Last class, we joked about something a little. At the idea of calling this a “terminal presentation of learning”. It wasn’t until someone pointed out that that was actually accurate, that this was my last TPOL of my life, did it hit me: time has really flown by, hasn’t it? In this post, I’ll be talking all about my PLP experience this year, why I should move on to the next grade level, and even make some connections to my first ever PLP trip. Without further ado, let us commence!
Image source: https://www.kqed.org/news/11686760/ac-transit-riders-salesforce-transit-center-and-transbay-terminal
I said a bit of this last year, but this year it’s so much more true. I’ve cleaned up my act in regards to school. I’m getting better grades, producing higher quality work, and overall just having a better time. If I’m being honest, I think that’s been due in part to the fact that I’ve had a shorter day this semester, which has drastically decreased my anxiety issues related to school. That certainly shows in my PLP grade, and I must say that I’m proud of the hard work I’ve done. An example of this would be my project, aptly named “Ideal School Structures”, that I presented at the recent spring exhibition. The project we were assigned was called “School, What is it Good For?”, and it was about our solutions to our chosen school-related problem and the artifact, whether physical, or in my case, digital, that we created to support our argument and show our learning. Mine was a presentation I made in Keynote that detailed my many, many, many gripes about school and numerous things I could think of to fix those problems. In addition to that, I ran a class vote in which visitors to the exhibition would have the privilege of casting their votes as to which presented solution to a given problem they would like to see implemented. I’ll admit, I should’ve expected that the vast majority of voters were family members of presenters, and that the candy bribes I had laid out weren’t going to change their minds, but hey, they tasted good, and it was a fun thing to run. This is especially true for me, as I won our little election with a total of 5 votes, 2 more than second place. As of writing this, I’m sure that everyone will think it’s fraud, and I may know for sure by the time I present, but whether they believe it or not, it was fair. I worked hard, and led something on behalf of the class. It felt good to do well, and I’m very proud of myself for this project. On a sidenote, I guess old habits die hard, because in true Nathan fashion, I both started and completed my project the night before the exhibition, just as I’m doing with this post!
Image Source: http://www.clipartbest.com/animated-clocks-clipart
Well, that was a success story if I’ve ever seen one! It’s good news, then, that I have another one! Earlier this year, and I talked about this in my MPOL, we did a project that I had been waiting for for years: a Cold War project. Simply named “The Coldest War”, this project gave us the task of creating a graphic novel that portrayed a historical-fiction story of the Cold War. I won’t go into incredible detail here, as I already did that in my MPOL, but the short version is that I worked hard, but also procrastinated, and did good work in the end. I was proud of my finished product, and truly happy with the grades I got as a result. The creation process was quite fun, and, since politics are a subject of interest for me, this project and the one detailed above were very good for me, as I can produce a quality of work on topics I enjoy that I can’t do otherwise. Overall, I’m happy with my progress, and once again, procrastination didn’t kill me. It led to an eventful night, but not a morning of failure, so I suppose it all works out.
Image source: https://www.military-stuff.org/cold-war-1998-s1-ep1-comrades/
Something amazing happened this year that my grade hasn’t gotten to experience throughout our time at Seycove in the way that PLP usually does: a trip. One of the big appeals of PLP had been the fact that we would get to go on overnight trips once a year. Unfortunately, due to covid, only our grade 8 Oregon trip ended up happening. That all changed this year, when students in grades 11 and 12 went on a trip to Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri, with special guest state California hosting our emergency overnight stay after we missed our connection flight due to our first flight getting delayed, but I went into more detail about that in my post I wrote about that trip. I must say, the two experiences couldn’t have been more different. It wasn’t only the shockingly different environments and cultures, as Oregon and Washington are almost exactly like home, but the people who were there, the experiences that we had, my outlook on life the universe and everything, etc. As someone who’s a lot more mature, and with very different opinions, I went to Washington and Oregon with a slight distaste towards America in the most Canada-friendly part of it. I went to Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri with a severe dislike of the American worldview and Regime, and yes, I mean that, but that’s unimportant. To those of you reading from America, It’s nothing personal, I’m sure you’re all great people. Regardless, while I went on the first trip unprepared for what was coming, and with a mountain of work I would never finish, this time I was under control, worked hard, and was graded well for it, though I still handed in my work a bit late… I guess between that and the procrastination, well, the more things change the more they stay the same.
As my final example of my PLP learning experience, I, unfortunately, have to say something a little heavier. It’s not nearly as bad as the news my older POLs have often presented, and I’m sorry to kill the mood, but this needs to be brought up as a warning for the future, a warning that will be here so that I won’t make the same mistake again. Earlier this year, we did a fantastic public speaking project on the Manhattan project. I truly did enjoy the project, but I took too much confidence in my public speaking ability. It’s something I’ve always been good at, but overconfidence never served anyone well. I was so confident that I would deliver the best speech out of everyone, that I didn’t make the necessary preparations to actually pull that off. A gifted person is no better than anyone else if they don’t properly use their gift. In the end, my speech was fairly well-written, yet also terribly performed. I wasted the potential I had because I thought I was already the best, and I even ended up not writing a blog post about it. This is written here to remind me that while I can keep my old habits, if I let them consume me, I will never truly reach my potential.
Thus ends the last TPOL I will ever write, as next year I will be writing my FPOL (Final Presentation Of Learning). It’s been a wild ride these past few years. Indeed, for all I’ve changed, there are some things that I simply can’t shake, and if we’re to talk about old, outdated habits, then here’s one right now:
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*Brofist*