A Good Smile

Today was a very Disney inspired day.

I started the morning on a video chat with some friends and old teachers playing some Disney Trivia, which I’m honestly shocked to say I won – it’s probably the only trivia topic I even have a chance at winning. Then I watched the ABC Disney Family Sing-Along special which aired last night in the US, and it was absolutely amazing!!! It even included a High School Musical cast reunion with a beautiful mashup of Disney stars singing “We’re All in This Together” – a very appropriate song for right now. Plus lots of kids of your favorite stars made special guest appearances which were absolutely adorable.

At this point, I found myself officially in a Disney rabbit hole which continued with watching lots of various YouTube videos related to old Disney stuff. It was very nostalgic and heartwarming. I feel like I was probably smiling all day, but I mean who doesn’t smile when listening to Disney songs?!

Looking back to some of the classics of your childhood is truly a great way to stay positive during all the chaos going on in the world. Watching old movies, looking at old photos, talking to old friends – I’d recommend doing all of the above if you’re also in need of a good smile.

Get’cha Head in the Game

If I had to pick a song to describe the mood of the day, it would have to be, “Get’cha Head in the Game” from High School Musical.

One of those random weird differences between high school and college is how finals work. In high school, classes ended and then finals basically started right away. It was crazy because there always felt like there was no time to study, but now that I’m in college it almost feels like the opposite problem. Because classes ended almost a week ago and my first final doesn’t start until tomorrow afternoon, I’ve been in this weird state of feeling like I’m done for the year, but really I still have two more days and 3 more finals to get through.

Therefore, the theme of the day has been “Get’cha head in the game” trying to refocus and study for this final push to the end. I can already imagine how great it will feel post-Tuesday night once I’m done with all my finals, but I have to actually make it through the next two days first which has felt very draining thus far.

On that note, I should go back to studying in an attempt to get to bed early tonight. So as tradition goes,

A merry finals to all,

And to all crammers

Good luck, and good night

Learning in the Rain

Six Flags in rain and Frozen on ice- it’s been a great day!

Today was Physics Day at Six Flags and all of the Calculus students at MVPS got the opportunity to spend the day there! Our teacher makes a deal with her Calc classes every year that if we stay on track and get all of the material we need to cover finished before the end of the year, then we get to go to Six Flags. Normally we would go on math day which is next Friday, however, that day is an important school wide event that we can’t miss so we went on Physics Day.

Part of this deal is also that we have to fill out the packet that Six Flags gives to honor the day which asks questions about various rides, and we use this as a quiz grade. Because it was Physics Day, the questions were primarily physics questions and the hardest math we did was multiply. The thing is, I’m not in a physics class currently so I have not learned many of the concepts discussed on the packet. Luckily we were working on these packets in groups, and I was working with some of my senior friends who are in AP Physics so they were able to teach me some quick physics things.

I learned about the difference between centripetal and centrifugal forces and how to calculate them. I learned about frequency calculations and hertz vs rpm. I learned more about kinetic and potential energy (I know it from a chemistry perspective but not physics really). Plus I learned many other little things. I find it funny because people would think “oh you’re going to Six Flags and are going to miss a whole day of learning in all of your classes,” but the truth is, while we are missing out on “school classes” so to say, we are not missing out on learning. In fact I enjoyed learning some physics today, and found it very helpful that I got to learn it from older students that are in that class. It also meant that they had to make sure they remembered things so they would check each other by asking more questions.

My learning was not hindered by taking a day trip to Six Flags with the Calculus students. I never would have learned as much about physics had I stayed, so in fact by taking “a day off” I was able to further my learning and curiosities about topics that are new to me. I learned in more than just physics too. We also talked about economics, and AP Literature, and calculus AB/BC, and even a little bit of Latin came up at one point.

Despite the rain and waiting in line for 40 minutes to buy lunch, I thought to day was a great school day at Six Flags.

 

 

(And I didn’t mention it further, but I also spent tonight at Frozen on Ice with one of my best friends which was a blast and I liked the way the opening sentence sounded!)

