Masterpiece Academy Question

            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.