with developing ideas, and our group couldn’t settle on just one idea. At first we wanted to do ancient Egypt, then we wanted to do Atlanta, but it was already being used by a different group, so we finally settled back with ancient Egypt. It was a long month of just planning and getting everything situated and decided. Then with only a couple weeks left till regionals it was crunch time. Everyone was trying to complete their puppet and team choice element. It was honestly quite chaotic and stressful.

I think my team could have definitely improved on our communication during this presentation. Everyone kind of had a job to follow through with, but it was difficult when someone wasn’t getting the message or didn’t understand what they were supposed to do. Another factor of our groups missed-communication may have been that we started of by using Base Camp as our main source of communication. Half way through this process we decided it would be more effective to switch to messages so that people are getting their notifications right to their phones. Even though this worked for a little while I think some people in my group started to just tune out the messages, and thats where the communication went wrong. If I were to do this again I would make sure that everyone’s notifications are on, or just schedule one day a week where we get together. 

As for the building part I felt that it wasn’t quite evenly distributed throughout the group. Me and Esther were caught with a lot of the work and I think that this is where the communication could have been a little better because I think the rest of our group would have helped out more if they knew what they were supposed to do. I helped out with the puppet and the backdrop, and I could have done a better time if I had more time to get everything together. 

One of my key takeaways from this whole experience is that sometimes you will work your butt off to do something and it wont always pay off. Time and effort don’t always mean perfection. I have had a really hard time accepting that throughout life because whenever I put so much effort into something I expect so much out of it. A lot of the time I wont receive the outcome I want, and I think DI really showed me that that is ok. In the end I did enjoy different parts of this experience, and I made some friends throughout this process. I felt that this was really eye opening and I learned about my self and my capabilities, I grew as a learner and as a person. 

What The Heck Is A Frankenstuffie?

These past few weeks I had the opportunity to build, create, and write a story unique to me. I learned about effective writing and how to convey a direct message to an audience. Through this project we had to create a Frankenstuffie made up from different parts of other stuffed animals. We spent time sewing and stitching together our character. One of my favourite parts of this was the actual creation of the animal because it was one of the most creative aspects of the project. We developed a character file and explained every little detail about their life. The driving question for this project was, “How do we as writers make our message clear and engaging to an audience?” I thought that through this project I was really able to answer that question and build a better understanding of how to compose a well thought out story. 

The story part of this project was quite fun I got to use my imagination and my story telling skills to compose a well thought out story. I was able to build my vocabulary throughout this process and I practiced making properly composed sentences. We worked with Mr Harris and did a new writing workshop every so often to help improve the structure and overall flow of our writing. 

The hardest part of the project was making a video after our story. We had to create a 2-3 minute video of our story using the different technical skills we have developed so far. I used over 5 apps to create my video and was jumping back and forth creating different parts of it. Even though the overall quality of my video is not perfect, the process of creation took hours and hours of work. When I first found out we were writing a story I knew right away that I wanted to make the main character overcome some personal problem. The main character (Sullivan) had terrible anxiety and was afraid of everything. The initial story was him going to to explore the meteorite and getting powers that amplify his fears, he then is able to learn how to control them and become the boss of himself. After finding out that we had to shorten our story to just one part of it I chose the beginning, “ Call to adventure”.  This was where Sullivan came across the meteor on the news and was his story of deciding to see it. 

Another part of this project was reading the novel “ Leviathan” by Scott Westerfeld. This book was honestly quite confusing, but it did spark curiosity and got me thinking about my own story. Leviathan is a fictional story about the two sides of a war, and it really highlights the theme trust throughout the story. It was very thought provoking and made me think about the theme of my own story.  

Overall, this project really helped me improve as a writer and I was able to build a newly developed skills.  I now know that I need to start managing my time better when it comes to longer projects. Even though I did struggle at times I think it was a great learning experience and I had a lot of fun experimenting with different apps and getting to put together a final product. Check out my video below. ⬇️

Feel free to comment below

https://padlet.com/lilaw4/rise-of-the-frankenstuffies-d-k0ke2n3is4vcrte3

“Unraveling Riel: Exploring the Changing Portrayals of Louis Riel’s Impact on Canada’s History”

Louis Riel had a significant impact on Canadas history, and helped shape its identity over many years. In this project we learned about the many portrayals of Louis Riel, the history of Canada and the fight for the Metis. The process of this project was quite interesting as I got to explore different texts and videos that helped me interpret Louis Riel in my own way. Louis Riel’s Reputation has shifted and changed over many years. I learned about his resistance fighting for the Metis land and rights. The Canadian government fought back determined to take back the Red River land. Viewed as a Rebel by many, and a hero by others, he was a controversial powerful leader.

