Reflective Essay
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Introduction
The Alameda Community Learning Center is my home away from home - is a cliche heard most frequently at the end of a learner's high school career. It is a statement I can not relate to because, for me, ACLC is literally my primary residence.
Let's first define home as the broader location one spends the majority of their time. Assuming this, admittedly flawed definition, note the following calculations. In the past 7 years, I have gotten an average of 9 hours of sleep, leaving me with 15 waking hours. Next, 180 days of the year are spent at school. In these 180 days, 7 hours are spent on campus. Meaning, 1260 of my 5475 waking hours per year are spent at ACLC. Furthermore, I spent an average of 400 hours per year driving to and participating in atheltics. Next, I spend approx. 250 hours each year driving between my father and mother's houses.
At this point, I am left with 3565 waking hours that are unaccounted for. Assuming these hours are evenly distributed between my mother and father's houses, it is fair to say I spent 1783 hours at each location. However, this number still does not account for most activities such as vacations or grocery shopping. Now, let's figure that I spent about 1200 hours per year out of the house, with friends, at the park, etc. This would mean I spent approx. 1183 hours at my house each year; which is less than the 1260 hours I spent at ACLC.
In conclusion, I would argue that ACLC is not only my home away from home but my primary residence. That is, assuming we take the liberty of defining residence as the location at which I spent the majority of my time awake.
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Personal Qualities, Work Habits, and Attitudes
Over the course of seven years at ACLC, I have learned the importance of many traits, highlighted by believing in myself and taking responsibility for myself.
In a school that expects you to take control of your learning, it is paramount that you believe in yourself and your ability to make the most of whatever is thrown at you. There is a moment in nearly every project where you will question your ability to execute the plans you or your group set out. In these situations, you have no choice but to put in your full effort and trust that you have the skills and perseverance to succeed. At first, this may seem daunting, and in sixth grade it certainly was, but in 7 years ACLC has taught me how to take advantage of resources, adapt and troubleshoot, and thrive in these situations.
When looking at ACLC’s mission statement, it is clear how different our school is from all of the other middle and high schools in the area. Where other facilities might support students that stay in line and rely on their superior every step of the way, ACLC encourages individualism, which in turn, encourages the abundantly found trait at ACLC: responsibility. Responsibility, in tandem with motivation, is something I pride myself on. I have countless examples of assignments and projects I chose to elevate to the next level, not because I had to, but because I wanted to finish with a product I was proud to put my name on. The most notable example of this comes in the form of the many songs I have created as sonic supplements to various projects. From “I’ma Genius” in physics to “Hairpoints” in biology, many of my best memories and most proud projects stem from these songs.
New Basics
If nothing else, Aclc has taught me core subjects extremely effectively. My favorite of these subjects is mathematics. When I was in middle school, one of my facilitators personalized our learning by allowing a group of learners to advance to higher grade levels of mathematics. This experience gave me confidence and allowed me to gain college experience in the subject. I hope to use mathematics heavily in whichever field I pursue.
One, less traditional skill I acquired during my time at Aclc, is an ability to speak and perform in front of groups. This is important to me, as I credit it for my sociability, extraversion, comfort within society, and even general happiness. Aclc has forced me to create oodles of powerpoints, present projects, and plan events, all of which involve speaking to groups. And these experiences directly translate to how I conduct myself within every community around me, from the sports teams to the grocery store.
Finally, one of the most inspiring subjects I thrive in at Aclc is science. Perhaps my favorite tradition from middle and high school is the science fair, likely because of the success I have found in it. There is no feeling like pouring your heart into a project, proving yourself to a superior, and receiving verification for the hard work you put in. This is precisely the mental process I experienced year after year at Aclc and I certainly expect to apply the biological, chemical, environmental, and robotic knowledge I amassed in the future.
Thinking and reasoning skills
At heart, I am a problem solver. Which is to say that I try to understand the problem within every situation and break it down into lots of manageable parts, solving each of them until the larger goal is met. This process is easily applied to word problems in mathematics, for example. More elusive though, is finding a way to problem solve within an essay. For this, I love to pick apart each sentence, finding and solving minute issues within them until the entire piece is cohesive.
Similarly, I enjoy working with my peers to make decisions. I have many fond memories of sitting on hour-long phone calls with my friends, pondering every pro and con of a situation or project. As we work through each small issue, the larger task grows clearer and more complete, until we are entirely satisfied with the finished product. I will certainly continue to enjoy optimizing my activities for much time to come.
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Interpersonal Abilities
The first time I remember teaching something to my peers was in seventh grade. My math facilitator gave each group of four a set of roles for directing participation and my role was to be the facilitator of the table. This role was perfect for me because it allowed me to help my peers understand topics they struggled with and gave me an opportunity to improve my leadership abilities.
Since seventh grade, I have found myself in oodles of opportunities to help others learn. In this time I have developed techniques that not only provide peers with the answer they were in search of but help them to understand the method used as well. Few experiences are as satisfying as when your peer approaches you for assistance and you manage to answer their inquiry.
In my time at ACLC I have been heavily involved in countless leadership-based activities. Events such as bevies, organizing CCC’s, and Fear Fest have all taught me to be confident when working with groups big and small. Perhaps the most painful loss brought on by distance learning is the limited circle of interaction within an educational setting. Rather than lead bevies, leadership and ConCon classes, small groups, and clubs that consist of learners from various grade levels and backgrounds, I spend each day with the same 17 peers. While these peers are my friends, they lack the impressionability of younger learners, making leadership opportunities entirely different experiences. Nonetheless, I am enormously grateful that ACLC has taught me how to control a group no matter their age or relation to myself.
Technology
Fluency in technology, more than any skill previously stated, benefited me in my time at ACLC. Starting with the Google ecosystem. I pride myself on being able to produce high-level slideshow presentations accurately, expediently, and aesthetically. I expect myself to create the most unique, insightful, and effective presentation for every project involving one. Similarly, there are next to zero features on google docs I haven’t employed in an assignment.
I could continue explaining my experience within the Google ecosystem, but I don’t find that experience to be unique, as everyone at ACLC spends an exorbitant amount of time on their drive. However, my fluency in audio and visual workstations sets my work apart from others. About a half dozen times per year, my class would be assigned a somewhat open-ended assignment, in which learners were not expected to, but were allowed to express themselves creatively. In each of these instances, I would produce an original song, unique graphic, or short movie.
I expect that being comfortable with a wide variety of programs will be enormously beneficial in my short and long-term future.
Conclusion
In sixth grade, I was taught that the most effective method of gaining acclamation and positive attention was to succeed in the classroom. This resulted in a slew of high-effort projects and assignments that not only increased my grasp of a subject but strengthened my self-esteem.
In college, I expect that gaining recognition for my effort will be more difficult than at ACLC, but I hope that I can maintain motivation nonetheless. My goal is to strive to make waves even in the much more competitive collegiate scene. In other words, rather than allow the mass of college overwhelm me, I hope to use it as a source of inspiration.