 

Growing from Mistakes

Yay another opening night that went well! Tonight was the middle school production of The Lion King Jr. and it was really fun! (I mean who can’t have fun doing The Lion King???)

Obviously it wasn’t perfect, but hey it’s a middle school show, and the cast shows a lot of potential as they continue to grow as actors and actresses. I’m glad that I got to be a part of it because I’ve had a fun time up on stage with these young talents dancing and singing to some of the greatest Disney songs out there.

I made some mistakes myself tonight, but what I realized is how much I’ve grown since my days as a middle schooler. Once upon a time when I made a mistake in a show, it was pretty obvious and I would be very upset about it afterwards and sometimes it would effect the rest of the show. However, tonight when I messed up, I think I covered it pretty well. Then I was able to brush it off once I got off stage knowing that I did my best to correct the mistake and it didn’t dramatically effect anything and kept moving forward. (I entered a scene early but played it off by turning around and jumping back off confidently. My mom even thought that was actually suppose to happen, and trust me she would be quick to tell me if she knew it was wrong.) Now hopefully I’ll not make the mistake tomorrow.

I guess I really have learned to fail-up in the last few years. 🙂

Backstage I found myself doing some coaching for other kids tonight that were much more dissatisfied with their minor slip ups. To be fair, they have spent much more time on this show and I know I get more upset when I’ve put a lot of effort into making something great and then it isn’t up to my standards. However, I’ve also seen the rehearsal’s and know that they weren’t the most focused group, which also reminded me of how much I’ve grown in terms of focus in the last few years. I now rehearse everyday after school for 3 hours plus many Saturdays as appose to twice a week for 2 hours each, and even with the extra time we have to be even more focused and on point to make sure every detail is worked up as best as we can.

The process of growing up fascinates me, especially because of how often I’m working with younger kids. It’s weird to think about myself growing up too…

Telling Time Through the Arts

I always am able to tell that time is passing based on the arts in my life.

This week is my last theater performance before I’m a senior, and ironically it The Lion King Jr. which the middle school is performing and I have a cameo in. Ironic because it’s a middle school show, and because it is The Lion King which I was begging to do during middle school but we didn’t have the rights for, so instead the cast of Willy Wonka (my 7th grade year) would sing all of The Lion King Songs all of the time in band and on the way to rehearsal. It’s been so nostalgic for me to work with the middle schoolers and remember what it was like back when I was their age in theater.

Then today I got to go to a Georgia Tech band concert and I started to feel old there as well, because it was one of the first times where we saw something like that and were talking about how many of the seniors are going to be those kids in the concert just next year. Then it’s only one more year for me until the end of high school…

Plus this weekend is our annual theater banquet where we give out awards for shows this year and also induct new National Thespian Society members. This is making me feel like time is passing because it really signifies the end of the year for me, and also it’s weird because everyone keeps coming to me with questions about it. I’m not use to being the one people come to for theater banquet questions because I still get confused about what to wear or expect as well. (In fact, I’m still often texting my friends that were former MVPAllStars to ask about theater banquet questions.)

Time flies when you’re telling stories.

Start of Something New

Last night was the 10th year anniversary of High School Musical, and you bet I watched the movie with the cast commentary last night on Disney Channel! It’s crazy to think that movie first played 10 years ago. It feels like it was only yesterday…

That movie, while extremely cheesy, makes me so happy. I mean it was a part of my child hood. (Even though technically I only started to like it after a little while of it being out.) I still know just about all of the words and several of the dances too.

One song that has been stuck in my head all day is “The Start of Something New”  (which is slightly ironic because I missed that part of the movie last night).

The song has seemed fitting today though because many new things have happened. I got my new piccolo!! (I had never played one before today and that was interesting, but I’m excited to learn!) Our ReSpIn team in ID worked with the laser cutter and made huge progress in terms of design concepts and connects. Kat and I have been working on planning a big discussion around the “American Dream” and success, which we made a lot of great progress on today in AP Lang.  And tomorrow is my first meeting with the MViFi team now that we’ve actually announced that I’m the first MViFi Fellow, and I’m so excited! (I finally put my shirt on today that we joke about being a bowling team shirt, and it’s kind of giant on me considering there are only guy sizes, but it makes me laugh in a happy way anyway.)

