Thoughts can be interesting: They can break you down, they can build you back up, they can lead you to epiphanies, or they can lead you to inner destruction. thoughts are what makes humans so unique and innovative, but they are also what causes us to cause horrors such as war or terrorism. Our history has been made with thoughts and our future will be too.
In a time like the present, it feels it is sometimes impossible to get away from thoughts. Thoughts of worry, hope, fear, and pride are all thoughts that our world has experienced the last few years, and weather we like it or not, they have been what has brought us to the place we are at this very moment.
When I think back on these past few, memorable years, I myself can think of countless times I have had found myself stuck in thought, but when I think about the results of most of those thoughts, I can realize how important they really were for me.
For the past while like many, I have been feeling quite upset with the politics of this world.
Our first project of the 2021/22 school year allowed me to use the thoughts and beliefs I had towards that subject and bring them to fruition.
Have you ever looked at the government and thought: I could do better! Well, here is your chance. Over the next few weeks, you will be studying the intricacies of the Canadian political system, understand the depths of political ideologies, and finally, learning how to use your language to shape ideas and influence others, all so that you can take your chance at a government takeover! In small groups, you will be conceiving your own new Canadian political party and producing a campaign video and press release to announce it. Your goal is no less than to take on the world!
The “Think You Can Do Better?” Project was lead by the Driving Question: How should We govern Ourselves?
Coming to the answer of this question was no easy feat. Like most projects, it took many assignments to find it, but looking back, it wasn’t as much what we were given that made my answer, it was actually what I took. My final answer to this question in words is: we should govern ourselves by supporting everyone’s beliefs so we can work on problems in unison, but the true answer will be found in the process it took to get there.
The first piece of work that was key in this learning journey was the notes about Canadian government. These notes on different videos, allowed me to gain the knowledge that I needed in order to form my ideas and views towards Canada’s political system. With the freshly learned, Zettlekasten System, I was able to extract and refine those notes time and time again to form different ideals the helped form the basis of my success towards this project.
As you can see in my notes above, there are all linked which is the main point of the system. These connections were used throughout all my work on this unit and was the main reason I was able work and think at a high level in this project. For this assignment we were asked to make a literature note on each topic of Canadian Government, with our fleeting notes to back them up. Not really knowing that we were limited to one, I ended up making multiple on each source, leading to too much information on the page. Although at the time I didn’t understand the purpose of just one, as I look back, I can realize how one meaningful note can help give you the most out of the completed research.
During this section of the project, the snap Election that the Prime Minister had called was just coming to an end, and by the time we had finished learning about the different aspects of the Canadian Government, the results had already began to be announced. With the the notes I had taken on the government, as well as the other takeaways I had gathered from the previous learning, I began the process of the next assignment which was the Election Reflection.
We were asked to write a post about an opinion or thought we gained on the results or makeup of the recent election. Earlier, I researched the Green Party for a smaller assignment to give a bit of background on the different contenders for this this election. As I explained in a permanent note,
It is crucial when you aren’t sure about who your going to vote for, or even if you are sure about who you are voting for, to dig a little deeper than the media. Because if there’s one thing I thing everyone should know, it’s: the media is the message, and it influences everyone weather they like it or not.
As you see in my notes about the Green Party, the main responses from both my interviewees, and my research provide evidence that people had identical priorities to the Green Party, yet the Green Party pretty much flopped on the actual election. This triggered question after question. I thought: maybe it was because there wasn’t proportional representation, or maybe people didn’t like the leader, or maybe they just didn’t know enough about them? This topic hit hard, and shattered my idea of homework. Like I said in the post, I went home that night and didn’t leave safari until I could answer that question… except for a couple snack breaks. Until that night I can’t recall ever going home, eager and exited, to do homework. Although It wasn’t easy, I feel the reason I invested so much time into this one assignment, wasn’t even cause I wanted to do well, but it was because I felt I was doing something meaningful, something change provoking. I felt like the more answers I had to these questions, the thoughts of worry that would sometimes enter into my mind would be met with knowledge and ideas. This also led to some very thoughtful points not only in my Zettlekasten but online on the blog post as well.
When I finished the blogpost, I decided I would give myself some time to thoroughly reflect on the takeaways of what I learned. I chose, edited, and refined my points into permanent notes that I used throughout the project and all the way to my answer to the driving question.
The end goal of the project was to make and campaign a Political Party, so after we were assigned group members, who placed themselves similarly on the political spectrum, we began building our political party. Using the research and conclusions I made from the past post, I was able to come up with the main values of our party and how we could achieve and solve problems. Although I talk about how much the Election Reflection post had helped me in this area of the project, I didn’t mention how it allowed me to take lead and create almost all of the documents and material needed to present our party. By doing the extra work on the last assignment, it allowed me to take what I learned from the past assignment and use it in forming the beliefs and priorities of our group.
This approach is something that I will carry on to future work. I relized that sometimes, and not always, but sometimes, committing to that extra work early on, can set you up to not only complete assignments faster, but to make them more meaningful and helpful later on… kinda like a cycle.
Coming back to the driving question, the press release post was when I really began to formulate the answer. Taking what I learned about government structure, what influences the people, and why in a time like this, the Green Party didn’t get elected, I was able to come up with the idea of unification with everyone. Unlike other governments, it wasn’t just an idea, it was a foundation.
I don’t know about my other classmates, but Looking back, I thought that this project was not only important but incredibly interesting and exiting. Thinking as if you are trying to lead a nation, something that seems so far out of reach, and then going through the motions to get there, felt pretty meaningful, and something that I didn’t take for granted. Because who knows… maybe someday I will try for Prime Minister, and every thing I need, will be waiting.