A 15 Year Old Icon

We all know the name of the amazing Rosa Parks, but recently I heard of Claudette Colvin. If you’re like me, you didn’t recognize that name. Claudette Colvin was the Rosa Parks before Rosa Parks. What do I mean you ask?

rosa parks

Rosa Parks is known for refusing to give her bus seat up to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested on December 1, 1955 as there were segregation laws in the south, and what she did was illegal. This kick-started the Montgomery Bus Boycott which was a key part of the Civil Rights movement and caused the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. So yes, Rosa Parks was a badass, but Claudette Colvin did the exact same thing as Parks nine months earlier, yet we never hear her name.

claudette Colvin

Colvin was 15 when she refused to move to the back of the bus and give her seat up to a white person. The bus driver demanded her to get up and she refused, telling the man she’d paid her fare and it was her constitutional right. A quote from Colvin herself is “All I remember is that I was not going to walk off the bus voluntarily.” Moments later, she was handcuffed and arrested by two police officers. “I was afraid, but I was more angry.”

Colvin never really told her story when she moved to New York City, as no one in her community was taking about anything related to it. Colvin also shared the fact she believed Parks was chosen as the face for the bus boycott because she was a tidy, well off, adult. Colvin was a wild, and small teenager. While they both experienced racism, and had to deal with segregation in the south, Colvin was even less privileged than Parks. Colvin did the exact same thing, in the exact same place BEFORE Parks, yet she wasn’t the one everyone knew as the face of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Why I wanted to share Colvin’s story is because she’s so important to American history, yet she isn’t in textbooks, or talked about like Parks is.  If one little blog post can teach one person about her, then my goal is achieved. She was so young, yet so brave and strong. It’s inspirational to see someone only one year off my age (younger too) do something so dangerous and courageous.

Claudette as an adult

When I heard her story, I instantly loved her. I read so many articles and watched so videos of her now at age 69 talking about her story. She’s an incredible woman and I look up to her and her smarts and bravery. Colvin knew what she was experiencing was wrong, and she stood up against it. Us all should look up to Colvin and learn a lesson or two from her. If a 15 year old can do what’s right, so can we.

 

“I knew then and I know now that, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. You can’t sugarcoat it, You have to take a stand and say, ‘This is not right.” —Claudette Colvin

Macbeth the Movie

Macbeth! We all have read it, normally in high school English class, or maybe you read it on your free time….Whatever floats your boat. Anyways, my class and I had the endeavour of reading Macbeth. I wrote a few blog posts on the actual play, here, here and here, so check those out. After lot’s of prior work, we created something awesome… A movie! We wrote, planned, filmed, and edited a whole movie (almost). Almost, because of COVID. Lets get into it. 

The third quest
My quest marks improving

Before making the movie, we did a lot of prep work. I was worried for this part because I knew it was going to be a lot of writing, but it ended up working out way better than I thought. We had to write something called a quest. The layout of it was to be given 3 quotes from the play, and we had to choose 2 to analyze in well written paragraph format. We had to include how the quote relates to the before, during and after the quote in events, how the quote highlights
the characteristics of the character, and the significance of the quote/relationship with themes. The first one I wrote was eh, the second one I wrote was good, and the last one I wrote was awesome. This isn’t luck, it was hard work. I made sure after each quest, I knew what I did wrong (not being specific enough, saying something is something when it’s not, proper punctuation, fully understanding the quote, etc) and how I needed to improve. This assignment was important to me, I wanted to do well.

Us brainstorming in class

We started by all pitching movie ideas. We needed to include the following: the a rough overall Macbeth plot line, in a 50s setting. My pitch was a secret society in a boarding school, with things like communists, love, betrayal, and all that wrapped into it. The class liked it, and we went with it. Everything’s a little blurry, as this was about 6 months ago, but I do have vivid memories of it all. Anyways, we were given roles. I wanted director or director of photography, but I ended up with production manager, which ended up being pretty similar to both of those. 

We started with things like script writing (by Jesse and Logan) costume’s (by Maggie), set decorations (by Isabelle), all the filming times (by Adlih), as well as also as a class fully storyboarding the whole movie. Also, a big part of the prep was reading the script. We spent many classes going over it by reading it as class and improving it. There was SO MUCH prep. But, it was fun. The class was very united, and we didn’t argue too much which was surprising. Something to mention is that, this Macbeth movie project is kind of cursed. My brothers grade, as well as the last years grade 11’s have attempted to make a Macbeth movie, and not to be harsh, but both of their groups ran into big problems, or just didn’t execute it properly. Why I’m mentioning this is because we went into this movie making process wanting to break that curse, and I would say we did, besides COVID rudely interrupting. 

After all of the prep (which I could go on for HOURS about but I’m not going to due to not wanting this blog post to be 100000 words) we started casting and filming. I’d tell you the cast, but ill just let you watch the movie later in this post to see who plays who! Anyways, the filming process was chaotic, but fun. I loved being on set and helping execute stuff. And fun fact, a lot of the filming was in my house, so I had to control all that! As production manager, I didn’t have a super specific role like “actor” or “writer”, I kinda just filled in the gaps. On the first few days of filming, I directed a lot of the scenes. This was because at first, I was one of the only people who could handle the chaos and create what we wanted. But as a few days went on, our director (Giorgia) glowed in the spotlight. I’m used to bossing people around and running stuff in PLP projects, so I kind of showed Giorgia the way, and she took the advice and went with it. It wasn’t in a controlling way, I made sure to never step on her feet and just be there if she needed me. 

