Twice every year, I meet with my parents and teachers to present to them evidence of my learning, reflect on what I have done, and set goals for my future learning. This is supplemented by a blog post which reflects on any work that I see important. We call this a Presentation of Learning (POL). This presentation marks the end of my grade 11 year! This is called a Transitional Presentation of Learning (TPOL) as it is about the transition between two grade levels.
So what makes me ready to make this jump?
When I did my Mid Year Presentation of Learning (MPOL), I talked about how I wanted to take advantage of my school assignments and school work to push myself out of my comfort zone and try new things. The reason I wanted to commit to this idea was because I knew some of the things that I enjoyed doing, and I kept doing those things because that produced work that I knew was good. But after three years of using this tactic, I realized that I was growing as a learner, and this meant that my strategies would have to change too.
“I will push myself outside of my comfort zone to explore new passions and expand my learning to new and scary places”
I am going to achieve this by trying new things even if I find them challenging and especially if I find them scary. But I still have a long way to go before I can become proficient at this. This is not the kind of goal that you can achieve once and move on from— it’s an overarching goal for all of my learning. One of the big questions I was asked was “what will this look like?” Today I am here to show off what I think it will look like.
Success Story — Haida Gwaii
At the end of may this year, we took a trip to Haida Gwaii. Haida Gwaii was an amazing trip where we went all over the island and met with lots of amazing people who helped us learn about Haida culture, history, and how the Haida people have fought to achieve strong Reconciliation throughout the island.
Engaging with people can be scary, but it was key to getting the most out of this trip. Many of the people we met on this trip were not people who spend their lives teaching people things. They didn’t always have a guided tour, and they didn’t always have talking points ready. To get the most out of these incredibly knowledgeable people, it took some real conversation and listening skills. Talking to new people can be scary, especially when you are asking them deep questions about their heritage or their history. Many times I find myself scared to ask certain questions out of fear that I will offend them, or seem like I don’t know what I’m talking about. Especially with a complex topic like Reconciliation, I sometimes find myself feeling like I don’t have enough background knowledge to ask certain questions.
To fight this, I forced myself to ask my questions and lead conversations in the direction that I am curious about. I recognized that these people were excited to teach me, regardless of how much background knowledge I had about each topic. This did end up being very uncomfortable at times, but I felt I was able to get way more out of the trip and I was able to learn so much more about Haida culture and history.
These conversations are actually what led me to choose what my final product would be when we had our 2025 Spring Exhibition. Twice a year, all of the grade levels in PLP put on an exhibit to show off our learning to all of our parents and community members who come to see us. Since day one of planning for the exhibition, I knew I wanted to focus on making conversation with the people who came to my exhibit. I recognized that many people can be a bit confused when it comes to the word “Reconciliation.” I wanted to teach them that Reconciliation isn’t just learning about the past, but it is also about the future. I achieved this by talking to everyone that came through about Gwaii Haanas National Park, and how the Haida people are fighting for the land and the environment.
This is an example of how I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone, and it ended in a really effective and informative exhibit. This is an exemplar of how this skill should look in practice.
Missed Opportunity — Macbeth Confessionals
Thinking about this skill, there is an example where I missed an opportunity. We had a project this year called Big Bother. In this project we explored Shakespeare’s Macbeth. We read the play, and talked about the characters, plot, and themes represented. We then chose characters to create reality TV style confessionals. We played as the characters at four different parts of the play. I chose to play Macbeth.
There was a lot of potential for me to explore the complex character that is Macbeth. I originally had an ambitious idea that I was very excited for. I wanted to have two different versions of Macbeth to show his internal monologue. They would be talking and arguing and eventually, I was going to have the evil side of Macbeth kill the noble side to show his decent into evil and madness. I wanted to use lots of complex editing techniques to make the duality of Macbeth come to life.
However, as it got to script writing, I decided that this was too difficult. My script began transitioning. Instead of doing two different characters, I symbolized his duality with the way I used lighting. While this did end up being effective, it wasn’t quite what I wanted originally. I did not persevere and I did not fight to make something uncomfortable work. While my video did turn out as one of my best works, it was not as good as it could’ve been if I had pushed myself outside of my comfort zone and did the thing that was difficult.
Other Areas For Growth
- I would like to focus on getting good systems in place so that I can effectively manage my time and not get behind on my work. As soon as one thing falls out of place, my whole management system can go crashing down. Next year I would like to focus on managing my work and my time better.
- Something I have always struggled with is procrastination. Next year I want to be more specific with my goals for what deadline I want to be done each step of a project. I think this will help me be more on task.
- I would also like to work on asking for feedback more. The one thing that I told myself I would do more at the start of the year was ask for feedback and talk to my teachers about my goals. This was something that ended up not happening a lot of the time and I really want to force myself to do this a lot next year.
What do I Want my Grade 12 Year to Look Like?
As my last year of high school, it is the perfect opportunity to set myself up for a successful rest of my life by creating successful habits. The habit of pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and doing things that are new, scary, and difficult is going to be key to success throughout my life. I want to be the kind of person that jumps on new opportunities and pursues interests whenever they come up. I want to try new things no matter how difficult or scary they may be. I want all of my work in grade 12 to be very strange and weird and all over the place. If I am completing work that pushes me and challenges me in new ways, I know the work will be unique to me, and I will be proud of it for the rest of my life.
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