In the beginning of the planning process, my group and I had no idea what we wanted our presentation to be about. We brainstormed a few things that we were really passionate about, and I realized that we all had different passions. We each explained why we were passionate about things we love, and we were trying to convince one another to choose the topic that we like. Since we had different personalities in the group, it was hard for us to agree on something. Despite our different passions, we came up with an idea that we could agree on. It took us at least a week to come up with an idea because we were at a disagreement. The idea that we came up with was education and environment issues. Our goal was to educate people to educate others about the issues regarding the environment. We need to raise awareness because if we do not, we will be suffering the dire consequences. Moreover, this is something that we are held accountable for because it is us who pollute the environment. None of my group members knew anything specific about the topic, so we had to research and find more information about it. We, too, were learning about the issue throughout the process. I have to say this is one of the most challenging projects of the semester! Not only coming up with an issue to talk about, making the presentation was also difficult because I was not there for one class period due to an unexpected fever that lasted for a week. However, I did not let this get to me; I reached out to my group and asked what I could do to help and catch up. Having the most understanding group members, they more than welcome caught me up on our presentation. I hate being behind on assignments, especially when other people are counting on me to get things done.
A similar experience happened my senior year when the senior class was trying to come up with a prom theme. Since this was such a big deal at our school, everyone showed up and wanted their voice to be heard. With so many different opinions, it can, at times, be puzzling to come to consensus about an idea. Something I learned from a leadership workshop last summer is the process called DMP, which is short for the Decision Making Process. This method has a technique called Keep/Scratch that helps the group come to an idea with out hurting anyone’s feelings. First, the ideas will be listed on the board and then the group will start to vote. If a person liked an idea, they say keep. If they do not like an idea, they do not say anything at all. No one is allowed to say scratch! Each person can only have 3 keeps. Once the first round is over, we do another discussion and people voice their opinions. Then, we do another round of keep/scratch until there is only one idea left on the board. This process was really helpful because we had so many overlapping opinions that there was no way we were going to come up with an idea. Moreover, we only had a month to come up with an idea and get it approved because there is so much that goes into planning a dance, especially something as special as prom.
Once we chose our topic, we had to choose a “We Believe” statement, which summarized everything from our presentation. This statement was “We believe all high school students should be educated on environmental issues because it will directly affect them in their future.” I remember a quote from the Baldwin's article he said, "Every person is born into life as a blank page-and every leaves life as a full book." Helping the environment is one step closer to fulfilling the book of life, to do something meaningful with your life. Moreover, helping the environment also helps us because we are surrounded by the environment. After we came up with this statement, we thought about ways we, as presenters, can help the environment since we do not really know anything about the topic. We got a few ideas on how we want to educate the class and what they can do to help raise awareness. We thought of questions we could ask the class to get them to think about the environment. Questions such as “how will the environment affect how we live in the future?” Also, “What can we do to reduce the damage that we are doing to Mother Nature?” These are the questions we need to think about collectively because if we all act now, it is not too late to save the environment. One way we can start this is to educate high school students. They would be the stakeholders for this issue because they have the available resources and the ability to spread awareness in social media and amongst their peers. We used a Powerpoint to present the issue to the class to explain why it was important to get involved with the issue and why it was important to help now. When we were working on this assignment, I kept thinking of Block's quote that "each of us, myself included, is participating in creating this world" (pg xi). This motivated me to do a better job on the assignment because it made think about other people and not just myself, that not everything is about me.
A similar experience happened my senior year when the senior class was trying to come up with a prom theme. Since this was such a big deal at our school, everyone showed up and wanted their voice to be heard. With so many different opinions, it can, at times, be puzzling to come to consensus about an idea. Something I learned from a leadership workshop last summer is the process called DMP, which is short for the Decision Making Process. This method has a technique called Keep/Scratch that helps the group come to an idea with out hurting anyone’s feelings. First, the ideas will be listed on the board and then the group will start to vote. If a person liked an idea, they say keep. If they do not like an idea, they do not say anything at all. No one is allowed to say scratch! Each person can only have 3 keeps. Once the first round is over, we do another discussion and people voice their opinions. Then, we do another round of keep/scratch until there is only one idea left on the board. This process was really helpful because we had so many overlapping opinions that there was no way we were going to come up with an idea. Moreover, we only had a month to come up with an idea and get it approved because there is so much that goes into planning a dance, especially something as special as prom.
Once we chose our topic, we had to choose a “We Believe” statement, which summarized everything from our presentation. This statement was “We believe all high school students should be educated on environmental issues because it will directly affect them in their future.” I remember a quote from the Baldwin's article he said, "Every person is born into life as a blank page-and every leaves life as a full book." Helping the environment is one step closer to fulfilling the book of life, to do something meaningful with your life. Moreover, helping the environment also helps us because we are surrounded by the environment. After we came up with this statement, we thought about ways we, as presenters, can help the environment since we do not really know anything about the topic. We got a few ideas on how we want to educate the class and what they can do to help raise awareness. We thought of questions we could ask the class to get them to think about the environment. Questions such as “how will the environment affect how we live in the future?” Also, “What can we do to reduce the damage that we are doing to Mother Nature?” These are the questions we need to think about collectively because if we all act now, it is not too late to save the environment. One way we can start this is to educate high school students. They would be the stakeholders for this issue because they have the available resources and the ability to spread awareness in social media and amongst their peers. We used a Powerpoint to present the issue to the class to explain why it was important to get involved with the issue and why it was important to help now. When we were working on this assignment, I kept thinking of Block's quote that "each of us, myself included, is participating in creating this world" (pg xi). This motivated me to do a better job on the assignment because it made think about other people and not just myself, that not everything is about me.