Impact! 💥

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Dear readers, there are some crazy people out there who has shaped and changed our community. They are the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do. With our latest project “Cray, Cray, yay, yay”, we will define those who shaped our community as a whole.

For this project, we had to make a portrait of our chosen community impact maker. I chose Lucien Lessard, who is the last living survivor of the collapse of the second narrows bridge. Lucien has a big focus on continuing the remembrance of his friend he had lost during the collapse, and so I decided to make my portrait in the format of an I Survived Book, since like the disasters in the series of books, the collapse was also very much real, and was labeled as the worst engineering disaster in BC.


In the portrait i chose the paint a picture of Lucien holding his well deserved trophy for surviving the collapse.

This project made me realize how much people there is that really shaped our community it wasn’t just those who were famous that were stars that change the world after all not all heroes are in the light!

Anyways, I do hope everyone has a very nice summer stay hydrated! was also very much real, and was labeled as the worst engineering disaster in BC.

It’s the final count down!⏱

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Welcome to my transitional presentation of learning, thank you all for coming. 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.

accomplishments and improvements

after the mPOL, I worked on the goals I set for my self in the learners plan which was to  expand my creative thinking and manage my schedule. Over time I saw that my work was being handed in on time and my thinking was expressed through my work and ideas. An example of this was during the cray cray yay yay project I used my creative thinking to connect the previous project where I did the history of the second narrows to the current project where I did the last living survivor of the incident which happened on the second narrows. On the loon lake trip I challenged myself to get to my goal which was to step out of my comfort zone. I think I met that goal and by the end of the trip I got to get closer to other classmate who weren’t my friends.


Fails and flops

Something that I think could have gone better this year was my researching on my projects, identifying trustable and untrustworthy sites, determining wether something is an important part of this research, and to fact check things. Another thing I should work on is to not get distracted by people and noises around me, especially when I know I have things to do. This goal can be obtained by practice and if there is any advice on this matter please do address it in the comments below.

qimono / Pixabay

Skills learned and to be learned

I have learned lots this year and one of those many skills are the skill of being able to express my thinking through showing my learning and work. Another skill I have learned this year is the ability to manage my schedule and time to fit everything in, like art, piano, homework, and other appointments. For example if I know I won’t have time on Thursday to finish homework that’s due on Friday I would try to finish that work on Wednesday.

kaboompics / Pixabay

Conclusion

I’m very thankful of my teachers and peers who had taught me so much this year, I’m able to move on to the next grade because I was taught to express my thinking in a way to make my work and ideas sophisticated and enhance the experience of others viewing my work.

Connecting the Shore to the Core🌊

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Welcome readers, you can use shore to the core to describe someone who is a very strong supporter of their home land, and this very project was to tell readers about the history of the land my classmates and I live on. The project Shore to the Core was influenced by the Museum of North Vancouver, also know as MoNoVa. The driving question for this project is: What significant developments occurred after WWII in Vancouver and across Canada? With that question in mind my class and I interview our client, Carol Ballard, the program coordinator of MaNoVa.

 

Before we get into the interview with Carol, I will briefly introduce choose my local topic of choice, The Ironworkers Memorial second Narrows Crossing. This bridge played a huge role in connect North Vancouver through the Burrad Inlet to Greater Vancouver, which eventually resulted in the population growth and rise of the suburbs (learn more about that in Quinn’s post). The Ironworkers Memorial second Narrows Crossing was renamed to honour the 18 workers who died in the collapse along with the 1 rescue diver and 4 other worker who also died during the construction process. I thought my topic was significant to the people of North Vancouver because around 121,778 (as of 2021) vehicles pass through this bridge every day, way more that there are on The Lion’s Gate Bridge, without this the connection between North Vancouver and Greater Vancouver would be weak, and it would be less convenient to travel between the two lands.

Moving onto the interviews with the project coordinator and our client, Carol Ballard, we learned that our multi-paragraph composition must have multiple sources, which can include interviews, audios, and writings. A strong theme, this will hook your audience in and make sure you stay on topic. Another one was having a clear audience and purpose in our multi-paragraph composition. Since everyone in my class are making a multi-paragraph composition, Carol suggested that we organize all of our multi-paragraph compositions into a zine format.

(link to zine)

To answer the driving question, during the project, I notice a lot of things shaped the North Van it is today. As for my topic, without this connection of a bridge, the bond between North Vancouver and Greater Vancouver would be weak, this bridge North Vancouver a chance to grow and thrive as a individual community.

