Senior Project Reflection

1) I'm proud with my product, and that after a year of hard work, I'm done.

2)
a) I feel like I deserve an AE (like any other senior.) I worked hard and I felt the presentation went well. Every student I talked to said they were having a lot of fun and retaining information that I was giving (basically my goal.) Someone even commented that as soon as I graduate I should just become a teacher. Hearing something like that makes me feel proud and think that I did go beyond just "P consideration" if I was able to connect with the students so well.

b) Overall on my senior project, honestly, I feel like I should get an AP or P. Most likely I'll get something less than that. I feel like I should get at least an AP because I did do ALL the required work and put a lot of effort into EVERYTHING I did. Granted sometimes I had to turn things in pretty late, but the quality of the work was at least of P standing. All major projects such as the iSearch and (hopefully the Two Hour presentation) I got a P standing in. For these reasons I think an AP is reasonable (although it GREATLY pains me) because of the few components I had to turn in late.

3) What worked for me was the fact that teachers made sure I did things. That was pretty reassuring for me, but still hard for me to do things due to personal reasons. I was pretty glad who my host teacher was too. At least I KNEW for a fact that he would understand what my topic is considering everything.

4) Honestly what didn't work for me was a lot of things. I had a job throughout the year to help my family out so my Friday and weekends were automatically void of doing any school work. During the actual school year I had prior commitments (such as drama) that are time consuming. So Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays are out. That left me with Monday as a full day to do anything. It was EXTREMELY difficult to do service learning on top of that. Monday I could no problem but Tuesday through Thursday I had to sacrifice my lunch and free block and still make it back by 3 for drama. So my schedule was pretty packed to start off, and to top it all off I had almost an hour bus ride home everyday. To make this more relevant and easier to understand I will add time frames. So Mondays I'd get to service learning at about 1pm and work until about 4 or 5. I'd get to the bus stop at about 5:15 so I'd get home at around 6:15 or 6:30. Tuesday through Thursday was really rough. 1 to 3pm was service learning. I'd get down for drama at about 3:15 or 3:30. Drama last until about 5:30pm allowing me to get home at about 6:30 or 6:45. Friday I could linger for maybe 30 minutes at school before having to head off home to work. So on my average day I had to only from 7 to about 10 to work on whatever needed to be done, including chores. That fact that I retained some sort of social life, slept and did my work is amazing.

On that note I felt that maybe teachers could be more understanding towards students. The reason I turned things late in at times was due to the fact I just didn't have enough time. I couldn't quit my job because I needed to support my family financially. So I feel teachers should understand time constraints that some of us have.

Another thing is I felt that most of the work felt like busy work. Having to keep grades up in my four classes and then keep a good project grade was enough, but then at times the core worked just seemed like busy work. At times I really wish we had more in class time to work on projects for people like me who have time constraints.

The work load seemed almost impossible. A lot of us are still shocked we got through it all, I know I am. Talking it over with my parents and older friends and co-workers they too felt the work load was to much. Even in real life some of them never had to undergo that amount of stress, and those that did, never had to for a constant 9 months. I actually developed hyper acidity and latter acid reflux due to high levels of stress. I am 18 and I almost got something that ended my grandfather (an ulcer) and he was in his 60s. No teenager should undergo that amount of stress. Something I think teachers easily forget is that THIS IS IT. This is what decides our life. We are on the cusp of college and securing our future, but if we mess up once in all this busy work, we're pretty screwed (pardon my language) for life. We under go a great deal of pressure because our future relies on the opinions of a couple of people. We have no control of those opinions either, so we go under way more stress then a high school student of 20 or 30 years ago. If you want to do well in today's world you NEED to go to college, and that alone is stressful. Your life depends on what you do basically as a kid. (being a teenager is still like being a kid when the results affect you when you are 40)

I think I hit most of the points and I am sorry if i offended anyone but it's something that I've needed to get off my chest for a while.

5) Senior project has made me a pretty confident person. I feel that I could teach history successfully to students and believe that I am better off than most students going into the teaching credential. Senior project has put me ahead of the pack when it comes to teaching and I feel just about ready to do it now.