A letter of learning | Me, myself, and I

Dear teachers and parental figures,

MPols is back! It’s that time again, where I take you through my journey as a learner, a student and a person. As always I am going to tell you what I’ve been proud of, where I need improvement and what you can do to help.

What skills am I proud of?

I have been proud about the amount of effort that I have put into the projects this past year. I can see that I am much more engaged in the projects themselves and I am working more on showing that. For me it’s the little things that build up to that effort that I would like to take a second to appreciate. I show up to class early, I’m there everyday, I put in the effort to pay attention and am willing to try. I know that this is the bare minimum but I’ve found that I don’t appreciate the time I take to do things as often anymore. When I take these few seconds to feel proud of myself for showing up, I find that I am much more willing to learn and have a brighter attitude to the subjects that we are discussing. This little ritual I have made for myself was especially effective during the conceptual art unit. For me conceptual art was not what I had in mind when I first learned we would be a doing an art piece and it took me some convincing to think that it was a valid form of art. However I stuck to it and by the end of it I had a product that I think was one of my best works.

I have always been big on reflection as a skill and it is one of the reasons that I’m in PLP. Thanks to the fact that my elementary school was a IB school, reflecting on my work has always been a big part of my education. As such it is a skill that I have gotten fairly good at. Looking back at projects I am able to say “oh ya, I did really good on this but I could have also done this differently” or “that didn’t really work out but this one thing that I did was really cool”. That’s what I like so much about this blog is that I can read my older posts and go “oh ya, that went really badly, but look what I learned”. The last project that I did with Ms. Willemse on the government got me thinking about this as well. I had a post a couple years ago about the Doukhobors, the government and ethical judgment and I realized that I could have talked about it in my post to show my growth as a learner and to see whether or not my opinion has changed.

What skills do I want to work on?

Setting higher goals

I tend to set the bar low even with goal setting like in the grading contracts. I found that last year when talking about grade contracts I gave myself a grade that was easy to get to and because it was easy I didn’t put in as much effort or time or energy into my work. This showed and I struggled with actually getting there. This year I’m setting the bar high. I’ve decided to try for a 95. My thought is that by setting a higher goal then I usually would I’ve committed myself to doing the extra 5 or 10 minutes of thinking that allows me to make deeper connections.

Talking about grades

Having those quick conversations with myself and the teachers to check in and see if I am on track. Opportunities like MPols gives me a chance to self reflect and talk with you guys about my learning. But having that conversation shouldn’t be because it’s required and I would like to take those chances to have quick conversations about where I’m at and how I’m doing in the project. My hope is that these conversations will allow me to know if I’m doing what I’ve said I will and for you to know where I think I’m at.

Taking leadership roles

Finally I find that I still tend to step back during group projects and not take advantage of the social setting enough. I have been getting better at this and a way to show that is through group reading. I have been trying to raise my hand more and have been volunteering to read for Macbeth or answer questions. Things like being more active as a participant in class is a way for me to show that I am understanding and following along and I would like to increase those moments.

What can you do?

I would like the teachers to be there for those quick grade conferences to help me know if I’m on track, if Im where I want to be and if I’m not, where it is I’m not demonstrating that understanding. To my parents I’d like to thank you for the workspace at home that lets me concentrate. I’d also appreciate it if you would continue to engage in those conversations about learning that you have already been doing. It might not be the same type of conversation but when you ask questions about topics or bring up your own experience it allows me to make connections that can deepen my learning.

Thank you again for all the work that you’ve put into helping me as a learner. See you at TPols!

Sincerely,

Meg

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