The habits to success🔗

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Welcome readers, have you ever wondered how all those rich people became so successful? Perhaps it’s because of their parents, but even so, if you do all these habits just might also become successful one day. For this project, which is named Believe in Good, has the driving question of: How do you plan to move forward to be your most effective self? which the answer will be shown in my assignment choice board. Believe in Good was based on the book Sean Covey wrote called 7 Habits for Highly Effective People/ Teens. These habits were split in to 3 section, the private victory, public victory, and the renewal.

The first section of the 7 habits was the habits of self management, the private victory. With habit 1 being proactive, habit 2 begin with the end in mind, habits 3 first things first. Habit 1 is where you prepare everything before hand, ask for help in advance, plan ahead, and think before you act. Habit number 2 habit number 3 are very similar, with habit number 2 hope you you overcome problems in life and find your values and what matter to you the most. Habit number three comes after that having a schedule and order to things that get you control of your life, this can include finding balance of your social, personal, and school life. For this section of the project I used audio reflection for my assessment choice board, which included three songs. Song1: this song is about a person prioritizing sportsmanship and went to the Mountain to practice in isolation. Song2: about instead of being upset that you have no money work for the money. Song3: this song is about forgiving yourself and let yourself prioritize in what you believe is the most important to you.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4gwVjBeV46bzYLGoARh2mR?si=yb8-4I3aQYWGbKxyhU1F5Q

The second section of the seven habits was the habits of leadership, and the public victory. With habit for being think win-win; habit 5, seek to understand then to be understood, habit 6, to synergize. Habit 4, thinking win-win can boost the relationship status between you and your friends and family for making smart decisions on the way. Habit 5 requires you to listen to people sincerely, listen and consider others opinion no matter who they are, and most importantly don’t just say “uh-huh” while daydreaming about what’s for lunch when you’re talking to someone (example from Covey’s book). Habit number 6 requires you to do both habit for and habit five, an example of synergizing is having asked to be with people either you don’t like or don’t know for a project, but in the end it’s bad grades with bad relations or good grades ok or new relationships if you syllogize with your group or your partner. For this section of the seven habits I decided to draw a comic about the tortoise and the rabbit race but in the end they both win because they synergized with each other.

The last part of this habits book is the renewal, which was all about allowing yourself to rest. This is the key to get control of your life, improve in relationships, make smart and sober decisions to overcome problems, be productive andddddd drumrolls… Be happy! This includes resting when you have to, not wearing yourself out, and being gentle with yourself. For example, let’s say you just came home after a long day of school, but you still got homework! No worries, take a 45 minute nap and power through your work maybe that would even work other than not resting and continuing on to your work for, let’s say, another 4 hours.

Over all, I use technology to construct knowledge by doing research and giving myself a stable understanding of the topic of research and contact peers who might know, connect to this topic and expanding my knowledge on this topic further more.

(Insert Team Name Here)🫥

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Hello, and welcome to another blog about DI. Last time in DI I competed in the Fine Arts challenge, and believe it or not, this time I also got the privileges of competing in this category.

During this learning experience, we were put into groups, and in my group was the intelligent Amy, the amazing Indy, the promising Jonny, and the networking Josh. We first came up with our team name – (Insert Team Name Here) – using our coordinated team work intelligence. Then with that we brainstorm for the perfect solution for our challenge which was to Research trickster characters and how they have been portrayed and/or used in literature, theatre,  film, and mythology, then we must Create and present a story about a team-created Trickster who attempts to overcome a Tricky Situation. And to make this more interesting, we had to design and create a Costume that uses Technical Methods to go through a Costume Transformation during the Presentation.

for this challenge my group and I decided on a trickster based on a Greek mythological character named Hermes, and a cartoon character Felix the Cat. After deciding on our trickster, we were asked to come up wiht a story that went with the tricker we came up with, the story our team came up with was about a trickster named felix who wakes up early every morning just to play little tricks on people like mismatching their socks, spilling coffee on their feshly cleaned cloths, ect and that what he does for a living. But one day, Felix’s alarm clock dign’t go off, in fact it completely broke. Felix used his time traveling ablity to travel back in time to do his tricks again, but he forgets to check the year bottom. So instead of traveling to 2022 apr 2 he accadently went to 1922 apr 2. during the return, a boy come into the time machine’s range and the boy was taken to 2022 with felix.

then it was the design stage, my team came together and designed the backdrops, props, and costumes. With that came lotsssss of run over of our presentation.