I don’t know why exactly, but it just feels like a lot of “new” is coming soon to my life. It hasn’t quite hit yet, but there’s something in the wondering air…

(I feel the need to explain the term “wondering air,” it basically means “breeze” but it became a joke in Latin today because when we translated a piece literally it said “wondering air” which we all found funny and I thought it was fit in this situation for some reason.)

Starting a Story

I had completely forgotten that I would not have Wifi for the week of Christmas while I was up at my family’s cottage in Pennsylvania. Therefore, I was sadly not able to blog, but I was writing down ideas through out the week so now it’s time to catch up!

It was weird not having wifi because so much of what I would typically work on, when I finally have time, requires the internet: blogging, twitter, reading articles, researching things, etc. However, it was kind of nice to not have the internet because it forced me to just relax with family since there was no way for me to do that kind of stuff. Plus I got to spend a while reading, which I haven’t really gotten to do in a while!

I love the feeling of finishing a book, especially when you have another already waiting to be read. With it finally being winter break I’ve actually been able to read just for fun for the first time in forever!!!

Back in the summer, which feels like so long ago now, I had started a rather easy book called “Kingdom Keepers” which is about Disney World after hours and these 5 kids that have to battle evil Disney villains. I started the book because it looked interesting since I love Disney so much, and over the summer I had been reading a lot of “thinky” books as I call them because they were those kinds of books that you can only read for so long before needing to stop and digest, so I wanted to read something fun and easy that didn’t make me think so much.

However, I started the book so late into summer that I didn’t get a chance to finish before school started, and then I didn’t have time to read my fun easy book. But once winter break started, I decided I would read nothing else until first finishing that book.

 And I did.

 In 1 day.

(I did say it was an easy book… Those last 150 pages I had left felt like nothing.)

After finishing that book (which is actually the first in a series, so I really want to start the next one…), I decided to start The Great Gatsby since I need to read that before school starts again. Reading this book is actually the only “assignment” I have for the winter break. The funny part is that I self assigned it along with Kat for our AP Lang course. We both wanted to read the book because everyone is always talking about it being a great book, so naturally we got curious as to what the big fuss it. Plus many English teachers often end up assigning it, so we thought it was a book that we definitely needed to read.

When I started reading the book I actually thought the main narrator was a girl. I don’t know what lead me to this belief, but it wasn’t until about 3 pages in that I finally went, “Wait a minute. This guy is a guy. This changes everything!”

My instinctual conclusion made me wonder if we naturally assume a narrator is like ourselves; therefore, in my case that would make this narrator a girl at first. I mean the role of the narrator is to help move the story forward and converse with the audience. They are the one character that always is breaking the 4th wall and typically they can be played by any type of person. This is because who the narrator is, is often less important than what the narrator is saying. So it makes sense that we would naturally want to relate with the narrator as much as possible.

However this isn’t always the case. Some stories have the narrator being a person who is actually in the story, making every narration like a mini soliloquy where the character tells you about how they were feeling on the inside, during or after a particular situation occurs.

The type of narration can really change a story because it changes the perspective in which you hear a story from. When you change the perspective you get an entirely different story. That’s why stories like Malificent and Wicked are so popular, because they tell you an old story from a new perspective, which changes the story in ways that make you question what is the “truth”.

The beginnings of stories fascinate me because in those first pages you can discover what type of book you are about to read based on the perspective it is told from. In The Great Gatsby, the narrator is also the main character, Nick. Right from the beginning you are able to tell that this story will be a reflective piece about a time in Nick’s life where exciting and life changing events took place.

However, not everything about the beginnings of a story is so great. In fact, they are often long and sometimes drag on without much excitement for a while because the backstory has to be set before the story can really get interesting.

The Great Gatsby has been one of those books that hasn’t gotten too terribly interesting yet. I haven’t reached that point where I can’t put it down until I finish it quit yet. So I am still on the hunt to figure out “What’s the big deal about The Great Gatsby; why has it become such a staple in high school literature?”

