Hello Lovely Readers, and welcome back to another blog post! Today, we are going to be talking about my year.
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.
In PLP, we are able to celebrate all of the learning and growth that we did throughout an entire year in our Transitional Presentation of Learning (TPoL’s). TPoL’s allow us to showcase our best work, our biggest FAILures, and why we are ready to go on to the next grade level.
Throughout Grade 10, I have learnt a lot. I mean, obviously. My goal during my MPoL in February was to learn. I know that sounds simple, but I really wanted to learn, take that learning, apply it to my work, and be prouder of what I have presented. I wanted to create work that I would show for the rest of my life as an example of who I am as a learner and a person.
At the beginning of the year, I had set 96% as my goal. Looking back, I know that I did not meet that with some of my work. However, there is some work that we have done that I think is up to that caliber, and recently, some work that I think has the potential to go beyond that.
I have a bit of a problem with perfectionism. If I have the ability to go above and beyond on something, I most likely will. I like to know that I did the most work that I could do in order to make something great. While this has lead to some quite good work over the years, it has also lead to a not very healthy or sustainable work-life-school relationship.
In the first project of this year, I struggled with the newfound responsibilities of Grade 10, and I could see that in my work. The feeling of knowing that I did not produce good work was a lot for me, and I didn’t want to feel it again. That was exactly what I didn’t want to have happen, and so I went into the rest of my projects with some extra motivation.
From Oology of Apology, to Romeo and Juliet, to Hidden Chapters of History, I could see how the quality of my work would increase when I spent the right amount of time on it. Through documenting more in my Zettelkasten, as well as taking the necessary time to understand what we were learning about, I really noticed how much more impactful my learning felt.
On our Loon Lake trip, I felt the impact of my learning in a way that has continued to help me today. Overall, Loon Lake was a trip that allowed me to take risks, focus on personal achievements, re-evaluate my understanding of being ready, and truly allow me to expand my paradigm.
During the Believe in Good project, I could clearly see the success of my work, and it was so great to see that. I produced some strong work that I could clearly see my learning in. I actually took something out of the project, and my knowledge of the Seven Habits continue to help me in my everyday life.
I did start to notice, however, that I was having some trouble balancing all of my classes, while still producing great work. I can definitely see the effects of that on Project Podcast.
During Project Podcast, I created a strong first episode with an interview, well edited and clear audio, and strong content. After that, it started to go downhill.
The pressure of having to maintain my personal standard of achievement got to be a bit too much, and my next four episodes have not turned out the way that I want them too. I am really not proud of my work in Project Podcast, but it has given my an example of what a true failure would look like.
Grade 10 was a crazy year, to say the least, and I can definitely look back at the work that I did and say that I am proud of it. I can also definitely say that I am not proud of some of it. Grade 10 gave me a foundation for the level of stress, as well as achievement that I am going to bring into the rest of the senior grades.
I am ready to move onto Grade 11 because I have allowed myself to FAIL, and see the success in that failure. As a perfectionist, I struggle with failing, as well as my own personal definition of failure. This year, I worked on allowing myself to define failure, and that allowed me to live a healthier life.