(A little funny video I made on a day of shooting…)

Also, on days our director of photographer couldn’t film (Lucas) I filmed. I got to use Lucas’s scary but lovely massive camera. I also was boom mic technician. Not to mention the whole flip my house from 2020s modern to 1950s school dorm room.

A bedroom I designed for a Lady Macbeth scene

I’m only listing the things I did because I feel it’s important all of us PLP kids in this class share what we did and remind everyone, because it was such a hard and busy thing and we didn’t necessarily get to stop and appreciate each other on the way. Maggie did a great job at costumes, Jesse and Logan wrote a beautiful script, Adlih did a epic job at planning all the filming days and making sure everyone could show up, and Daniel did an incredible job at editing. I could go on forever with all the awesome things my classmates did, but I just recommend reading some of their blogs to hear about it. 

A happy day on set with Mr Underwood and Mr Zanker

After all the filming days, it came to an abrupt stop when our main actor Macbeth (Marshall) got sick…. Then came spring break which turned into school never again thanks to COVID. Although we didn’t get all the footage, we have hope to one day finish it. So, heres the kind of sort of finished movie. I’m really proud of it, and all my classmates. I think we killed it. 

This project was a highlight of my year, which I mention in my TPOL post. I broke a lot of comfort zones for my self and embraced new things. I let myself be okay with not having the roles I initially wanted, which was hard but was a good lesson for myself. I worked really well with the class, which was surprising as almost everyone in the class is as stubborn as me. I’m glad our class worked so well under that amount of freedom, we were were just given many empty classes that Alivia, Giorgia, Jesse and I ran. But…the thing I’m most proud of personally, is the immense amount of heart and soul I put into this movie. I genuinely cared, and worked my little iPad brain to it’s hardest, so I could do my part in this movie. I hadn’t felt this passionate about a project since the last movie project, the Simon Trailer. I loved feeling that passion again. All of these projects remind me of what I love, and thats filming and directing. It was incredible seeing my pitched movie idea come to life due to all the hard work and dedication everyone put in. 

Thanks blog, have a good one! 

History is Continuing

Hi everyone. Recently, I’ve been researching the topic of slave patrols. It’s a topic I’m discussing in a seminar my group and I are participating in. Our driving question for the seminar is “Are we Doomed to Repeat History?” For this think and create post, I decided I’d discuss slave patrols because A) It will deepen my and your understanding of history and how it effects our world today and B) I can link this post to my seminar post so if readers want to know more about the topics I discuss, they can read this post. 

A mind map I made while listening to podcasts and watching videos on this topic

1600s

In 1619, hundreds of Africans were kidnapped and put on ships to what is now Virginia. They were sold off, and became enslaved to many white people living in the south. They worked on plantations, and the plantation owners would often rape and whip the enslaved. Some slaves were forced to whip other slaves, even their own family. The way the enslaved were treated was beyond horrible. On a typical plantation, slaves worked ten or more hours a day. At harvesting time, they were required to stay in the fields for even longer, up to 16 hours a day. 

Slave patrol badges vs American deputy badge

As slave societies became more popular, slave patrols and slave catchers became a form of force in the south. Slave patrols were untrained white men in charge of keeping tabs on where the enslaved were. That meant if black men or woman were off the plantation, the slave patrol could demand to see their slave badge AND they could search anyone’s belongings, just because. Obviously this came with a lot of violence, and fear in the enslaved. The powers that be began passing laws that restricted the enslaved, but found the laws on their own were insufficient. Any adult white man was authorized to enforce those laws, becoming the body called slave patrol. Slave catchers are pretty self explanatory. They were people who returned escaped slaves to their owners. The slave catchers affected non runaway slaves too. They were constantly oppressing and scaring the enslaved to instill a fear in them so they wouldn’t run away. The slave patrollers were free to use any form of weapon to make sure the enslaved were returned to their owners. 

1700s-1850s

In the 1700s, the South became more industrialized, and there was a growth in slaves in the southern cities. This caused the slave patrols to expand from just remote farm lands of America to busy cities.  They then became professionalized once in the city, and very quickly, their duties expanded. They became a force that we immediately recognize, the modern police force. This first police force was overwhelmingly white, male and didn’t really focus on responding to crime. They wanted to make sure the enslaved felt oppressed, and that is what they did. 

A memorial for George Floyd

2020

To this day, America uses law enforcement that stems from a system that was created with the goal of keeping entire populations of black men and women enslaved. There was never a chain broken of slave patrol to modern police, it just evolved and is what we see now a days. Although slavery is abolished, the spirit of tracking and policing black Americans, had continued. The system has been poked at and changed, but never been redone. In the media we see so many murders of black Americans like George Floyd, and the murderers aren’t just Americans, they’re police. They’re the people with the power. They don’t just have the system on their side, they ARE the system. They are the people we are supposed to trust, and call for help, but how do we expect all black people to trust a system that was built of their oppression.