Growing Passions

We did it, we made it to Thanksgiving break!!! So far this break I have created and taught about 4 gymnastics routines, practiced lines, discovered they are creating a new Lion King movie/TV series about Simba’s son (premiering tomorrow night on Disney channel at 7), seen the The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (which was an amazing movie!!!!!), stayed up late watching Gilmore Girls with my sister, slept in, was reading a ton of stuff online about disney, and also did some work on my latest challenge: going through all of my old blog posts and tagging/categorizing them as well as summarizing each post in one sentence.

Considering that this will be my 471st blog post, I have my work cut out for me, but so far I’ve gone through about  30 of them. It’s been kind of fun to go back through all of my old posts from when I first started blogging. It’s amazing how I can see the change in my writing over time.

My earliest posts were fairly short and about a wide variety of things usually about some simple observation like seeing how water got stuck in an outdoor table with holes in it. Over time I can see my posts grow in length and detail and they also become less random.

It’s funny because I haven’t even gotten far enough into the posts to be past that first summer of blogging, but as I read the posts I find myself talking about education and things that school could be doing differently.

ID hadn’t really begun yet. I had not idea what an “iVenture” was. No one had really used language like  “what’s your how might we?” or “what are your passions?” around me before. I had maybe 20 followers on my blog max. I didn’t even know how to tag or categorize. I had no idea who Grant Lichtman was. I had never been on twitter.I couldn’t tell you the 5 characteristics of an innovator’s DNA.  I didn’t even really know about the Mount Vernon Institution For Innovation. However, even back then I can see little snippets of what would eventually become my iVenture.

It’s kind of cool to look back and realize that it shouldn’t have really been a surprise that I ended up so passionate about education redesign. Passions don’t all of a sudden appear out of no where, they develop over time. Since I have been keeping this blog, I get the joy of being able to look back and see how my passions developed over time.

New Season, New Rules, and Newbees

I’m not a great singer, and I know this. However, I love band and being in musicals, so I would really like to improve my singing capabilities. So now, officially as of today, I’ve joined the new a cappella club at MVPS.

We were talking about what to name ourselves and it just made me think about all of the big choices that have to be made when starting a team. Or even when continuing a team but for a new season.

We’ve been in the process of organizing Kemps Khoas club stuff for what will now be our 3rd season, and every year we have new challenges because we try to make new tweaks to better the experience for everyone. Since year one, based on feedback from players, we have more than doubled the size of our tournament, we have made more concrete rules, we have changed the system for creating teams, we’ve added some fun all play days, we’ve gotten more efficient at scheduling game times and dealers, we have an official council helping to organize and make decisions, and this year we will even have a snazzy trophy being designed that will be 3D printed for our champions.

Every year, while the game has stayed the same, the full program as you may call it, has had to change to keep up with what is and isn’t working and to take account for the newbees that join each year, many that have never even heard of Kemps before.

After today, I realized how stinking similar this process is going to be (but on a much large scale) for ID as we start to experience it for multiple years now. We made it through a year, and it was great, but that doesn’t mean we can’t improve upon the system. In fact, it means we have to change the system because now, like in Kemps, we have newbees, many that are still trying to figure out how they fit into ID.

One change we made for Kemps this year is that we are requiring people who signed up at the club fair to come to at least one of our 3 info meetings in September to show that they really are dedicated and want to play. At these sessions we informed the returning people on the changes we’ve made for this year, and for the newbees we do the same, but we also have to teach them how to even play at all.

After our first info session which was held yesterday, I realized that it probably wasn’t super efficient with having both newbees and oldies there at the same time because the way I needed to present the information was very different. I tried to explain to the oldies first so that way they could move on to other work if they didn’t want to stick around to play practice games. The newbees were still in the area when I was explaining the changes to the oldies, but to them it all sounded like jargon at that point because at that point they didn’t know the basics of how to play so they didn’t have the content for the ideas to latch onto (so I assume based on observations at least). Therefore, in the end I actually had to repeat myself a little so that the newbees could better understand after they were given more content.

