WHAT ON EARTH DO I DO?? (May 9 - June 9 2011)
The process of choosing, thinking, and asking myself: 'Is this a good idea?'
After the Personal Project Orientation Evening (9th May 2011)
OK, I know what I'm doing. I am going to do something related to Math, because I wouldn't mind doing it on a Saturday afternoon, giving up my leisure hours to do some hardcore, intense math. What I thought would be an awesome project is to make my own Math Tutoring business, where I would take in any willing students, from grades 5 to 8 and tutor them on Math and help them progress through the year. In the end, every single cent I earned would go to Natascha Yogachandra's foundation: Hope is Life (http://www.hopeislife.org/). I've met with Natascha before at the Global Issues Service Summit (GISS 2011-2012) and I've talked to her and introduced her to my project and she was into it and eager to hear from me. I feel excited about starting my project and it's also for a good cause! But I understand the limitations that face me if I go ahead with this project:
i) Why would students need to pay someone to tutor them when they could go to any of the math teachers and go for help? Would students actually participate in tutoring?
ii) If I did receive money how much could be considered my 'goal'?
iii) How can I gain support for this project? Would it even be successful?
Judging by the weaknesses of my project, I thought that then I should have a back-up plan, and maybe talk a bit to my advisor to see what his/her point of view would be.
i) Why would students need to pay someone to tutor them when they could go to any of the math teachers and go for help? Would students actually participate in tutoring?
ii) If I did receive money how much could be considered my 'goal'?
iii) How can I gain support for this project? Would it even be successful?
Judging by the weaknesses of my project, I thought that then I should have a back-up plan, and maybe talk a bit to my advisor to see what his/her point of view would be.
Umm... (25th May 2011)
OK, I just selected my advisor: Ms. Amy Hoffman and I've talked to her the other day and she said that compared to the ideas presented by the tenth grade this year my idea was sort of weak, and there was a small chance of me gaining success. But she told me about how the first years of your life influences how you learn as a student. Which was really cool, and I think that I'll do a research paper and ask parents of how they brought up thier children or something like that. I guess I'm still thinking about it, I want to create a personal project that would be for a good cause as well. But for the project that Ms. Amy suggested, I could teach the community of how the first years are really important in the future developement of a child. This could also be actuallly for a good cause as well, if I teach the outside community and raise awareness for child literacy then.... I'D MAKE A CAMPAIGN! I'd run a campaign by myself promoting child literacy! This IS GOING TO BE AN AWESOME PROJECT! I could gather up some of my friends and they would DEFINETLY be into working with me! I could raise money and teach the community about the importance of education in a child's life! Now I have to go and talk to Ms. Amy about it!
Writing to my Friends Help Me :) (27th May 2011)
Here is a message I wrote to one of my friends for my current status of my Personal Project (sorry for grammar errors if any):
okii it used to be this math tutoring buisness and all of the money would be given to charity now its researching on how the first years of your life influence how you learn in the future and somehow im gonna relate that to child abuse/labor and make a campaign at school :P i will make a connection! just need some time, i just want to make a project that would also benefit the community so its not selfish as originally i did one that was and i want to make one that still benefiting the community.
Writing this made me realize that there are a lot of things that I can do, and the above mentioned campaign for Child Literacy/Abuse/Labor can actually turn out to something big. We can use all of the support and all of the awareness to promote the idea of teaching and educating OUR generation so that kids OUR AGE can also experience the kind of educational opportunities we have. This is important, as the generation of this year would always impact the world of the next.
okii it used to be this math tutoring buisness and all of the money would be given to charity now its researching on how the first years of your life influence how you learn in the future and somehow im gonna relate that to child abuse/labor and make a campaign at school :P i will make a connection! just need some time, i just want to make a project that would also benefit the community so its not selfish as originally i did one that was and i want to make one that still benefiting the community.
Writing this made me realize that there are a lot of things that I can do, and the above mentioned campaign for Child Literacy/Abuse/Labor can actually turn out to something big. We can use all of the support and all of the awareness to promote the idea of teaching and educating OUR generation so that kids OUR AGE can also experience the kind of educational opportunities we have. This is important, as the generation of this year would always impact the world of the next.