A image I drew to represent the fact the modern police force is built off slave patrols

The evolution of slave patrols to modern police is undeniable. The least we can do is educate ourselves, and thats why I wrote this. If you’re like me, you’d never heard of slave patrols until recently. I find that insane as it’s so connected to such a large and well discussed force (police) in America. I hope this blog post taught you something. Protest, talk, educate, donate, do anything you can to help stop police brutality.

Jacoe’s TPOL

Hello TPOL readers or watchers! How you are all doing well. This post is all about my grade 11 TPOL! I’m going to be wrapping up my grade eleven year by talking about all the work my class did. This year was a busy one, and because of COVID-19, it wasn’t a fully traditional year.  So, let’s get into it!

WHAT AM I MOST PROUD OF?

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair”. If you recognize that quote, you probably were forced to read Macbeth in high school too! Lucky you! All jokes aside, I was worried when I started to read Macbeth as I have a very hard time interpreting and understanding Shakespeare’s writing. But, Ms. Willemse did a great job of teaching this unit. We read the whole play as a class, making it an enjoyable and understandable piece of writing instead of a scary gibberish book. Anyways, everything I made in this unit was something I felt really good about. We did a lot of reading, writing, and discussing this unit but what stood out to me most was the movie my class and I made.

A bedroom I designed for a Lady Macbeth scene

I was assigned production manager, which I didn’t know how to feel about as I really wanted director or director of photography, but by the end of filming the movie, I had done parts of both of those because what my role was was to basically fill in the gaps. When Giorgia (director) or Lucas (director of photography) wasn’t there on set, I filled their roles. I’m proud of myself for a few things to do with this movie…

1. Being okay with not having all the power, working with Alivia, Jessie, and Giorgia smoothly.

2. Coming up with the plot and characters of the whole movie.

3. Being able to adapt when in crisis and help others.

 

Shots from set

As production manager, I did a little more than what a traditional production manager does, but I was okay with that. Movies are what I love. Making them, watching them, anything to do with them. I was quite frustrated the first week or so of the movie part of this project because I, and the other key creatives decided on my storyline instead of Giorgia’s, so it was hard to not be able to direct my own ideas. But, I did make sure my ideas were being heard. I’m used to being a loud voice in the PLP classroom, and I was making sure the rest of the crew knew what was going on. I also tried to back away at some points and let the two main powers (Director and Producer), do their work. I didn’t want to take over, I wanted the rest of the crew to try somethings I may have already experienced.

It’s odd, because not being in control is out of my comfort zone. While the outcome of the movie is what I’m mainly proud of, I’m also very proud of the process. Macbeth is a cursed project in PLP history, as class productions never according to plan, but I feel my class did a 10/10 job. We argued, laughed, worked hard, and got closer in the process. I had never seen my class so unified. This is one of my all-time favourite PLP projects, and I’m really proud of it. (Not to mention I was a boss boom mic holder).

 

WHY IS THE WORK I HAVE DONE IMPORTANT & RELEVANT?

The past 2-3 months we have been focusing on the civil rights movement, and everything connected to it. I was really glad to start this unit, as I’ve been looking forward to it all year. While the trip was canceled, I still knew it’d be a good unit because Willemse and Hughes can adapt to almost anything. Why I’m bringing up this unit is not because I’m proud of the finished project, it’s literally not done yet, but because of what state the world is in right now. It’s the most current and important thing to be learning about right now.

Most kids leave high school not knowing much about the civil rights movement, or the black panthers, or icons like Rosa Park, Claudette Colvin, MLK, or Malcolm X, basically any black history. I think that’s terrible as it’s probably one of the most important things teenagers should be being taught and learn. While we in Canada don’t necessarily
see racism daily in our privileged little bubble of Deep Cove, there are black Americans AND Canadians and other minorities being killed and brutalized at a disgustingly high rate. I think learning about the civil rights movement is so important, as history is repeating, and we are seeing the Black Lives Matter movement being brought to the frontlines of media more than ever- Right Now. We are in a 2020 revolution against the police brutality and systematic racism in North America, and I’m so grateful I can fight while feeling educated.

If the topic of BLM is ever brought up with anyone (very often right now) I feel educated enough to where I can spew facts and the resources. It’s so important to be able to educate on topics like this as it’s not something that’s just going to go away easily. It’s something we as a world are going to have to fight against. More than ever, the civil rights movement is now being brought to the frontlines of the global conversation.

I found myself coming back to these

Anyways, the whole ‘claim supports and questions’ idea Hughes has been driving into my brain for the past few weeks is honestly very helpful to actually discussing hard topics in real life. There is always going to be someone fighting against you, and the least you can do is try to educate them. Click HERE to see how you can help/learn more about the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Pictures I took at the protest in Vancouver last week

 

WHAT PROJECT WAS MOST CHALLENGING?

Ah, poetry, one of my least favourite things. Or at least, that’s what I used to think. I’ve never been the biggest fan of poetry…when it comes to mushy writing you have to share to the public, it makes me cringe a little. But this unit gave me a whole new outlook on poetry and how I think and feel about it.

 

Ms. Maxwell approached this project in a really cool way as before we started writing poetry
, she really broke it down to it’s most simple form AND we got to learn about a cool form of poetry, popular in the 50s called beat poetry. Anyways, why this project was hard for me is because as happy I am to talk and talk and talk, I get quite get scared to be vulnerable with my words in a school way. Poetry is normally a pretty genuine form of writing, so I was scared. Also, it makes me cringe a little like I said before. When I used to think of poetry I’d think of like 6 foot hipster men with bad mustaches performing their bad poetry at a weird cafe on a Wednesday night. I don’t think like that anymore, I think of awesome beat poets like Jack Kerouac and Amiri Baraka.

