Wednesday, July 25, 2012

All The Zed's Finally Meet

All the "Zed Omegas" finally met up today with Ms. Johnson at Dunn Bros (good choice if you ask me, gotta have my tea) and I think I'm really starting to gear up for the upcoming "school year" that we are starting soon.
It was definitely an interesting meeting. She asked us individually what scares us about dropping out of school, and it was something I hadn't really considered. Because personally, I was never really scared to drop out of school. I was excited at the prospect of being able to grab life with both hands and really experience things without having to sit in classrooms for who knows how many more years.
Xavier's answer hit me hard as well. He said he really wants to prove the education system wrong. He wants to succeed in more ways than just in the classroom, and he wants to overcome what fears he has by pursuing his dreams. He really believes that we have the ability to prove society wrong with our project, and that really inspired me.
I suppose what I still feel really challenged by and what my only real fear is is that I don't necessarily know what my full passion is. Everyone wants education to be personalized, which I love, and what I really think education needs to be about. But what would my personal education be about? What should I study? That's what I feel I really need to decide about, before everything starts in August. I'm hoping something/someone, maybe even one of the Zed's, can help me and inspire me to push me towards my real passion.
Summer drags on and the closer we get to August the more anxious I do feel myself becoming. But I definitely feel very strong in our group, and in my confidence with Ms. Johnson, especially since she no longer calls us "at risk" kids. So although I have a strong sense of anxiety about what my personal advancement in this project, I feel that we have some amazing potential.
Til later, stay excellent.
Edwina

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Summer continues...

It is mid July now, and after a quiet June all of us Zed Omegas finally met. Well, almost all of us. I got a chance to interact a lot with Zachary, he is definitely an interesting kid. He's a writer, and has a hard time focusing in school because of how slow it feels to him. He's trapped in a small town and, from what I gathered, he feels similar to how I feel in regards to feeling suffocated by the public school system. We met at Dunn Bros and Mary Johnson introduced us to Nora, a home schooled girl that would be considered a senior in high school. I took the most from what she had to say, she focused mainly on the idea that home schooling allows you to focus mostly on what YOU want to learn, and you can set your own schedule, and basically be completely in charge of what you want learn and how you want to learn it. Kept my attention!
Since Mary introduced us to this idea of an independent study I have been thinking a lot about what it is going to take for me to find something that sparks my passion enough to essentially not have to go back into the classroom. What will I find that I love enough to be able to get it to be considered important enough, strong enough, to replace a formal classroom education? Nora talked a lot about how she dabbled in a lot of different languages, and I think that sounds really interesting. But I also really like nutrition and exercising, as well as dance, I love books, I love learning new things and finding new things that spark my interest. How am I going to focus on just one thing??
That is the challenge I am facing right now. I have a few more weeks to gather my thoughts before I really have to start focusing, so here's hoping I can have a relaxing rest of summer!! If only this heat would die down...
Until later,
Edwina