Over the past year, being part of a
course that practices open source learning has made an impact on me. Having a
teacher that trust us and given us a sense of importance and at the same time
puts a great deal of responsibility on ourselves. Learning was practically
placed into our own hands and whether we just brushed it off or made the most
of it was left up to us. But I think we did deserve it. The past three years we
were treated as children and were not able to take our own ideas and put them
into practice. We had to follow a strict set of rules and everything had to be
done in a certain way. And being put through all that, does mean we earn it.
Sometimes, however, I think we did take advantage of the large amount of
freedom we were given but all in all we did honor and I think every single
student got at least one thing out of the course if not more.
One character we can all relate with
to some extent is Bernard Marx in Brave
New World. Although it might not be our entire life like him, at one point
or another we all feel like the odd one out. But it’s normal. It’s high school.
We are all trying to find ourselves while at the same time fit in, and somehow
get decent grades between all of this. One work we can all relate to as well is
the Allegory of the Cave. Before
Preston’s class we didn’t know any better. We didn’t know we could take
learning into our own hands and approach it in any way possible. And although
we are slowly starting to turn our heads, we don’t know exactly what this “world”
outside of college is going to be like. We all have a little ignorance just
like the prisoners watching the shadows did.
From my own masterpiece, I was able
to reconnect with my passion for reading. This passion had gone stagnant once I
entered high school and I was able to pick it back up some junior year, but not
as much as I would have liked to because I was so busy, but centering my
masterpiece around reading gave me the time to actually do what I love to do. From
other group’s masterpieces and senior year itself, I discovered my passion for
adventure and making memories in general. I’ve learned that it’s extremely
important to make the most out of the time and things you have in front of you
and not just wait around for something better. Because one day, you are going
to wake up and realize it’s gone and your are going to wish you had done it
differently.
Videos have made me “laugh out loud”
over the year in this course. For the final presentations last year, a group of
us reenacted different scenes of the pieces of literature. And surprisingly, it
didn’t even feel like work. We basically were hanging out, just being
ourselves, but happened to thrown in some pieces of literature here and there.
The scene we recorded where Ophelia drowns was one of the best. We were crying
because we were laughing at Whitney so hard, and every time we watch the edit
of it we snicker. I also “laughed out loud” at Breanna’s recording of her
adventure of skydiving.
A unifying theme between at least
five of the presentations I have seen over the past two weeks is the idea of
making memories and making the most out of the time you’re given. In the blink
of an eye, high school was over for all of us and now we only have the memories
we created to look back on. And we all have plenty to look back on but if we
weren’t looking forward to college and our future as much we would have had that
much more time to make more memories. In Hayley’s presentation, all the
graduates that she interviewed said that they miss how close everyone was in
high school and the memories that had created. And in Hannah, Taylor, and
Meghan’s masterpiece they decided to document the memories they did create over
the past year, and thankfully I am in a lot of it.
I think I responded to the call of
adventure whole-heartedly and made the most out of my senior year. I created
memories with my friends that I will cherish for life and that brings a sense
of relieve to me because I know that we won’t always be as close as we are now,
but if we reconnect in the future or call each other up one day, we have created
a strong foundation between all of us and that is something you can’t buy.