I remember having a really hard time sitting down and writing poetry. I am such a perfectionist, I wanted it to be perfect. Thankfully, I came to a realization that poetry doesn’t have to be perfect, or even… good. It’s YOUR writing, and it’s up for interpretation.
I remember letting my words flow and I wrote about 10 in an hour. Moving on from the writing process, I remember having to stand in front of the class and read two of my poems ON A MIC as a dress rehearsal. I never ever ever get nervous when it comes to presenting stuff to my small PLP class, but I remember the absolute terror and nervousness I felt before presenting.

Poems can be such vulnerable sensitive pieces of work, sharing them seemed like a nightmare to me. I was happy with the poems I wrote, but I assumed everyone else in the class would hate them and I’d be embarrassed. But, after reading my poems with my shaky hands and dry nervous mouth, I saw my peers and Ms. Maxwell smiling and clapping. It was instant relief. School can be quite repetitive, but this project was new and exciting.Later on had to present my poetry to basically everyone I ever know in a small gym room for the winter exhibition, dressed as an…. Ewok. But surprisingly I wasn’t as scared as I was when presenting to just my class. I had overcome my fear and hate towards poetry, and that was for sure one of the hardest things I did that year.

BYE GRADE 11!

Overall, this year was a beautiful mess. With corona infiltrating my end of the year, to dressing up as Ewoks, to filming Macbeth, it was an awesome year. I tried a lot of new things and I can tell my little learning brain has grown, and that’s why I feel I’m ready for grade 12. (Scary). Thank you to everyone who put up with me this year!

Picture I took in New Mexico!

History Is Repeating

The past few months my class and I have been diving deep into the civil rights movement in America in the 50s/60s. This is fitting, as right now we are seeing the world uprise against similar things that the civil rights movement fought for. Still, in 2020 we are seeing issues that relate straight back to the ’50s and 60’s civil rights movement. The Black Lives Matter movement started in 2013 but has been brought to the frontlines of media even more right now. In this post I’m going to talk about two murders of black Americans who’s story’s are parallel, and what we can do to help stop this.

On August 28, 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American was murdered by Roy Bryant and J.W Milam. Till was on a trip with his cousins in Mississippi, and while at a country store (similar to a now convenience store) he was accused of “flirting” with the woman working at the store.
He continued on with his trip, but a few days went missing, and a few days after that, he was found dead floating in the Tallahatchie River. He was murdered by the woman’s husband and his half brother. Authorities wanted to bury the body quickly and hide all of what had happened but Till’s mother, Mamie Bradley, insisted on having the body sent back to Chicago, where Mamie and Emmett lived. She had an open casket funeral because he was so brutally mutilated, she wanted everyone and the media to see him and how he died. This was the closest thing at the time to something now going viral online nowadays. Mamie got it in multiple newspapers, and everyone saw pictures of Till’s 14-year-old body mutilated. A lot of America was shocked. Till’s murderers were never charged, even after his mother brought it to court. Emmett Till’s murder was one of the first events that forced society to look at the brutality that black Americans face. Till became an icon of the civil rights movement.

On May 25, 2020, the world was struck by a video of a 46-year-old black man named George Floyd, being murdered by a police officer. George Floyd was arrested outside a convenience store in Minneapolis, Minnesota because some accused of him using a counterfeit 20 dollar bill and called the cops on him. Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes while Floyd was handcuffed face-down on pavement repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe”. Three other officers were on scene, holding back the public from helping Floyd. Floyd died, on the ground, begging for his life. While some people see this as a police officer doing his job, anyone with a working brain sees it as an incredibly brutal murder to an innocent black man. All of this was filmed and brought to the media, for all the world to see. This sparked a fire in everyone around the world, fighting for the movement Black Lives Matter.


1955, 2020, 64 years apart.
Emmett Till and George Floyd’s murders were in different decades, yet remind us of the brutal problems in America (Canada isn’t innocent either I’m just talking about America right now). Floyd and Till’s murders are parallel. History is repeating, and the world is NOT having it. Since Floyd’s murder, protests, riots, petitions, resources, and so much more have been flooding our lives via the media due to the issues of racism and social injustice in America. The BLM movement has had more progress in the past 2 weeks than in the past 7 years. The video of George Floyd being murdered captured generations of injustice and brutality that black people face and the world is trying to help to stop this. Police and white Americans murdering black Americans has been a regular occurrence since forever,  but now it’s being filmed more than ever and shared online, which is an amplification of Emmett Till’s funeral. Floyd’s and Till’s murders have been society’s tipping points. But how many tipping points do there have to be until things change?

“If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, that is not progress. Progress is healing the wound, and America hasn’t even begun to pull out the knife. They won’t even admit it’s there.”—Malcolm X

A collage I made in honour of Till and Floyd.

As long as America runs on a white system, things like this will continue to happen. Emmett Till and George Floyd are proof of this. It’s been 64 years but now we are seeing murders and violence towards black Americans DAILY because everyone has a camera and it is now being captured. Actually seeing the violence and horror with their eyes is waking people up.