We started off this project by investigating the many portrayals of Louis Riel. We looked at different statues, art pieces, and films taking notes on the various styles and feelings that were expressed. This helped us gather information and sources for our three paragraph composition. I found this aspect of the project one of the  more challenging parts. I struggled trying to interpret him in my own way. One thing I found very helpful were videos and short films, they helped me understand more about his story and impact. Historica Canadas Heritage Minute was most intriguing to me. The video explored his past and showed his religious beliefs. It helped me deeper my understanding of him and his own beliefs. 

With all this information and the help from my teachers and peers I was able to compose a three paragraph essay that I was quite proud of. I think that this project really improved my writing skills, and it was a solid start to building a foundation of my literacy devices. A big part of this project was making mistakes and correcting them. I got feedback and corrections from multiple different classmates that helped me improve upon my writing. I also got very important and effective feedback from my teachers that really benefited my writing. Throughout this project not only did I expand my vocabulary and learn about the important history of Canada I also learnt about the importance of an indent. 

Overall, reflecting on this essay about Louis Riel, I have gained a deeper understanding of his impact on Canada’s history and the struggles faced by the Metis. The process of exploring different sources and interpretations allowed me to form my own perspective on Riel. I found the investigation of various portrayals challenging but beneficial in enhancing my interpretation skills. Watching videos, particularly Historica Canada’s Heritage Minute, helped me gain a deeper understanding of Riel’s beliefs and story. With the help of my teachers and peers, I was able to compose an essay that I am proud of and improve my writing skills. This project not only expanded my vocabulary and knowledge of Canada’s history, but also taught me the importance of feedback and attention to detail, such as using proper indentation in writing. Check out my essay below. ⬇️

Winter exhibition | 2023 

Another year another exhibition, a time for learning, experiencing, and reflecting. This Winter exhibition really put me to the to the test, and pushed my capabilities. I learned a lot about myself, and what situations I work well in  and situations that I don’t. This exhibition felt quite different than previous exhibitions as we were given a lot less time to develop ideas and follow through with them. In the end though, I felt that the exhibition was a success that I was able to learn from. 

Our project for the exhibition was quite complex. We had to research a revolution and take the information from the revolution and transfer it into a Rube Goldberg machine. Each connection in the Rube Goldberg Machine had to metaphorically represent a significant event that happened in the Revolution. Me and 5 other people were assigned to the Meiji revolution. We spent a good chunk of our time researching, and trying to better understand the full story of the Meiji revolution. I would take notes on the more important aspects of the revolution making sure I was able to piece together the full story.  My group and I then started the planning process, and each contributed a connection related to an event. I would say that this was one of the more difficult parts of this project. Just trying to get everyone’s ideas to piece together while being chronologically correct was difficult. This is where the collaboration started, and where we needed everyone’s opinions and ideas. Each person in the group was assigned a specific role to help the building process of the machine go more smoothly. The creative director of the group was Monica, and she was able to create a great diagram of how our machine might look.

Building our Rube Goldberg machine was next step. We started off slow making sure everyone knew what they were doing and how they could help. Each person was responsible for making their own connection and adding it to the machine, but we were all responsible for working together to make the machine successful. If I’m being completely honest the hardest thing about this project was the trial and error. We were able to get all of our connections complete, but actually getting the machine to be fully successful felt impossible. Test after test, we kept trouble shooting to see what worked and what didn’t. We altered some of the connections throughout the build to make it work. I tried my best to do my part and help out with each setup. 

The day of the exhibition came and we still hadn’t had a complete run through. We were all pretty worried about setting everything up, presenting, and the machine working . As we were setting all of our machine up in the library, we tried to it again and it finally worked! Everyone was relieved, and I think thats when I realized that everything would work out. I learned that when you put a lot of time and effort into something, that it can really pay off. The actual exhibition was great, our machine ended up working around 10 or so times. That was a huge success for our group, and I think we all really enjoyed showing off our machine and telling everyone about our learning.  We told them a bit about the story of the Meiji revolution and what each connection meant. I always dislike the social aspect of the exhibition and get very anxious about speaking to many people, but I think I did a lot better this year and I was able to improve my communication skills. 

