Hi guys, I’m back with one of the final posts of my Grade 8 year in PLP. Not only has the year gone by in a flash, but in what feels like so little time, I have learned a tremendous amount of things about myself. This post is all about the course that forced me to step back, take a look at myself and the bigger picture, and show me the endless possibilities of improvement. PGP, the acronym that stands for “Personal Growth Plan,” has been a huge part of this year for everyone in PLP. With a course with such purpose comes an insane amount of information that somehow interconnects. How you may ask? It is different for everyone. We are all at different places in our lives and how we work, change, and learn differs from person to person. In order to show that, we have done one final PGP project entitled, Time Machine.
So what is Time Machine? Yes I know there are hundreds or variations from Back To The Future and Men in Black to The Terminator and X-Men. This version is more of an artifact that would go in a time capsule addressed to my younger self. In order to complete our course, we were required to compile all of the information taken away from the past year and put it into anything. Anything? Yes, we had the freedom to represent the things that we learned in any, physical or digital way we chose. It sounds pretty great at first but once you need to actually decide on how you will format the project, it becomes something of a daunting task. After a week or so of deep contemplation, I chose to make a video. I wanted it to be unique and not just a clip of me talking about what I learned. I fixed that issue with my ever so glorious idea to make my video a “FaceTime Therapy Session.” What do I mean by that? Good question. The video is edited to make it look like someone is on a FaceTime call with their therapist ( me ). I structured it this way because when trying to make my learning stand out I find that it works in this particular scenario.
Pexels / Pixabay
The next step is explaining why I chose to use this as my way of expressing my learning. Not in the technical way of “because it works best with green screen,” or “because iMovie is easier to use.” I mean the way that I connect to the video enough to make it show all that I can take away from PGP on a daily basis. The project outline requires a thesis statement, mine was simple yet informed. We weren’t supposed to write like Tolkien but to only outline the purpose your format would serve. “Habit 5’s listening specific portion really stood out to me as it involves a lot of stuff I can easily agree with, learn from, and represent using examples from my everyday life,” is my thesis and I got approved immediately. Along with the thesis, we had to decide which part of our course to focus on, goal setting, productivity, or the 7 habits. Each of these “units,” took up a semester to complete. We needed to find the one that we found is most useful, relatable, or relevant to our everyday lives. I chose to use Sean Covey’s 7 Habits, habit 5 to be specific. When making the artifact that would go into our time machine we had to give information on all of the units. I did so throug feedback the therapist gives her patient near the end of the video.
Below is My PGP Time Machine Artifact Video
https://youtu.be/Uj81Y7Rm0Ds
The last piece of the big picture is the driving question itself. “What do I know now that I wish I knew before?” My answers are endless, but the things that speak to me so much are the ones that I use daily or are extremely relevant to my life. I am going to start with productivity. I cannot begin to tell you how much I have grown productivity wise in the past nine months. Last year I was a completely different person, at least in the way of handling my schedule and work. When I was introduced to Things and time blocking I was sceptical and admittedly a bit close minded. But since opening up to the idea of getting help and using strategies like those mentioned my entire experience with school has improved making me love it that much more. Honestly if I could have had these tools at my fingertips a year ago I would have probably had a different experience leading up to high school.
Moving on to the 7 habits. In our last unit of the year, aside from this project of course, we covered the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens,” by Sean Covey. The book taught us about 7 different habits that can help us become happy, healthy, and more effective when building relationships, handling productivity, and becoming a healthily self. When reading the book we had to complete workbooks and a creative reflection per part. My favourite reflection was my last as it was fun to make and I really enjoy looking at the final product (see more below). When deciding what to highlight in my video for this project I chose to use habit 5, “Seek First to Understand Then to be Understood.” I found that the main outcome of reading this and doing all of the work with it was my understanding of how others use the tools mentioned throughout everyday. My video itself is entirely about the different forms of listening, which I chose because of how much I can relate to it and how relevant it is in my everyday life. The things that I wish I knew before even starting grade 8 would definitely be habits 3,5, and 7. Each of these represent huge things that go on in my life and gave me ways to fix them.
Finally, the thing that ties it all together… Goal Setting! If I am being 100% honest, I have always dreaded goal setting. In elementary school we were told to make up a goal that we would like to achieve by the end of the year. Guess what that goal was never brought up again and seemed to be lost in time. I never like goal setting because my idea of it was flawed. In the sense that; Step 1: write down a goal Step 2: Achieve it. I mean come on people give us something to work with!!! In term 2 we started a new unit in PGP in which we read, “What Do You Really Want.” The book taught me how to properly make and achieve a goal, constantly reminding me what the next step is or at least how to make a goal ladder. Once I had learned how to set goals I felt much more confident in actually achieving them. This is the thing that really ties up my PGP experience because of how everything, 7 Habits and productivity can fit into this section.
Alexas_Fotos / Pixabay
Overall, if I could really give this information to my past self I would be much, much different today. I personally think that it says a lot that with just one 10 month course I can learn all of this. This is the stuff that is going to allow me to learn all of the stuff in my other classes. I can now be better organized, listen to people properly, work interdependently (something I REALLY struggled with), and set goals. I think that my Time Machine Video really shows that, especially in the genuine listening part (near the end)!
Thanks again
– Ciara ✌️