What a part of the website looks like

Why I’m bringing this up is because I want this blog post to be a reminder of what’s going on right now, and what HAS been going on, and share some resources to how we can help. Floyd and Till are just two of the thousands of black Americans that have been brutalized and murdered in the past 64 years. I’m going to link here a website made by a 17-year-old student in the states. It has a few sections and links where you can sign petitions, donate, and educate yourself.

Tic Tac Toe Highschool Edition!

Hi blog! Oh how I’ve missed you. How’s the pandemic going for you? Anyways, that’s not what this post is about. It’s about atomic habits! Ive posted a few posts on this book, here’s two of them linked here and here. Check them out if you have no idea what atomic habits is! Understanding the book, author, and habits will help make this post easier to understand! Lets get into this post…

For this PGP assignment we were given this awesome opened ended project. Ms. Maxwell made a cool visual for us students to use and guide our project. Ill put a pic here, and explain a little.

 

It consists of 3 curricular competencies, and how we should show our knowledge. As I said earlier, it’s super open ended. You could choose any of the boxes, and recommended to follow it in a horizontal line (as each box is connected to each other in that way) but of course, in Luca fashion I didn’t fully follow that (sorry Ms. Maxwell!) I chose to do these ones in the pic below this text.I chose those 3 because it felt the most natural towards my project. At first I was following just the middle row, but I felt the first two boxes in last row fitted my project best as I adapted and revised it. Anyways, these boxes inspired my project, and I’m going to go through each box and show my journey of making my final product! (A daily calendar adapted to the habits.)

THINK

“Summarize the 4 laws of atomic habits.” At first, I had decided to do the middle row box, but as I started creating my calendar I realized I could include not just ONE but ALL of the habits in it. So, I went with this box. I could go and summarize all of the habits, but past Luca did a great job at doing that in my Atomic Habits blog post. Instead, I’m going to talk about the importance of them.

So, when I first started reading atomic habits back in January, I was like hopefully this book will leave me smarter and more organized, and to my surprise, it actually did. I’m a organized person and I have a lot of techniques and routines to get stuff done, but never really though about why or why not they work. This book solidified ideas I had floating around my head, and deepened my understanding of my work habits. Connecting it to the competency THINK “how do I make choices, question decisions, and develop habits to support achievement” this book helped me with those exact statements. The book made me really focus and break down what I’m doing, and how I’m doing it. How I make the choices I do, how I question my decisions and how I develop habits to support achievement. The book basically revised my ways of thinking, and the product I made for this product is psychical evidence of my deep understanding of the book.

 

ACT

Regular calendars just don’t work for my daily needs…

“Create a tool for you and your friends to use in the future that demonstrates a thorough and thoughtful understanding of your topic.” So, as I mentioned, I created a calendar. Woohoo calendar, I know… But, this ones special, and it’s adapted to help support and organize a busy teenagers brain. I’m a procrastinator as we all know, and I’ve noticed I consistently leave all my assignments to the weekend. So I made a sort of Sunday calendar. I called it that at first because Sunday’s are my homework day, but because of corona, everyday is kind of a Sunday. My days are basically empty besides calls and seeing friends, so I just end up designating a day or two to all my assignments, so I made the calendar surrounding that habit because that’s how my brain works. Regular calendars just don’t work for my busy daily life. They are good for overall weekly plans, but for those long work days they just don’t work.

Anyways, I wanted the calendar to be something I could fill out and plan the day before a very busy workday. I find myself having a way more successful work day when my day is laid out the night before, so I highlighted that and removed the long and painful time where I’m moping around in the morning being stressed and confused on what I have to do that day. As I was developing the calendar, I was focusing on the law “make it attractive” as the calendar is all about making the busy day less scary and stressful, but as I developed and revised it I noticed I could attach a habit to each part of the calendar. Ill show my calendar draft here, and you can see the pink highlighted parts are where I show the connection to the laws.

Half of the calendar is to be written the night before, and the other half is to complete during the day. I’m going to break down the four parts of the calendar and the laws connected to it.

PART 1 (MAKE IT EASY): To do list. This is the make it easy habit, as it’s there to do the night before so the next day is easier. As I talked about before, I have a more successful work day if I have it laid out for me when I wake up. It makes everything easier to focus on. There’s no worry of “oh what is due?” “What do I have to do?” “Do I do this today or tomorrow?” It removes the stress. During the day you check off the boxes, which also connects to MAKE IT SATISFYING, as what’s more satisfying than checking off some boxes, am I right? Also, I added a cool little feature where there’s 3 colours to colour in the check box (you do this while writing the list the night before.) Each colour shows you how long (approximately) each thing will take. I like this feature as it helps me know what I should get done first, as well as showing me how long everything will approximately take all added up.

PART 2 (MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE): Nightly checklist. This is pre written, and has 3 key things that I feel are very helpful to a successful day. I don’t know about you, but If I wake up to a clean room, clothes folded ready to put on, and a to do list already pre written, I’m more likely to actually do my work then if I wake up all unorganized and stressed. This makes the day more attractive, which is why that’s the law I connected this part to.