The Untold Deaths of WWII⚔️

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Welcome back everyone to the last post before spring break 2022! For the past few week the PLP 10 cohort has been investigating the “Hidden Chapters of History” in WWII. Unlike any other project in we have done in the past, this one was honestly quite interesting. In the past we have done video and blog post to share to the world, but this time, we did our very own class podcast!

(link)

Now that your know how wonderfully exciting this project was I will be giving the more boring of the project outline information. The driving question for this project is: “How might we use stories to better understand the causes and consequences of WWII?” Which I will be answering throughout this post. Looking at the keystones of this project which are:

How might I listen and speak to comprehend text?

evidence of this keystone in my learning was that of the book chat discussions we did through collaborative novel studies, my questions and art for the book chat discussions and I was prepared for each book chat, but I was missing answering part of the discussion questions.

What events within WWII interest me?

For this competency, I made note of things I’m supposed to make, studied for the quiz. This gave me good result on the quiz and gave me deeper understanding of this topic as a whole.

How might I respond to text and tell a compelling story?

I have done detailed research on my topic about my episode, I have the sophisticated learning of the topic that I was able to teach the information in my topic to my peers. During the peer critique I give helpful, and accurate comments to my peers to help them make their podcast better. Which is a evidence of my learning for this keystone.

After we understand the important information on this project, we were asked to pick our topic related to our book and the real world. The topic I chose was the worst maritime disaster in history with a staggering casualties of ~9,600, which included refugees, wounded solders, and nazi officials. Learn more in my podcast at (link).

This project made me realize that I learn small causes can have big consequences. We can learn the cause and consequences of WWII by understanding multiple point of views of an event.

Romeo & Juliet, but with a twist🔀

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Hello again wonderful readers! Welcome back to my blog, after our extra long weekend we are back to work. This project in revolved around a classical love story about forbidden love, placed in the Verona, Italy. That’s right it is the one and only, Romeo & Juliet!

first things first, I would like to introduce you to the driving question of this project: “Why does Shakespeare continue to be relevant to a contemporary audience?” which I will be answering throughout the post. In the the project we deconstructed the complex Shakespearean language not just to understand but to create a short film from it as well as showing our learning, and as you may deducted from our driving question, the end goal of this project was to make our own “modernized” version of Romeo and Juliet.


After lots of (rather entertaining) listening sections of classmates embarrassing themselves, we were split into 5 groups and each having to reenact an act from the original Romeo & Juliet. I got the wonderful pleasure to work with Keenan, Ethan, Nate, and Julien. We choose act 5 as this act fitted the most with the idea we came up with. After some “looking-around-for-a-hospital-bed” we settled on: three tables, and a very dirty “white” clothe, and eventually presenting…

Romeo & Juliet (gang edition)

our video was Italian drug cartel take on this Shakespearean classic and was based around the abandoned work of Keenan’s brother. We had to make up same of our own part in order for this story to work. We also had to play multiple characters due to the limiting factor of our small group, for example we have Julien for Juliet (creative right?), but we were thinking of Julien playing as Julien but he was sick and I had to play her instead; however, with the mighty power of team work, I still think we made it work.

Finally, I would like to answer the driving question, while most people may think the obvious answer “well duhhhh, its taught in every school ever!” I personally thought there was a deeper connection between even from centuries ago to present, and history will repeat itself over and over again. Not only are his plays considered to be beautiful works of poetry and literature, but also they provide some great concepts and realities related to each of them. these concepts can help to teach and understand pieces of literature or texts more deeply and help further your comprehension of more intelectual or deep messages.

I hope you enjoyed this post just as much as I did, and have an extraordinary day! (also, sorry for the late post😬)

mPOL-2022👻

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Hello lovely readers, welcome to my mPOL! This is my second time doing mPOL, the first, I miserably failed at. Now that I’m the expert on my own learning, I’m also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can trust me to give an honest and accurate evaluation of my growth. Thank you in advance for reading and please comment below feedbacks that I can use to improve as a learner.

I “Failed”

Just like other student in PLP I get really proud of myself when I get a rainbow, which in PLP it literally mean A++, AKA the best mark you could possibly get. I had some rainbows but, of my work completed this year, I’m most proud of was at the beginning of the year when I finish the quiz on government responsibilities and structures first, not just in time but in grade too. Evan though our party didn’t win, I learning that discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and small minds discussed people. Our party didn’t focus on idea we focused on event and people that influenced our country, while other groups were coming up with creative ideas that lead them to a interesting new party, and my group practically copied existing parties.(read post on the project here!)


