It’s the final stretch of the year that has been full of so many memories. I have created so many incredible products and have learned so much that it is hard to believe that it all happened in one year. At the end of the year, it so critical that I look back at what I set out to accomplish and be proud of what I have accomplished this year. Grade 10 has been a journey in which I have gained so much. This commitment to improving myself can be something that I can look back on, and today that is my goal. I will share my thoughts and reflections on this in my grade 10 tPol.
Creation
This year I challenged myself with an outside school project that has led to learning a lot about the practical applications of things we learn in school. This outside school is project is the creation of a yardage book for my golf course.
The cool thing about the project is that I am actually selling these yardage books to an audience. Much like the launch cycle, I went through the phases of prototyping to create the best product. I used experts both consumers and my golf coach, who has previous experience creating the product, to gather feedback. Even now after we have sold 50 yardage books I will be completing the 4th prototype to improve it once more.
This is a great example of applying the skills I learn in class every day to my life. The values I learn in PLP teach me how to create and even if it’s just a start to what I can accomplish it made me very happy to create something of such high quality.
Balance
In my mPOL I challenged myself to find balance in my life. Looking back at that goal I have been able to reflect on how I have progressed and if I have reached my goals.
How can I remain committed to my many priorities while finding a balence that works for my life?
This is the question I left myself at my mPOL.
It is almost comical looking back at how much simpler times in January were. So much has happened since then in my life. What has remained the same is my commitment to finding a correct balance. I would say frankly that I never found a strong balance after coming back from spring break. I could blame this on the uncontrollable circumstances but I know there was so much more I could have done. In my time machine post, I spoke about the positive uses of things and my time-blocking to release some of my stress. These are tools I need to use more often because stress is the number one obstacle that I need to solve for me to achieve balance. Next year I hope to use these tools more effectively in order to put myself in the best position to succeed in the different faucets of my life.
Understanding
Through the year I challenged my abilities at different points and one of the biggest challenges was to understand the perspectives of others. In the Minority Podcast unit, I gained so much in my ability to understand others. I have always been reluctant to understanding others’ stories and looked at things selfishly. This nature is very natural very a teenager, but in my journey, it is my goal to be better than average. In this humanities unit, I sat down and had 2 conversations with my tenant, Takao, who is a Japenese Canadian immigrant. In this conversation, I learned so much about the different perspectives that he had and how his life has been so different than mine just because of where he grew up.
One moment in the interview when his family made a facetime call to him, did I realize how important that all of us celebrate our differences. His family was so different from mine yet he found himself living pursuing dreams here in Vancouver. I find it so interesting how different our lives can be yet we can sit down and have a quality conversation that I gain a lot from. I have made a personal commitment to be more understanding of the people and cultures around me. In this project, I tested this and I enjoyed this enlightening experience.
I look to future seeing only a blurry path but I am very interested in my future. I hope to continue to challenge myself to improve myself. In my grade 11 year I will be challenged more than ever to use the skills I have learned through my first 3 PLP years and I am very interested to see what I can accomplish. In particular, balancing my life and school will be even more important this as I hope to continue my development as a learner this grade 11 year.