PART 3 (MAKE IT OBVIOUS): Goals for tomorrow + one thing you’re proud of yourself for doing in the day. The goal is the part connected to the law, as make it obvious is all about breaking and setting habits. It’s a place to set a small goal for the next day. It’s not meant for big things like “raise your math mark by 10 percent” its meant for things like “stay off phone when doing homework” or “get work done before 5:00 pm.” It’s to help set goals/habits, and the proud of yourself part is either for just something like “I’m proud of myself for getting out of bed on time today” or, if you used the calendar the day before you could say “I followed my new habit of staying off my phone during homework.” I wanted to include something like this in my calendar so it makes it more meaningful, and it’s also a place to give yourself some self love by talking about what you’re proud of.

PART 4 (MAKE IT SATISFYING): This the space where you get to reward yourself after your hard day of working. You can write the thing like “watch a movie” or “hangout with friends” either in the morning, or just when something you want to do pops up in your head. I leave it blank until I’m working on my to do’s, as ill be sitting doing homework and Ill think ah I wish I could play some animal crossing on my Nintendo switch right now, and instead of giving into that craving, ill write it down as my reward so once all my to do’s are done, I get to do what I want. This is connected to the law make it satisfying as after a long day of working hard, you get to reward yourself, and that is beyond satisfying.

I’m really proud of this calendar, and I know it’ll help me and my friends out in our busy lives. As I mentioned before, the circular competency for this part is reflect, “How do I create and demonstrate thorough and thoughtful understanding.” And I fully believe I showed my understanding of the laws in this calendar.

 

REFLECT

This part of the tic tac toe board is basically this blog post, but it also requires you to talk about how you plan to move forward with atomic habits. That question fits into my project well, as my creation was a tool that I actually use. I printed out many many copies of this calendar onto thick card-stock and stapled it together into a little book. This is so I have nice paper copies to continue to use. I’ve given some friends some copies too (Adlih and Isy) and I know they will use it as they helped me revise and develop this calendar. The task was to make a tool for me and my friends to use to continue our use of atomic habits, so that’s what I did, and I’m very proud of the outcome! I put a big clear copy of the calendar at the beginning of this post, so if you want, you can screenshot it and print out to use for yourself!

I Hate Procrastination So Much

James Clear

Hi blog. Today’s post is PGP based. The topic for this post is James Clear. James Clear is the same author that wrote atomic habits. Remember, the post I made about the book? It was an awesome book and I’m glad that we’re continuing on talking about it. For this post, we were assigned to read an article from his website and connect it to our life. He has hundreds of articles about everything and anything to do with goals, habit, etc. Basically anything to help you do and feel good . The selection is great because everyone in the class can find an article that connects and relates to them. So, what article did I choose?

Procrastination: A Scientific Guide on How to Stop Procrastinating.

The website Of course I picked an article about procrastination… If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know I am the procrastination queen. No matter what I do, or how I do it, I will always put it off late. It never affects the quality level, it’s just annoying. I will put something off until it is literallyI mpossible to put off any longer. I decided to read this article because well sometimes I’ll get better at avoiding procrastinating, I still struggle and I think reading about procrastination, and actually learning about the causes of it, may help me.

The apps I’ve been using a lot for online classes

The first line from this article says someone that immediately I relate to, “How to make those rare moments of productivity more routine.” Thats spot on what I want and need, especially in times like this. Being honest, this whole online school thing and being home all the time, doesn’t really work well for me. Im still hard working, but that determination starts to fade when I’m not actually going to school. Being home all day is literally ideal for me to procrastinate. I will do anything but what I have to. Yesterday I vacuumed my room, and all of the house, without being asked to by my mom, just to avoid doing this blog post. Anyways, let’s continue.

“Akrasia is the state of acting against your better judgment. It is when you do one thing even though you know you should do something else. Loosely translated, you could say that akrasia is procrastination or a lack of self-control.”

Akrasia is a word that ancient Greek philosophers used before the word “procrastination.”

That definition stuck with me and honestly was a reminder that yes, it is just basically a self control issue. The overall article basically sums up what procrastination is, and then gives some tips to how to deal with it. So, what is it? Behavioural psychology research has revealed a phenomenon called “time inconsistency,” which helps explain procrastination. Us humans like short fast rewards, not long term.

He talks about how a lot of us go to bed with the motivation to get started on something, or do finish something, but then wake up unmotivated and fall into old patterns. This is because our brain VALUES long term benefits when they are in the future (the next morning in this case) but when the future actually comes (when you wake up) you then value the immediate gratification of not doing it more than the long term goal. This is really really helpful for me to learn, because I find myself in the future stage and present stage a lot (relating to this example) and I know for a fact when I’m in that future stage, and I tell myself oh yes I’ll do that tomorrow, I know I probably won’t. Which is really bad, and why I believe the best time for me to do work is when I’m actually in that future stage and have the motivation. I find the time I have best motivation is when someone is JUST assigned, and the reason I never do it then is because I’ll have a week or so to do the assignment and I think “oh yes I have a lot of time, no need to do it now” even if I have that motivation. Then, I end up doing it the morning of all stressed out.

At that point I’ve past the action line, and my motivation is purely terror to get it in. The guilt and fear and anxiety I feel when procrastinating is actually worse than the energy and dedication I have to put in when doing the assignment. The problem is not doing the work, it’s starting the work.

