Daily Archives: April 25, 2019

The Canadian Experience

Posted on by

Canada. The wonderful, magical cold land of maple syrup and nice people. The thing is, stereo types aren’t very accurate. Although Canada is diverse, throughout history, and to this day, we haven’t always been very accepting of minority groups. In this project, we learned all about different minority groups, focusing on the Chinese minority in Canada in class, and separate minorities for our project. I’ll get to the main project later. First, we’ll talk about Chinese people in Canada, and specifically in Vancouver.

In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, there were a lot of Chinese immigrants. The thing was, they didn’t want Chinese immigrants. So they enforced the head tax, where Chinese immigrants had to pay $50, to $100, to finally $500 to come into Canada. Once here, they were limited in location. In Vancouver, the Chinese could only live in Chinatown. It’s horrible to think about how hard these people worked to get to Canada, only to be forced to live in certain areas, experiencing Canada completely differently than any white person would’ve.

To deepen our knowledge of Chinese history, and Chinatown, we started reading a book called Jade Peony by Wayson Choy. The book focused around a Chinese family living in Vancouver’s Chinatown. There were three parts to the story, each told from one of the children’s perspectives. It was a very interesting book, and it was interesting to see the different perspective of someone, even though born in Canada, who was living a completely different life than, well, my grandpa. He grew up in Vancouver around the same time. The lifestyle differences were really crazy, and yet, childhood was still similar. Children playing soldiers, reading comics, the idealized childhood experience. 

Since we were learning all about Chinatown, our teachers thought it would be a great idea to take us to Chinatown. While there, we took a tour with the amazing Judy Lam Maxwell. We got to go into a bunch of really cool historical building, learn about Chinatown’s history, and talk to someone who grew up in Chinatown. While there, we made a podcast. Take a listen!

This podcast was different from others we have done in the past. The goal was to record sounds while on location. I found this very difficult. It was hard to know when to record, and when to be looking around, experiencing Chinatown. Overall, I learned a lot from this experience. The biggest this was probably to record as much as possible. Then, when it comes time to edit, you have a lot more to work with. 

Throughout this project, we’d been focusing on perspectives. To finalize the perspective piece, we had to write a positionality paper. It was basically an in-class essay where we explored how our positions impact our experiences with literature. 

I thought it was a really cool topic, and I had a good time writing it. Probably the most challenging part about it was the tone. It was a formal essay, but because it was kinda personal, we were also writing in the first person, using I. We’ve never done it before, so that was probably my biggest challenge. 

Now, finally, we can get to the project of the unit. As we do in PLP 10, it was a podcast. In groups of three or four, we had to research a minority group in Canada to see how they experienced Canada differently. Our minority group was the LGBTQ+ community. Since that is very broad, we decided to focus on three identities within the LGBTQ+ community, those being Pansexual, Bisexual, and Asexual. We wanted to focus on these groups because along with discrimination outside the LGGBTQ+ community, there is also a lot of discrimination towards these groups inside of the LGBTQ+ community. 

For our podcast, we had the pleasure of interviewing Yvette Narlock, an openly queer person at Seycove. It was an amazing experience, and I learned so much. Our podcast is so much better because of her.

This was a really cool experience. Along with learning a bunch about the LGBTQ+ community, the Chinese community, and minorities in Canada, I also got to work on my podcasting skills. I’m still not amazing at podcasting, and this was far from perfect, but I think it went really well. For the future, I will be really aware of audio levels. Other than that, I’m really proud of our work!

The Future Is Friendly Except It’s Not

Posted on by

 

Ever since we were little, people have been asking us what we want to be when we grow up. It’s the big question. Now that we’re in high school, we do have to start thinking about this seriously. One way we have been doing this is by using the tool MyBluePrint. MyBluePrint has a lot of surveys to help you understand yourself. It has really helped me understand who I am, how I learn, and has helped narrow down what I want to do after high school.

There were five ‘Who Am I?’ surveys to take. Although I do not think al of it was 100% accurate, it gave me a pretty good look at myself. The first one was…

Learning Styles

The learning styles survey was very interesting to me. I already knew that I learned better by doing, that is why I joined PLP. It was the other results that surprised me. I would probably say I’m more equal in visual and auditory learning. Overall, this survey was very useful because in the future, I will know how to better my learning. If I can continue to learn in a hands-on environment, I will learn more in the long run. This can also help with jobs in the future. By knowing this, I can choose a job where it is primarily hands-on, and have a better experience over all.

The next survey was…

Personality

This survey was probably one of the most interesting surveys. I’ve seen all over the internet how this specific survey has applied to a bunch of people. It was cool to see what I was, for this survey. As I mentioned before, this might not be 100% accurate, but I thought this was pretty close.

This was really interesting to me. I really thought all of these applied really well. The architect likes to work alone, or in small groups. They also don’t like creative constraints, and tend to jump headfirst into a task. They also are more fair when making decisions, rather than about how people will feel. Knowing how I fit in with others in this personality perspective will help me with projects, in school and outside of it.

Interests

This one is pretty much a repeat of the learning styles, not in its purpose, but in its results. The Contractor interest type helps gear you towards your career,  rather than talk about your learning type. The contractor interest type works hands on, again. They don’t like to work with people, and tend to follow their head. This interest type also leads towards a science-based career, which is something I was considering before all of these surveys anyways.

Knowledge

Knowledge was one of the more surprising surveys. I wasn’t surprised by the results, just the magnitude of them.

Science was the top subject area. As I said, this wasn’t surprising. The thing that was surprising was that I got Science for 100%. As I mentioned before, I was considering a science career beforehand. This survey only cemented my ideas. The other two, languages and language arts, weren’t very surprising either. French comes very easily to me, and language arts is one of my better subjects as well. What I did find surprising was that math, which is probably my best subject after science, wasn’t on there. I don’t know if I would consider math as a career, but it was always an option.

Finally, a most controversial survey (in my mind)…

Motivations

This one was weird. I didn’t like having these pointed out to me, but looking at them honestly, I think they’re pretty accurate. I like to see how the stuff I do adds up. Setting goals helps motivate me towards the end product. Knowing this can help me choose a career where there are goals for me to reach.

Now, back to actual real life stuff. On MyBluePrint, there is an option where you can plan out your high school courses. This was really helpful to me because for most universities, you have to take certain courses to get in. Being able to plan the next two years out makes my life a whole lot easier.

There is also a thing where you can plan for after high school. It gives you lots of options into careers you can go into. For our assignment, we had to choose one from each category; University and College, Apprenticeship, and Workforce. It was cool to look at all of my options!

Workforce

I chose this because as it is probably not something I would actually do, it could be an option. It integrates science and hands on work in the forest, which makes a difference. One of the drawbacks is that it is very socially oriented, working with people all day long. That just seems draining to me. Now, we can move onto another section, which I would be more interested in.

Apprenticeship

Both of these positions are very similar. I have an interest in planes and engineering, so these could be interesting careers. They are not extremely Science-based, but it still has some compatibility. The both would be mostly independent work, with some teamwork, not as bad as the Forest and Conservation Worker. If it were to go into an apprenticeship, these could be very interesting!

University and College

This is probably the most plausible course for me. Ever since I was little, I wanted to go to university. I just didn’t know what to do once I got there. Now, I know I want to do something science related. While that narrows it down somewhat, there are still many different sciences I might be interested in. This would be more expensive in the short term, but long term I should be able to earn more.

There are so many options for my future. Honesty, I don’t know what I want to do. I still have a bit of time, though. Hopefully it won’t go by to quickly!