I notice the fail up opportunities in this system, but I also recognize that we’ve still made an improvement even from last year. Last year, if you didn’t know how to play then you had to taken upon yourself to reach out to someone that did know in order to learn and rules and regulations were emailed to everyone in a google doc, which most people didn’t really read… Therefore, a lot of people played their first ever match during the tournament, and big overarching things to know about the club, were mainly spread by word of mouth we discovered. We took these observations to try and make improvements this year, but with new ideas will always come new obstacles to jump over.

And now is about when I’m realizing, ID is facing similar challenges. With year 2 we have many new ideas being experimented with due to observations and discoveries from year one. However, we also have the added ball in our jugglers hands, of having a large group of newbees that have to first learn the content of the game in order to understand the whole game process. As an oldie now to this process, I may not need to relearn the entire game, but I still need to understand the changed rules which can sometimes require a little backtracking and relearning in a new way to come to a better understanding in the end.

In ID today we what some may consider a “serious talk”. We had everyone seated down in the conference room and our mentors discussed with us how they don’t see “the light in 100% of our eyes”, meaning not everyone has been keeping up with the responsibilities we all agreed to keep up with as a member of the Innovation Diploma. So they read some passages, and showed us some video clips, all with the intent of making us think about what we want to get out of ID and about what we can do to help make sure everyone feels successful at the end of the year.

I’m going to be honest, I blanked when reflecting on my definition of success in ID for me personally. I don’t know what success will look like because I’m not even sure on what my goals are yet. I have a problem, that most everyone is well aware of at least from the Disney Cohort, where I get involved in a bunch of things, but never dedicate specific focus to do one thing really well. This makes defining goals extremely difficult for me. And I think this is why I have better success when working on a team.

For example, while Kemps club was my idea/brain baby creation, it was the motivation from my peers that really inspired me to get it started. Year one it wasn’t even a real club. I had suggested the idea at the end of 8th grade, and then the next year, while playing during lunch one day, the idea came up again. So my friends and I pulled out a computer and started making a draft of what the letter would look like that we would send to teachers, since almost none of them had ever played/heard of Kemps before. The letter amused us so much that we all agreed we should actually make it happen. That’s team decision, which almost felt like a challenge and thusly a new obligation to complete it in a way, is what motivated me to start the steps needed to make the first year tournament a thing. Then after that first success, the next year we were able to up our game with a new challenge: make it an official MVPS club. This years main challenge is to gain participation and excitement to start thinking about how to keep the club going after my grade (which includes most of the club currently) graduates high school.

I also find that when I make my challenges more public, I feel more obligated and dedicated to get them done. Even when I first started this blog, it all started due to first a challenge, and then my first post where I shared my challenge, and once that happened I felt obligated to my followers and also to myself to prove I could complete the challenge. I can often feel the moment when I take ownership of a project/venture, because in that moment is when I feel energized to see it all the way through. It’s the moment of no going back. To reach that point though, there is often a lot of struggle and doubt where it’s the support of others and reminder of a goal that keeps pushing me forward.

I remember going through these moments even with mine and Kat’s AP Lang Collab-Course. At first the class was just an idea. I got on board more as a “why not? The opportunity seems like a good solution based on my needs, so sure I’ll go for it.” Then slowly as more people started to get interested and ask questions about the idea, and we really started to immerse ourselves into the venture, we got to the point where we now feel immensely proud about how it’s even a thing at all! Since we are only a team of 2, rather than most of our support coming from a team mate, we really had to put a lot of trust in our mentors and I think that’s what made us successful in the end.

At fuse15 during my MoVe Talk I talked about how important the role of a mentor is to thinking like a designer. I believe so strongly in this! All of the time I look back on my high school experience and just think, “I don’t know how I would have gotten through that without such awesome mentors.” Kat and I based our course off of The Hero’s Journey, and an early step on that journey is specifically dedicated to “meeting the mentor” because every great hero has a mentor. Just like Mr. Miagi, mentor’s often use some wacky plan or analogy, like constantly referencing The Lion King when talking about school struggles, or having students do improv for a whole week of class, or going on tangents in other languages and subjects, or letting students dress up in wacky costumes to intensely debate a case for an ancient and dead warrior, or starting off a new semester by playing cranium. To some, these methods may seem insane and not make much sense, but if you trust the mentor and wait out the process with full dedication, eventually the method to the madness becomes clear and it turns out that all of these crazy methods have immensely helped my learning.