Overall, I would say that this exhibition was a success. The process of getting there may have not been very pretty, but I thought in the end my group did really well. We were able to overcome many roadblocks by working collaboratively. This project taught me a lot about teamwork and how to work effectively with the people around you. check out our project documentary below. ⬇️ 

“Thrill Us! – A Short Film Reflection”

Making a movie in one week sounds hard. Making a two-minute movie in one week sounds easy, but it really wasn’t. My group, Alex, Syd, Mika, and I, all had to come up with an original idea for a thriller movie and then compose it in just one week. We all knew that this was going to be quite a challenge, as it was. Many ideas were bounced around, and we really couldn’t decide on just one. After lots of thinking, we came up with a great plan, or what we thought would be a great plan. We had our first movie idea fully set in a pool. We were going to have three girls playing in a pool, and slowly, one by one, they disappear until the last one is dragged down in the water. Now, in theory, this sounded like a good idea.

We all got to the pool and realized that it was absolutely freezing and how hard it was going to be to film this. We really struggled throughout this process, and it took us around two hours to film in the dark. The next day, we put together all the footage, and it turned out that many of the shots we got were not up to standard. This is when we all started to panic and rethink our entire plan. We had already drawn up each scene and completed a storyboard filled with 50 shots. We were quite upset when we figured out that we would have to completely restart. This was a completely new learning experience for me, and I really found it quite challenging. The whole situation was very stressful as there were only three days left to completely finish a new movie. We started brainstorming new ideas and we were able to come up with a more simple yet creative idea.

We got to filming the very next day and we made some great progress. We were lucky enough to get an extension a couple days so that we could finish. Our new idea was similar to the first one, but based in the forest. At this point I just wanted to be done, and have a film I was proud of and wanted to show the class. This however, wasn’t going to happen for a bit. It took us about an hour to get all the shots which was a big improvement compared to our first film. With the help of a friend, we started editing right away. Our group really wanted to focus on having smooth and clean shots put together well, and i think we were really able to accomplish this. Check out our video below. ⬇️

“The Path to Personal Growth – A Reflection From Loon Lake 2023

This past Week I had the amazing opportunity to go to Loon Lake with all of PLP grade 9. The learning objective of this trip was how do our future paths reflect the personal, community, and educational choices we make. We worked with pinnacle pursuits, a team of people that helped us learn more about ourselves and our goals and how we can accomplish them. This retreat brought all of PLP 9 closer together and helped rebuild a feeling of trust and reliability. If I’m being completely honest I was quite hesitant to go on this trip.  In the end I thought that it was quite helpful and I had a lot more fun than I thought I would. 

Each day we would take part in 3 workshops teaching us about various things like emotional intelligence, self awareness, and leadership. We kept track of each lesson in our books, and completed each session with our our instructor Johnathan. He helped us figure out about ourselves and how we can develop into better people. I learned about my strengths and my weaknesses. I learned about how to collaborate and communicate effectively through different activities. Using teamwork I discovered what qualities I bring to a team and how I can really utilize those skills. It turns out that I am a good listener and good at following instructions. I used my creative and critical thinking skills a lot during the activities. I feel that I was able to build on many skills throughout this trip and develop new ones. 

One of my favourite workshops was near the end of the trip. In this workshop we did trust falls. This tested everyone’s trust and confidence. We started off just on the ground doing regular trust falls. As everyone got more comfortable we all progressed to a taller  drop. We set up a chair on a table and everyone took turns falling. This activity was quite challenging for people, it is a lot scarier than it looks and it takes a lot of trust. I found it scary for about 2 seconds, but after realizing that I would be caught I wasn’t as stressed. Everyone in my group was able to complete this exercise, and I feel that this was really helpful to build a sense of trust between one and other. 

One of things I brought home with me was my transfer goal. I came up with an intention in Loon Lake that I wanted to accomplish in school. As soon as I heard about a goal I knew exactly what it was going to be. My intention is to be more positive towards new projects and school in general. I want to work on having a positive mindset and being more open to new ideas in PLP. To accomplish this goal I will focus on surrounding myself with more positive people, and practicing more positive self talk. 

The driving question for this trip was How do the choices we make set our future path? Throughout the week I learned that everything you do defines you as a person. The good decisions the bad decisions, and everything in between shape you as a person. The way you treat yourself and others has a big impact on how you feel and how others feel about you. Overall, I think that the Loon Lake trip was very beneficial for so many reasons. I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot more about myself. I cant wait to continue to grow as a learner and a person.