Lindsey's AP Lit Comp blog

August 2013 – June 2014

          "For almost 18 years you’re taught to sit down, shut up, and raise your hand. Then you have to decide what you’re going to do for the rest of your life." For most of my high school career I’ve experienced a dull dissatisfaction with the system which was meant to be teaching the next generation.  Upon entering this class I had heard mixed reviews; ranging from utter worship of the Open Source Learning philosophy, to complete frustration. From the start I knew I wouldn’t be taking this course on as a simple follower; I wanted to take the opportunity to make it my own.

(Whether that be from my desire to be different than most or my own stubbornness.) It started when I decided to use another platform as my blog, Tumblr, a website I was quite familiar with. I wasn’t graded down for wanting to do something a teacher had not specified, but instead I was treated just like all the other students. There is a freedom offered to students in this course that many of us did not discover till much later in the semester, and I cannot say when I truly embraced it. However, it is funny how after years of being told what to do and absolutely loathing it, we can be offered the chance to do what we want, yet run away from it.

I don’t know why the education system in America is so confining.

I don’t know why creativity and free thinking are considered to be a waste of time.

I don’t know why there is so much pressure to see an “A+” on a slip of paper called a report card.

What I do know is that over the last year I was given more opportunities to be successful by earning my grade on merit, rather than if I could take a test in a set time period. I learned more about my own individualized learning process instead of following an archaic system designed by men from centuries ago. In fact, here I am today with an even stronger stance on my beliefs, and ready to take on the next step in my future.

                “Collaboration” is a word used so commonly in this course that it is almost synonymous with Open Source Learning; and also a word I feared in years past. In past courses I found out the hard way that there are few people you can actually trust when it comes to doing a group project.

It seemed to me that my fellow members either could not do the job right, or simply expected me to do all the work because I was “smarter” than them.

I grew accustomed to completing group projects on my own when forced to work with people I had no say in choosing.

Needless to say, those people I worked with did not deserve the grade, or had earned my respect.

In this course I happened to be in a period where I was isolated from my normal group of friends, and found I had to branch out in order to succeed. I felt like Bernard in A Brave New World, and Period 5 was my new world.

I was expected to trust those around me and put down my previous conceptions of group work. In some ways I was surprised that I was able to immerse myself in a new group and work together, but in other ways I carried the same dislike for collaborating. I essentially wanted to be alone, but not lonely. My fellow class mates seemed to embrace the idea of working together and after some time, as did I. However, those around me had to earn my trust, I cannot freely give that to anyone, but by the end of the first semester my immediate internal cringe at the word “collaboration” had faded away. I could rely on my fellow classmates as moral support, sources for ideas, and invaluable teammates.

                The transition from Fall Semester to Spring Semester brought fourth new chances, and new stories to read.

I preferred the tragically inclined story of Hamlet and the sorrow filled life of John the Savage to stories I’d read in previous years. John reminded me of the Price family in Poisonwood Bible, a novel I fell in love with over the summer.  Both novels told the tale of individuals being thrown into a world unlike their own, and out of their comfort zone.We were just like them as we entered this class, expect our story didn’t end quite so tragically (or at least I hope it won’t).

Unlike the books we read in class together, our story doesn’t quite ever end; even upon death it’s debatable as to whether or not that is the end.

I can hope that John found peace after death; I can hope that the Price daughters found happiness in their life after experiencing such strife in their lives; I can wish for a happy ending for all the characters I read about, and I can learn so much from their fictional lives. But I can’t just wish and imagine a different life for myself and call it quits there, I have to go out into the world and make it happen, and that is where my journey will continue and the characters I read about will not.

                The last few weeks have shown me something different about my own journey, but also my classmates’ journeys as well.  There was a common thread between many of the masterpiece presentations I saw, which was the focus on a certain passion of theirs. Perhaps it wasn’t a passion they planned on pursuing professionally, (such as Javi and Izamar’s “In Loco Politico” blog) yet it was personal to the individual because they felt strongly about doing it. You could tell Erica was passionate about her take on the injustice of the campesinos just by how she spoke to us in such a way which demanded attention. It reflects the life she experiences around her that many people around the world do not see, but for a short time we were able to take on the life of a campesino. Something I won’t forget. Jacob and Kristen’s project did relate to their future hopes of becoming a teacher, but still conveyed the same passion as everyone else’s’.  “Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress; working hard for something we love is called passion.” This quote from Simon Sinek sums up the difference between projects which felt thrown together out of necessity and those which held greater value.

Kylie’s living scrap book is representative of her group’s desire to capture the last moments all together before college. While Kendall’s presentation spoke to us about the actual search for passion, and stumbling across something that can solidify your choices. Like how her trip to Africa helped her realize the decision to pursue teaching was the right choice.

         As for myself and my Destructive Therapy group, I can’t say I am passionate about destroying fruit, but I am passionate about the statement I wanted to make. The education system we currently have is restrictive and sets many students up for mere disappointment.

The values we teach young children are superficial and cruel. By the time they reach high school they will already believe certain lies to be truths, and their futures will follow the pathway to more studying, and then working until they die.Our project aimed to show how much anger and frustration has built up, and that there is something wrong with having such a reaction to school.

It came across as a fun day of experimentation, but its origins have much stronger roots.

        This final masterpiece that my friends and I created was one of the high lights of the year and at the same time it brought the year to a close.

The end of the semester and senior year is near; and I see the end of just one chapter in my life. By no means have I completed a hero’s journey because that would require me to have finished my life with an epic feat, and I have not yet done so. What I have done however is overcome just one of the many hurdles in my lifetime as I make my way through life. In the past few years my friends have helped me through the tough times, making them the heroes in my story for now. I hope to someday make the same impact on someone else’s life, or perhaps I already have. What is most important to me is that I have lived this past year the way I have wanted to; with mistakes to learn from, and experiences to remember.