Games, systems, and new organizations, they can all be tricky to develop at first, and future years always bring new obstacles with every new opportunity. However, with support, commitment, and trust, success can be found.

Our Guiding Compass

This morning in ID we had a great (though we were notified very last minute…) opportunity!!!! The Disney Cohort went on our first outing of the year to North Point Church. If you haven’t been to North Point Church then you are probably imagining a traditional church with pews and stain glass and some large cross hanging somewhere, but North Point is nothing like that. North Point is very open and modern looking in fact.

I happen to go to Buckhead Church which is an expansion of North Point, so the environment was actually quite natural for me. However, some of my cohort members that had never been to North Point were just shocked that it was a church. They thought it looked more like a school or a conference building by looking at the architecture and design of the rooms.

We walked into a big open area with large glass windows and comfy seating. Some of the first things you see are guest services stations and their book store called Connections. As we explored further into the church we discovered large auditoriums with soft chairs that can also be removed to create large open spaces for special events. There was also a very obvious difference between spaces that were meant for different ages. The area for babies and preschoolers had colorful walls and large objects that made the area look like a great jungle, while the kindergarden to 5th grade area was designed like a city with a big main street and lots of signs. Then the middle and high school area had another large auditorium, but with coaches, round tables, and book shelfs in the room in addition to the stage (which by the way, is set up for a huge rock show accompanied by a ton of cool lights). Every one of the areas had a fun, safe, and inviting feel to it that you could easily imagine children getting excited for and parents being trusting to leave their children there. This was pretty cool for us to observe and hear about because it showed how much the organization valued each of their users.

We later heard from a few staff members about the church’s mission and it was amazing to see how quickly they could each recite it and make you understand exactly why they enjoyed working there. We were then quickly able to connect the observations we made before talking to them to their mission statement, which is “to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ by creating environments where people are encouraged and equipped to pursue intimacy with God, community with insiders, and influence with outsiders.”

Every choice that went into the creation of this church directly related to their mission, and being able to hear a group of staff members talk so passionately about their work and their mission really resinated with me. As a cohort we came to a valuable realization:

While there is a mission statement for the Innovation Diploma, it was created long ago by our mentors when they started the program, but I can guaranteed not a single student in ID could recite it to you. If we don’t know the mission, then it’s almost the same as saying that we do not have a clear, shared mission statement that connects us together as the startup we claim to be. We need one.

We need a mission statement to be our guiding compass that can always help us find north even when we feel like we’re in the middle of no where. So that in those moments when someone get’s in a rough spot in a venture and needs feedback, we can remind them of our mission as a way to steer people back in the right direction. Further than that, it also makes it much easier for us to clearly and concisely share our story. What is Innovation Diploma? Why did you want to join this cohort? What is the purpose? -These are questions that I believe we all are frequently asked, and while we have been answering them, I can only imagine how much more impactful it would be if we had a single mission statement to share that everyone agreed upon that really shared our true meaning and purpose.

This work even reminded us of our coventure to redesign our studio space. While our space has definitely gone through a transformation, we all agree that it definitely isn’t done yet. After having this conversation with the North Point workers, we realized that maybe the room isn’t done because we never had a solid mission statement to guide the work we were doing. Which also brought us to the conclusion that perhaps once we create a mission statement it will  be easier to go back and work further on our studio space so that the environment reflects the mission.

Eventually we did come back to school since we had other classes still today. When we arrived back we debriefed some by sharing out some of the “We exists…” statements that we brainstormed on the ride back. We did this activity to get us thinking more about our purpose and “why are we in ID?” before we then try to make a mission statement because that answers the question of “what do we want to do?” After this debrief we all agreed that creating a mission statement is an urgent and significant task that we need to get done, and now we are at the point of trying to figure out how to quickly but still thoughtfully and productively accomplish this great task.

I’m excited for the future and really pleased that the Disney Cohort had this discovery today.