Taking a Big Leap and Finalizing My Project (31rst May 2011)
Today I had a fruitful half an hour discussion with Ms. Amy, and I actually managed to narrow down my topic as it was very very vague at first. It was to raise a fundraiser on Child Literacy, but today, with the help of Ms. Amy, we managed to change it almost completely. Not that child literacy is a bad thing, it's highly important to the world but before I might have mentioned that I was interested in the psychology of a child, how they learn, how there environment (socially) or culture impacts the way that they learn. Honestly all these ideas came from what my teachers have taught me or shown to me. I was really interested in this one video that my English teacher- Mrs. Kannan has shown us, actually she showed us a TED talk, with Sheena Iyengar, a confident and inspiring woman that appeared on TED Talks for the first time, last year on July. She is a Psycho-Economist and she came on TED Talks, talking about the 'Art of Choosing'. Conducting several different tests from school children, to average women, to married couples, Sheena Iyengar studied how people felt about the choices that they made and how it 'quantified a counterintuitive truth about decision making'. Sheena Iyengar was the one person, who does not know me, but has still made an inspiring speech that I remember today. She judged the psychology of the choices that we make, including one of her tests which she mentioned during her presentation was a very interesting test which she conducted on differences of choices made by the Anglo-Americans and Asian-Americans.
She made 3 groups with Anglo-Americans and Asian-Americans, all small children of the age of 9 or so. The first group was presented with anagrams, they were allowed to make their own decision on their most favorite ones and mark them with any of the 6 different colored markers that they were given. The second group was given the same test but this time with the class leader- Mrs. Smith- telling them what anagram to pick and what colored marker to use. The third group was give the same test as well but this time their mothers told them what anagrams and colored markers to choose from. Surprisingly, the Anglo-Americans performed their best when they made their own choices, while on the other hand the Asian-Americans performed their best when their mothers told them what to do. This made me had an interest for one my questions on education: "How can different environments (socially and culturally) affect the way that normal students learn?" I know that this is quite broad from Sheena's concept but I was actually thinking- Hey! I could do something related to psychology as I always loved and awed the complex topic of Psychology, and because of my previous idea on Math tutoring, I wanted to do something related to education as well. This instantly reminded me of Sheena's concept on choice and how races of different parts of the world have the power to spread their ideas and points of views to their children at an early age.
For more information of Sheena Iyengar's studies you can go to:( http://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing.html) for the video presentation of her TED Talk, it is quite long but an eye-opener and a good use of time to enrich your knowledge. You can also go to (http://www.ted.com/talks) if you want to view more TED Talks, this website contains all of the TED Talks given and produced and offers you therefore, a wide range of enriching and diverse speeches or walk-throughs of various topics.
I think that it is about time to introduce my final topic to all my viewers: How the child is changed into a child soldier, and how complex the rehabilitation and reintegration back into society to make the child soldiers into children again. It is quite a weak question at this moment but what I hope to find to have created a clearer question and summary of what my project will be. My Area of Interaction (AOI) is Community and Service and my end product would be a research paper and a simple and easy to follow along Power Point Presentation of the different stages of the making of a child soldier and the procedure for rehabilitation. Also I would include a conclusion stating why the rehabilitation procedure is important, as at the end of it it enlightens the child and teaches him or her whats good or bad. Since all of my research would be done by the end of summer vacation, and when everyone comes back to school I'll create an awareness campaign running at the school, in regard to child soldiers. My target audience would be the High School student body and maybe even some parents. If proven successful, I could even spread the campaign outside of school and receive donations or aid from figures in Mozambique. Although the campaign would result in a lot of pre-planning I think that it can still be possible to accomplish, the hard part is teaching the students about child soldiers and the complexity of it. But this is a secondary goal and would run trough after my research is completely done.
As a start to my research I will look at the following site, which again is another TED Talk Speaker but this time the speaker talks about the life through the eyes of a little boy in Sierra Leone and how war is effecting the country and the recruitment of child soldiers has astonished him and the difficulties and trauma caused by being a child soldier: (http://www.ted.com/speakers/newton_aduaka.html).
She made 3 groups with Anglo-Americans and Asian-Americans, all small children of the age of 9 or so. The first group was presented with anagrams, they were allowed to make their own decision on their most favorite ones and mark them with any of the 6 different colored markers that they were given. The second group was given the same test but this time with the class leader- Mrs. Smith- telling them what anagram to pick and what colored marker to use. The third group was give the same test as well but this time their mothers told them what anagrams and colored markers to choose from. Surprisingly, the Anglo-Americans performed their best when they made their own choices, while on the other hand the Asian-Americans performed their best when their mothers told them what to do. This made me had an interest for one my questions on education: "How can different environments (socially and culturally) affect the way that normal students learn?" I know that this is quite broad from Sheena's concept but I was actually thinking- Hey! I could do something related to psychology as I always loved and awed the complex topic of Psychology, and because of my previous idea on Math tutoring, I wanted to do something related to education as well. This instantly reminded me of Sheena's concept on choice and how races of different parts of the world have the power to spread their ideas and points of views to their children at an early age.