My goal for this post wasn’t necessarily to find a new way to help me to stop procrastinating (I feel like I’ve tried a lot of things and wanted to come at a new approach) it was more to learn about why I procrastinate, so I can tackle those issues personally, instead of using someone else’s method. I feel some (some!!! Not all) methods are just a Band-Aid but then I get bored of them and I go back to procrastinating. Learning about it, I feel will be more beneficial. Before this article, I barely knew what it meant besides the fact it’s avoiding to do work, so I’m grateful this was an assignment as I know this knowledge has made me change the way I look at procrastination and the way I think.

My ”adjusted to corona times” goal for the rest of the school year, is get stuff started and finished right when it’s assigned and I have that brief amount of motivation, as starting it is always the hardest part. I don’t have that 3:00 after school motivation anymore to set my goals on!

This Week I learnt…

Hi! This is going to be my last “This Week I Learned” post. While reading Macbeth and learning about the Cold War, I noticed a strong theme/idea that links the two together. This theme was noticeable through all of Macbeth, but during the Cold War lectures it was the first time I could really connect it to more modern times (1950’s is modern compared to the 1500’s!). The two things I’ll be comparing is the fall of the chain of power in Macbeth, and the Diefenbunker in the 1950’s. Both of these things help support the idea that a country needs to protect the hierarchy or the society will start to break down. 

I mention this in the podcast!

For this weeks artifact I decided to do a podcast. I haven’t created a podcast since grade 10 and I think it’s a good way to switch up the layout of this TWIL post. Listen to the short podcast below where I discuss the importance of protecting the hierarchy using an example of power in Macbeth, and the Diefenbunker in the Cold War.

So, I’m not going to repeat everything I just said, but I am going to repeat one thing. The King being killed in the play is the equivalent to an atomic bomb being dropped on Canada in the Cold War. If you didn’t listen to that podcast, that is going to make no sense, sorry. Anyways, here’s the Encounters with Canada post I mentioned. I hope you learned something, and if you want to know more about the topics I talk about, I linked some articles to key words in the post.

1950’s vs 1500’s

This week I learnt, part 2. You know the drill! Hello! 

After a few days of lessons about the 1950’s, and a few days of reading Macbeth, I found myself gaining an interest in the TV aspect of the 1950’s. While coming up with what to write for this blog, I began to see a solid link between the 1950’s television and the activities Elizabethans would do besides watching theatre like Macbeth in the 1500’s. You wouldn’t initially think the 1950’s and a Shakespeare play would have similarities, but my class and I have discovered… There is plenty! So how are the 50s and Macbeth (1500’s specifically for this post) connected?

My notes from this week!

Ah, the one thing that keeps us all sane…. Entertainment. Now a days this can be anything, YouTube, Netflix, Instagram, Tik Tok, the list goes on. But, even less than 100 years ago, it was dramatically different. And then even farther, the 1500’s… What would you watch or do if you had absolutely no form of electronic, or couldn’t even read a book? (A lot of people in the 1500’s didn’t know how to read.) We are so used to entertainment and the media we are fed by the world, that we don’t even think about it. For the Elizabethans, they really had to do the most to find entertainment. They would do normal things like sports (wrestling, archery, juggling) and then really odd things like visiting prisons, and watching bears battle dogs. But one of the most respected and popular things they did was watch theatre. 

Theatre was a big thing in this time period. It was something to do, and the closest thing they had to television. They would watch hour long plays, either standing in the pit or in the side stands, seen in this picture beside this text. An example of a play they would watch would be Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and all those classic Shakespeare plays we study to this day. I think the things people develop in times where entertainment is what gets you through the days, is very interesting. How do they come up with these things? How long does it take to become normal? We never think about these things as now in 2020, everything is normal, but back then new ideas were constant. 

In the 1950’s, television became really popular. The price of a TV went down and 3/4 of Americans ended up having one in their house!

They didn’t watch the type of shows we are used to know, they were very stereotypical scenarios of the time period. This was to reenforce the “normal” on the country to maintain a picture perfect country. Anyways, thats not the point I’m making today. The point I’m making is that once war was over, people had money, houses, and families, they could settle. They had the luxury of the chance to watch TV, and enjoy their free time. This was crazy as in the war it was the opposite. Television/entertainment became a large part of Americas culture as they had actually had the time and resources to enjoy life.

These graphics I created represent entertainment and the way it can evolve and form through the years, and a compare/contrast of the outcome of evolving.

This one here shows a 1950’s television family cast on stage in the 1500’s.

And this one shows a 1950’s family watching a scene of Shakespeare play on stage, on their television.

Entertainment is valuable, and humans are very attracted to it. You can see that throughout every year humans have been around. We will create things to distract us from life even if it is going to a prison and watching the prisoners be in prison… (*cough cough* elizabethans)

Jacoe’s 7th POL

Hi! It’s that time of year. MPOLS! A time where I get to talk about myself for seven minutes. This is honestly a really valuable part of the year as Its a time where you’re forced to think really deeply and reflect on your work. This year has been going by so fast MPOLS is like a freeze frame to think about you and your work ethics. This post is going to be mainly on the opportunities I have for improvement, but there will also be some highlights of the year so far, and ending it off with a laser focused question that I need answers to!! I like MPOL’s. They remind me, no matter how many times I do this, I will never run out of thing I can improve on and learn... First though, here is the POL deceleration. 

