Hello Everyone!
I am planning to continue with an action project for my second cycle. I would like to continue with my same action from last semester while adding some new things as well, and slightly changing the goals and purpose my action has.
Today, I did the values activity, and in this post I will be sharing my results and further expanding on the values that I connected with!
The values activity showed me that risk, leadership and family are my most important values. I also found that power, tradition and responsibility are my least important values.
I was quite interested in these results. I found myself valuing many of the statements I read, but I really had to think deeply to choose my top three. Surprisingly, I never thought “risk” would be one of these three, but the statement really resonated with me especially because one of my personal goals is to continue trying to step out of my comfort zone, in school, sports, and my everyday lifestyle. My second value – leadership – wasn’t as surprising. I am always trying to lead by example and motivate others in whatever ways I can. Especially on my soccer team, my role as captain requires me to do this all the time. However, reading the statement for leadership made me realize how much I value the leadership other people show towards me as well because it inspires me to work harder. My last value of “family” is very important to me too. I strongly cherish the time I spend with all members in my family. Even though my family is constantly busy, we always put time aside to see a movie, play board games, and be with one another.
Last semester for my action project, I focussed on two United Nations Sustainable Development goals: Life on Land and Gender Equality. For my second cycle, I will be changing the goals I focus on slightly because I found from my last cycle that my action took me on a new path which I would like to further develop and pursue.
Now, I would like to focus on Life on Land and Quality Education. Last semester through my action, I started working with elementary school students in Mundy Park, exploring and observing nature. I really enjoyed this activity, and I plan to continue it in my second cycle. I also feel this activity connects with my “Leadership” value, since I took on a leadership role while working with these students. As I connect with the students through learning and nature, I feel this activity fits nicely with my sustainable development goals. However, more specifically, I would like to focus on the Quality Education goal in other ways too for my second cycle. I hope to start talking about the work I do in our school’s Pi of the Tiger Club, as well as science peer tutoring. For both these activities, education and learning is the primary focus, but they also look at offering students the chance to take risks in their learning; this draws on my core value of “risks” and looks at the importance of exploring new things. For quite some time, teaching has become a huge passion of mine. I love connecting with others through learning and using my own knowledge to help others.
In connection to Life on Land, one of my main goals from my first cycle was to offer nature excursions to students at our school. I hope that as the weather starts to get better heading into the spring season, I can lead more nature walks in Mundy Park as well.
In my next post, I plan to over the specifics of my new action plan and the steps I plan to take. Thank you for reading!
Comments, questions, suggestions and feedback are always welcome!! 🙂
Hi Madison,
Great post! I’m excited to see where you’ll be taking this Action. I really enjoyed how your reflected on your values and how you are adjusting it to your new course of action. It’ll be awesome to start seeing your reflections on your club and tutoring work.
Last year, I did something similar where I also went to Baker Elementary. Instead of nature walks, I did a presentation on invasive plant species. I went on a Pro-D day alongside some of my other classmates. It was planned that we’d teach one class in the morning and another class in the afternoon. It was a great experience. I know that you’re primarily focusing on your nature walks; however, something you may also want to look into is planning a small lesson? Personally, I found that it was an enriching experience to be apart of the classroom environment!
Once again, I really enjoyed reading your post,
Alison
Hi Madison,
I really like Alison’s idea and I’m sure we could set this up with Mrs. Lederer at Baker Drive if you are interested in doing this.
I think doing the values exercise is always interesting because, as you could see, sometimes we don’t know what really motivates us. I think it’s really interesting that risk is one of your top 3. I think it means that you’re really a true learner since learning is always about taking risks. I think back to the first semester and the risks you took to get your project started and it was really inspiring. I’m looking forward to hearing how the next few months of your project go.