Connors Portfolio
Sonoma Mountain
Philosophy of Education
Before Sonoma Mountain, I was doing half decent in school only in some of my classes though because i didn’t want to have to deal with the stress of my job i had at the time as well as my broken arm so putting school on top of that i just didn’t care about it, it wasn’t worth it me. After I quit my job I was definitely happier but still stuck in this deep depression caused by hopelessness of self and lack of confidence. I’d never generally done well in school due to the how my brain works. As far as learning goes, it’s not hard for me really but it’s more so putting information such as something that would be on an english essay or for graphic design. What is in my head does not want to leave my head it’s really annoying.
It’s incredibly hard to live somewhere like the US if you haven’t gone to highschool, and if you haven’t gone to highschool than getting into college is incredibly difficult. Without any of that you will probably be working minimum wage for a while, not really enjoying life at all, possibly living with your parents, borrowing money from people. This isn’t always the case but more often than not. Being educated though is simply having gone to school and taking school seriously. It’s hard to say exactly because you aren’t going to remember everything from highs school or college but if you took your education seriously and put effort towards actually learning than just getting work done for a grade, that’s a true education. Society’s idea of education is doing the work for a grade, not for personal growth and that to me is wrong even more so. High school is mostly like that due to the fact college works differently. Everything is about what you have done nowadays, not what you can do. I believe every human being has the potential to become whatever they want if they put their mind to it. I mean look at literally every successful person in history. They envisioned a future so they did what was needed to obtain that. I feel a lot of people today believe that things will just happen in a certain way when most everything has to be worked for in some way.
I haven’t looked into it a whole lot but psychology and sociology really interest me, more so the human race as a whole really interests me in the way we act towards things and why do the things a general, i’m going to look deeper into psychology and sociology because living life incredibly confused as to why you are the way you are is not fun at all, i’d know.
So as far as affective skills go I’m not a very ‘organized’ person, i sort of live in a more controlled chaos type organization as to where it’s not absolute chaos, things are just a little messy. Cooperation is definitely more important than leadership in my opinion. Leadership is for as basketball, football, or baseball team or the army, and even then nothing works without cooperation. I don’t like being told what to do by someone because simply being told to go do something with me does necessarily work out. I work way better with people but only if the people can work with me, if that makes sense. Responsibility is important in the same way cooperation is important, nothing gets done if it doesn’t exist. You need some structure as to what you’re doing when you’re doing something because ‘going with the flow’ doesn’t always work out too well, not to say that it doesn’t work for some people though.
Considering I didn’t really do anything at casa due to my attitude and motivation towards school, i’ve improved a lot honestly. I’m actually making an effort and applying myself, granted i’m still going to need some help on things and the fact I need to catch up on work a little which isn’t a surprise to me at all. But the major difference is that I have drive to do work, it’s not just something that’s there to provide extra work and stress on students. Rather, I have the ability to focus on important assignments in my classes without having to worry about every other class I have and what I’m going to have to be doing and turning in. I want to learn for the sake of learning, not for the sake of passing high school, not to say that I don’t want to graduate or anything. Knowledge is power, nothing more true has ever been said.
After high school i’m gonna go take a couple classes at the JC while living with a couple friends who are working and going to school just the same so that I can learn more as well as fix the damage I made to my transcript at Casa. Truthfully I haven’t looked much into college or classes yet even though I definitely should, I’m slowly gaining a general idea of what I want to do with my life and my future, so in this case ‘going with the flow’ is something I’m doing, but not for long. In this day and age, throwing away such a thing as opportunity as living the human experience is just ignorant to me. I want to learn more so I can grow more, that is my future educational goal.
Math
Even when I had you at Casa I enjoyed the way you taught your class. The warm-ups are a good way to start the class since it’s not really any work, but it gets you ready for the rest of class. The notes are much more engaging and easier to follow with the handouts you give us, and are especially useful when I need to go review them it’s not all in my handwriting. The paper-assignments aren’t super challenging but provide enough work to train your brain. I never really enjoyed digital assignment when it came to math but that’s only because for me what i’m looking at doesn’t register as well as it would from a worksheet or something. The Kahoots are a very nice way to review what we’ve learned while keeping the entire class engaged and encouraged to do better with the incentive you provide for us as well as the competitiveness.