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 weaknesses. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

GOAL #1 STOP TRUSTING MYSELF 

Using calendar and reminder to help!

You may be thinking, uhhhhhh, what? When you read that caption, but let me explain. I trust myself when it comes to school. I know I can get done what I put my mind to. This trust has grown over the past 4 years of high school, and you would think its a good thing but its not 100% good. Its good in the way where I have high self efficacy in my school category, which helps me succeed, but it’s bad where It kind of ruins my days. I think Ive mentioned this before but I can do a lot of work in the mornings before school. I sometimes find my mind is most awake then, and the pressure of the 8:30 school time makes me go 10x faster than I would normally. Thats good I guess, I can produce quality work in the mornings. Some of my best blog posts have been written in the morning.

Why its bad is because the homework I have to do is constantly hanging over me like a sad rain cloud, and I sometimes just loose overall motivation to actually do it in the morning. Or, I don’t have enough time. A goal I made in PGP was to get my work done right away at 3 while I’m still feeling motivated, and I am going to try really hard to stick to that. I want to be nicer to myself by not leaving homework to the morning. 

GOAL: #2 MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE

While reading atomic habits, It gave me a new perspective on the way I personally approach schoolwork. I’ve noticed that I’m way more likely to do something when I’ve made myself excited for a certain aspect of it. The 2nd law in atomic habits is all about that. Its called “MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE.” Ive kind of had this overall idea in my head for a while, but never laser focused my thoughts and actually developed something connected to the idea. My goal is to use some of the rules from this law to help me gain more motivation to do my work.

Something I really liked that the author said was to pair something you WANT to to with something you HAVE to do. Ive found that if I switch up the way I do my assignment, like writing it on paper instead of my iPad, or just making a bunch of coffee/tea and settling down while doing my work. I need to attach an attractive and positive activity with the work I need to do, or I honestly lose all motivation. An example of me doing this since I read atomic habits is during this new Macbeth unit. I find Shakespeare quite hard to enjoy and understand, but I’ve been taking notes at home on the scenes writing it out and drawing things connected to it makes me actually enjoy reading Shakespeare in class. 

What project did you struggle with?

This year has been full of projects that aren’t necessarily my favourite “genre” of projects. I like really open ended projects with not a lot of creative constraints. I find thats the best way I learn, as its an attractive and fun thing but also forces you to get to know the unit content really well. This year they have been very writing based, from the New Mexico book (partially creative as it includes photo and video) to the Lord of the Flies Essays, to The poetry book, its been a lot of writing. I have expressed before that I have a hard time with writing as I just don’t like it that much. But obviously, I am still going to need to do it. The Lord of The Flies unit was quite challenging for me in the motivation category.

Writing is something I get better at every year, but it takes a lot. To see progress, I need constant critique, motivation, and dedication to revise. This unit I was missing the critique and motivation. It was a lot of writing assignments, and I’d write them and think they were great, then a week or so later get a bunch of critique on them and feel disappointed and have little to no motivation to revise and I couldn’t even remember my thought process. This was a very mentally challenging project for me, and I think it was because I just simply didn’t enjoy it and that caused no motivation. I lacked the motivation and inspiration to create and write. I handed in a lot of stuff late, and felt like I was always behind. Writing isn’t something that comes to me naturally, and I need to remember thats okay, I’ll just have to work a little harder.

So, what am I going to do to make sure this type of thing doesn’t happen again? I need to start relying on myself and ways I can make myself inspired to do something I don’t enjoy. Here’s a book you have to read, you don’t really like the book, and you have to write about it. A lot. I want to be able to take that un enjoyment as an opportunity to find something I enjoy about it. I don’t know how Ill do that yet, but I’m going to test out some ways as the year continues. For this project I could have taken a large interest in the film aspect of LOTF as that’s something I love, or even just taking notes each chapter to keep me motivated. 

What project surprised you? 

In the beginning of the poetry unit, I expressed my weird dislike of poetry. I didn’t hate it, just never felt an interest or connection to it. So, that’s why this project surprised me so much, because it was my favourite project out of all of them this year. I think it was a perfect combination of history, poetry and creativity.

 

I liked the amount of openness we had and freedom to do anything we wanted. Like I said earlier, writing doesn’t come easy for me, but once
I wrote a few poems and got over my weird fear of writing about poetry being cringe, it came pretty easy. I think the most nervous I’ve been all year was before a dress rehearsal in our class. I had to read 2 poems I wrote just in front of my classmates and Ms Maxwell. I was so so so so scared for some reason and remember feeling my heart beating out of my chest. I think I was so nervous because poetry is so personal and reading it out loud can be hard. 

After the dress rehearsal, my eyes opened up and I really decided I was going to take this poetry unit as an opportunity to take risks and do things I normally don’t like. This project was a learning lesson for me as well as a successful project. I learnt I need to always go into a project with an open mind, and take risks!

Laser focused question!

So we have to come up with a question to ask our parents and teachers, and mines more about you than me. I want to know how you handle a situation I personally struggle with, so I can learn from it and help myself. I find hearing about how others deal with something can help inspire me 

When motivation is lost, what route do you take to re-inspire yourself and get it done?

I know as adults you guys must be plenty of things you don’t want to do, but you have to do. I experience that more and more as I get older and I want to know what you guys do, because it would really help me out.