Standards

although not all the work I completed met my standards, some did. I really enjoyed working with my group in our Romeo and Juliet project. Despite the lack of time we had because of the delayed started form covid, all of us had put in our own efforts to make the video dramatic and funny (Shoutout to Keenan for the main idea of the story). During our previous project Ology of apology, I think my group did a very good job of team work and presenting, so even though we didn’t win I think we did a good job, lets just blame the fact that the other group’s name came before us in alphabetical order.

Valuable lessons

In the learning plan I said that should use my creativeness to its advantage, and so, during story writing of our Act of Romeo and Juliet, I helped my group-mates by contributing creative ideas and getting creative with editing like the many sound effect we added to make our film original. Although we were short on actors we still work it out, there would be no way that we would have ever succeeded if we didn’t worked together. On the other hand, I wished we had a better way of introducing our character. For example, Jordan, Dries, Nathan, and Jakub’s group had introduced each character of their story in a smooth way, while still matching with the theme and the background music of their film.

Demonstrate

I have improved greatly as a learner because of the support I have been getting from my peers. In the beginning of the year I rarely contributed ideas, afraid of making revisions, but as I follow my learning plan I saw improvements like, not getting distracted by other homework, less procrastinating, not being controlled by my own moods, and so much more. I even changed my habits for the better, like having a good sleep schedule! I used things and craft, things, and calendar regularly to help me meet my criterias as this is one of the reason why my habits need to be changed.

Improve!

In the remainder of the school year, I’m going to try my best to stay focused on my main goals, and do a better job of time management. To achieve this, I will sharpen my learning plan by writing my goals in details, sticking to what I wrote down, and being honest.

Thank you

At the end I wanted to say thank you to my teachers, they always helped me when I’m stuck with problems, because of them my grades improving which to me is a huge success.

Ology of Apology 🙇🏻‍♀️

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Welcome back wonderful readers, I hope that your winter breaks went great, if you have not read my recent blog post, I recommend you do so. Not only might you learn something new, but you will also hear a bit about what my current project is.

The project that we just wrapped up is called “The Ology of Apology” (meaning the study of apology), and our driving question is: How can we create a public memory of past wrongs so that they are remembered, and not repeated in the future? We looked at three past wrongs enacted by the Canadian government: the Komagata Maru in 1914, anti-Chinese racism in the form of the Head Tax and the Anti-Immigration Act from 1885-1947, and the Japanese Internment during the Second World War.

We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go on six different field studies throughout this project. Being able to learn about what we are talking about in class by going to museums, cultural spaces, and by walking around the actual sites where these events have occurred made it easier for me to visualize what the victims and survivors were going through during those times, especially the quotes on the walls we saw at Nikkei Museum.

  • The first trip was to a Sikh Temple (ft. Indy and Erin)

  • This photo of our second trip ft. Indy, Erin,Nate, Annie, Amy, Ryan, and Quinn

  • This shadow from our third trip was inspiring for a group project

  • On the fourth trip, we went on a walking tour in and around Chinatown. In the pouring rain.

  • On the fourth trip, we went on a walking tour in and around Chinatown

  • We also when walking rain during our last trip for the Japanese event

we were asked to create a concept, as well as a scale model, of a practical, contextual, and impactful memorial that would educate the public about one of the three acts of injustice that we studied.

We were put into groups, and then assigned topics from the three main events. My group was Keenan, Nate, Josh and me. Our given topic was Japanese internment camps during WWII. There were six groups, and three topics, so each group was competing against another group.

During all the trips, something we saw a lot in memorials was some kind of landmark, but we also wanted our memorial to be interactive, and one specific landmark my group had in mind was a statue, in the morning there will a garden accompanied with the statue providing scenery, but at night a bright light will be shown onto the status making a shadow. Our group had the idea to create a statue with a shadow that can be interpreted into many things but the status itself must have a meaning, we wanted to tell as much of a story as we could while remaining interactive, cultural, and historical.

My group wanted to tell the story of the hard times that Japanese people were faced with, and the wrongdoings of the Canadian government at the time. The shadow which is only visible during the night time is there to represent the resilience and the strength within every Japanese Canadian that was wrongly treated during World War II. It also shows the lengths to which the Japanese Canadian parents went to keep their children from suffering during this terrible time. The foot falling off the edge represents how close their lives were to falling apart for both the parents and children.