For more information of Sheena Iyengar's studies you can go to:( http://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing.html) for the video presentation of her TED Talk, it is quite long but an eye-opener and a good use of time to enrich your knowledge. You can also go to (http://www.ted.com/talks) if you want to view more TED Talks, this website contains all of the TED Talks given and produced and offers you therefore, a wide range of enriching and diverse speeches or walk-throughs of various topics.
I think that it is about time to introduce my final topic to all my viewers: How the child is changed into a child soldier, and how complex the rehabilitation and reintegration back into society to make the child soldiers into children again. It is quite a weak question at this moment but what I hope to find to have created a clearer question and summary of what my project will be. My Area of Interaction (AOI) is Community and Service and my end product would be a research paper and a simple and easy to follow along Power Point Presentation of the different stages of the making of a child soldier and the procedure for rehabilitation. Also I would include a conclusion stating why the rehabilitation procedure is important, as at the end of it it enlightens the child and teaches him or her whats good or bad. Since all of my research would be done by the end of summer vacation, and when everyone comes back to school I'll create an awareness campaign running at the school, in regard to child soldiers. My target audience would be the High School student body and maybe even some parents. If proven successful, I could even spread the campaign outside of school and receive donations or aid from figures in Mozambique. Although the campaign would result in a lot of pre-planning I think that it can still be possible to accomplish, the hard part is teaching the students about child soldiers and the complexity of it. But this is a secondary goal and would run trough after my research is completely done.
As a start to my research I will look at the following site, which again is another TED Talk Speaker but this time the speaker talks about the life through the eyes of a little boy in Sierra Leone and how war is effecting the country and the recruitment of child soldiers has astonished him and the difficulties and trauma caused by being a child soldier: (http://www.ted.com/speakers/newton_aduaka.html).
After Exams and Now Free For Summer Vacation! (13th June 2011)
Hey Followers! I am all yours from now on wards with the fact that my school's summer vacation has started and that exams are over! No more Math, English or History homework would further distract me from giving you all my 100% to the progression of my website and project! Seeing that this period: "WHAT ON EARTH DO I DO??" is over, I just want to further give more details regarding my project before I start my full in-depth research.
Alright, to start with I will answer and complete my Form 2 (right here, right now) which was given to us by our Personal Project Coordinator: Dr. Poppi Smith.
Supervisor Name: Amy Hoffman
Topic: Raising Awareness on the Complexity of the Rehabilitation Process and Circumstances Faced for Child Soldiers.
Area of Interaction: Community and Service
My End Product Will Be: A fully-fledged campaign and speech on the importance that needs to be given to child soldiers.
I met with my supervisor on the following dates: (During school several times, although specific dates cannot be given, but over the second last week of school and a finalizing meeting on Friday the 10th of June).
Summary of comments from your supervisor:
My folder with forms and deadlines and additional information is complete and organised: Yes it is, and it is safely tucked away from harm in my drawer.
**My Parents consent and we have discussed thoroughly on my personal project, so have my advisor, and so have my MYP Coordinator (Dr. Pops)**
Alright, to start with I will answer and complete my Form 2 (right here, right now) which was given to us by our Personal Project Coordinator: Dr. Poppi Smith.
Supervisor Name: Amy Hoffman
Topic: Raising Awareness on the Complexity of the Rehabilitation Process and Circumstances Faced for Child Soldiers.
Area of Interaction: Community and Service
My End Product Will Be: A fully-fledged campaign and speech on the importance that needs to be given to child soldiers.
I met with my supervisor on the following dates: (During school several times, although specific dates cannot be given, but over the second last week of school and a finalizing meeting on Friday the 10th of June).
Summary of comments from your supervisor:
- Find research of the rehabilitation process for one specific child soldier so that you can use his/her name and state their actions and such.
- (more to come, are going to be e-mailed to me!)
My folder with forms and deadlines and additional information is complete and organised: Yes it is, and it is safely tucked away from harm in my drawer.
**My Parents consent and we have discussed thoroughly on my personal project, so have my advisor, and so have my MYP Coordinator (Dr. Pops)**