Truthfully speaking, each one of the units weren’t difficult to grasp at all with the way you teach the class. It’s not like I can just tell you off the top of my head what I learned from each unit but I could probably get some worksheets done if you put them in front of me. A good bit of the units are review of what you taught me at Casa Grande and the the last two units were oddly familiar but i’m not sure why. They weren’t difficult though, I actually quite enjoyed the 5th unit since I hadn’t really learned any trigonometry, or at least remember any from the past. I remembered the pythagorean theorem from like freshman and sophomore year but it kind of got lost somewhere along the lines, i’m not really sure but I do remember it. Either way, I enjoyed each unit and learned something from each.
Science
Ms. Dennen’s Science Class is always interesting to me. She’s very laid back and probably one of the most patient people i’ve ever met. The way she teaches her class is engaging but not overbearing. I was a bit puzzled here and there with some stuff but it’s not significant enough for me to be able to name off the top of my head, especially since all I had to do was ask about what would have been puzzling me to have it explained beautifully. I have no real critique when it comes to how she teaches, any issues in the class are probably on my end. I, as a student just need to be more responsible and make sure to do and turn in my work. Other than that, If I had to take this class again I wouldn’t mind at all but i’m relatively done with earth science for a moment.
I particularly enjoyed the Steamer Landing habitat restoration assignment and what it is going to do to help our environment. Truth be told, my engagement in the assignment varied from the different aspects of it. The hands on, planting/getting ready to plant I was much more engaged with than the written aspect of it. The purpose of the assignment was for everyone to choose and research a plant that they were then, in a small group, go and plant to restore the river habitat. All the work that everybody put into planting their plants is really going to do a lot for the Steamer Landing habitat, considering that that would have been a lot of work to do just on your own or with one other person. I chose this assignment in specific because it was more than just about learning at this point, it was about helping our community thrive and keeping the environment healthy for the future.
English
English has never really been my subject. I do enjoy english literature and like to assume that I’m relatively articulate. It’s just that for some reason every english class I’m in causes me some trouble. The issue with me being at sonoma mountain, or well not even an issue of being here, moreso something I need to do is doing my work the second it’s assigned. I enjoyed the class as much as I could, but English and I have a long history of negativity is all.
I particularly enjoyed the Leopard Man Assignment. I enjoyed the message it taught you rather than the actual assignment itself. I definitely connected with the author, agreeing with most if not everything he was saying. The purpose of the assignment was to analyze the Leopard Man Article and there were more than one assignment for it. Each assignment seemed to be very similar to me which kind of got on my nerves but it wasn’t anything really. Then again my issue with school is doing the work, but regardless the assignment the leopard man I shared specifically because of the message it told. It told you to be an individual without being outcasted. Be out of this world, but don’t become a complete and total alien, essentially.
History
Danders is probably one of the best history teachers i’ve had in my entire highschool career. He’s incredibly patient but doesn’t let his patience get taken advantage of. He makes sure he gets through the lesson plan as best he can while still making sure that all of his students are keeping up and if he discovers one isn’t, he’s more than happy to help them out. As far as his teaching style goes I really have nothing negative to say about it, same as last year. Mr . Anderson does his job and he does his job very well in my opinion, not to say that the other teachers don’t though. Any issue that I did have in the class was my own fault simply because but all and all I had a fantastic time in this class.
The assignment I chose was the Abuses of Corporations presentation due to the fact that that is one of my biggest issues with America today. It’s funny how corporations have always been an issue, even since the very beginning. The purpose of the assignment was to choose one big corporations and talk about its past as a corporation and the power it has over the people. I feel that I worked pretty hard on the assignment, even though for some reason now some of the texts are overlapping. I just sort of had a good time doing this assignment and finding out more about Coca Cola and their dark past. It wasn’t so much of a hard assignment as it was just more tedious having to put together the presentation but even then it was alright.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1fAtPuZWV0F5GoM79DMBeMhUs3dBxWa7211IGDSiB59s/edit#slide=id.p
Biography
2. It gave him the information in a different perspective that was very insightful. The impact it had on him was profound.
3. Connor has learned that he is more of a physical and visual learner and needs to be engaged.
4. He feels much better about school in general and is becoming more interested in college. Eliminating the stress of homework has been huge!
5. He needs encouragement, engagement, some patients and assistance when needed.
6. He would like us to support him with patients and no anger.
7. We really appreciate the school and all of the faculty and Mr. Stevenson.