TPOL 2021/2
Good afternoon readers of my blog post, welcome to my TPOL. The timing of this blog post may not be the best because I have not yet written the blog posts for the two projects which are coming or have come to an end at this time. Bad timing aside, I hope you enjoy me writing about my growth within this school year and why I am, or at least feel ready to advance to the next grade level.
My growth within this school year
My growth within this year can be outlined by, growth within my work ethic and my realization of why I’m actually going to school and in PLP.
Last summer, I might’ve thought of learning within school as something for which the teacher is responsible, but as I have grown, and our projects have become evermore self-lead, I have come to the realization that we – learners, are responsible for our own learning and it is the teachers job to allow us to access this learning. I think that this realization of this fact which the PLP and many other teachers may as well know and have told us again and again could not have been possible without PLP and the method by which the PLP teachers teach us.
If a student were to find some kind of a program or lesson by which he could learn better and decided to send it to the PLP teacher, the teacher may consider this program and may adopt it into the curriculum if it will teach all the students better than the existing lesson plan.
My point in all this is that by realizing and accepting this, it has driven me to try and extend my learning, not so much so that I can be better at school, but rather so that I can amass knowledge and be informed about topics which interest me; so I can have this deep and insightful knowledge about such interesting topics.
I think much of this learning about my learning and setting of goals, or what I actually want to accomplish through PLP, was done during Loon Lake. Looking back at it, Loon Lake and the 7 Habits marked a termination from my old ‘learn this, then learn this’ mindset to a new mindset which is much harder to describe. This new mindset focuses on what the teachers told us during Loon Lake that we’re not at school to learn exclusively about the topics we are given but also learning how to learn. I should try to learn from the things I am given, not just complete the tasks and then reflect on them. A big proponent of my learning, which I am very thankful for is the zettelkasten. The zettelkasten didn’t really allow me, it just made it a lot easier to take notes and organize my thoughts on paper rather than having them all in my head and just forgetting them. You forget most information you receive, even if it’s important. The Zettelkasten, or second brain is great for taking notes and it makes my research easy to find and use. I have started doing almost everything (which makes sense to do using a text document) important on Craft because of the great ease of use.
So, to summarize, in this year, I went from being an accomplished learner in getting the work done, but really just developing my actual learning, to being a lot more conscious of my learning and trying to learn how to learn information and understand the topics about which I learn. This doesn’t mean learning facts, this means knowing the causes and effects of phenomena as to better know what might happen today or tomorrow. The thing is, because I am interested in very complicated topics, I think the products I have created are quite standard, or sub-standard. In ideology, philosophy, and sociology – the topics I’m interested in, everything is interconnected, so if you want to have a complete understanding of one thing, it is best to understand everything. From this comes the condition that I do very much research and make a product which I do not like, simply because there is very much to research and researching it just brings up more questions.
So, why should I go to the next grade level?
The next grade is a continuation of this one. I don’t like looking at facts, I like studying phenomena and cultural paradigms. The hidden and immaterial often controls much more than the material. It is also much more interesting.
Human growth is not a constant upwards stream. Man addresses a problem within himself and grows to fix it. With this growth, he may spark another problem or series of problems. This movement would be best described as moving up in ratchets. The path to perfection is not straight, nor is perfection achievable. By addressing problems within myself now, I can move up these ratchets and hopefully create a better version of myself, more accustomed to learning and PLP. Some sacrifices will be made, but they are justifiable. Growth as a learner and a student is very important, and cannot be forgotten as I research.