Overall, I am proud of my group, and how much work we were able to get done in so little time. Even thought our memorial wasn’t as attractive as the other groups,  I felt that I gained a really good understanding of my topic, and the other topics that we learned about as well. And honestly if I was ever to pitch this to the city hall I don’t think I would pitch it any more different than this way it is. We were given the opportunity go around and and learn more about this event while other kids were stuck in their classroom reading textbooks, I think this project let me realize these special privileges I have.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this post please leave a comment and check out my other classmates post!

Legacy of the Komagata Maru

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Hey lovely reader, now you might not know about this unjust incident that happened over a century ago when 376 Indians came to Canada or at least tried.

The incident

As creative the name of this incident could sound, spoilers, that was the ship the passengers were on during the incident.

“We have the power to exclude and to deport certain immigrants, and whom we deem to be unworthy of Canadian citizenship. We have the power to deport Hindus or anyone else”. In the early 1900s, nearly 5000 South-Asians had already arrived at BC the time that was said. Many (white) Canadians were concerned about the growing numbers of immigrants, so regulations were put in place to keep South Asians from entering the country. Legally Canada was not allowed to ban citizens of Idia as they too are British subjects, so the Canadian government created a loophole “the continuous journey regulation”, which meant that immigrants were only allowed to come to Canada in one continuous trip from their country of origin, or else they will be denied entry, at the time no ship could make a continuous journey from India to Canada, it was impossible. But in 1914, Baba Gurdit Singh, a Punjabi businessman, he hear fellow Sikhs had encountered trying to immigrate to Canada. He charter a Japanese steam ship SS Komagata Maru, sold tickets to his countryman, and on April 1914 and 150 passenger set sail from Hong Kong.

along its way stoping by China and Japan, picking up more hopeful immigrants and eventually reaching a total of 376 people heading to Vancouver on that ship, almost all were men except 2 women and 4 children, almost all were Punjabi.

Photo: Library and Archives Canada #PA-034015 

After sailing for 2 long months the Komagata Maru finally reach the Vancouver port. Baba Gurdit Singh not only wanted to help his fellow passengers reach Canada but also wanted to challenge the racist Canadian immigrant laws. On May 23 1914, the Komagata Maru dropped anchor and was greeted by unwelcoming immigration officials. When they were denied entry since their ship hadn’t made an continuous journey to Canada, a 8 week stand off with the Canadian government began. The South Asian community ashore quickly organized, forming the Shore Committee, lead by Banh Singh and a few others , they raised funds to hire a lawyer, J. Edward Bird to negotiate on the passenger’s behalf. The legal battle eventually failed, Bird was subjected to so many threats from the white people that he was forced to fleet Vancouver for a several weeks. Passengers despite having imprisoned for several week fight back back against the ones that tried to board the ship. 2 days later the navy arrived driving the Komagata Maru back, and on July 23rd 1914, exactly 2 months after its arrival, Komagata Maru was forced to leave Canadian waters, for many it would not be a happy homecoming.

When the ship finally docked in Budge Budge, passengers were meet with force. When the passengers finally left the ship the first time in many months, the British police open fire, killing ~20 passengers injuring 9, arrested several others. Baba Gurdit Singh escaped the massacre and lived in hiding for a several months be fore turning himself in. It wasn’t until 1967 that anti-south Asian regulations were abolished entirely.

The Apology

On May 18, 2016, Justin Trudeau will issue a formal apology in the House of Commons for events that took place surrounding the Komagata Maru. The ship arrived in Vancouver in May 1914, carrying 376 passengers of mostly Sikh descent, who were refused entry into Canada due to discriminatory laws. (Source)
“An apology was very important for our community. What more there still areas where we feel that the non-whites are still under discrimination, course it’s not as much as it used to be, but I think it (the end to this unjust) takes time, it will happen.” – Ajay Rai, the manager of a Sikh Temple. (Source)
Because of the struggle of those who was on the Komagata Maru it encouraged the ones who are on land to try harder and fight for the unjustified to be justified, and that’s why us as minority have such successful lives, says Jaswinder Toor, the president of the Komagata Maru Society. (Source)

Conclusion

I really think the bravery of Baba Gurdit Singh and the other on board of the Komagata Maru should be memorialized as part of our collective public memory as they were brave enough to to challenge the racist Canadian immigrant laws, which encouraged the other minorities to fight for their own rights.