Intro

I do not want to sound cliche but I honestly think that I have grown a lot as a person, as a learner, as a daughter, as a sister, and so many other things, during high school. Unlike many of my classmates, I have not been at ACLC for most of my schooling career. I came here in the second semester of sophomore year and, to be honest, not completely by choice. During my freshman year, I was going to school in San Francisco and I felt at home there. However, things in my family changed when my parents split up and my grandmother passed away from a battle with pancreatic cancer a few months later. To top it all off, my school decided to move locations making it impossible for me to commute there. I ended up in an independent study program but it was not providing me with the support I needed, so I came to ACLC. At first I did not feel happy here, because it was not really my choice to be at ACLC, but after a few weeks I was able to make some great friends and I found myself happier than I was before. I think fate worked things out just fine for me to be able to come to ACLC and prosper.   

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Personal Qualities, Work Habits, Attitudes

No matter what kind of family, emotional, or personal problems that occured, I have always stayed focused on my academics. I wanted to graduate high school to prove to myself, and my family, that I could do it. I want to show that I am capable of achieving my goals because I am persistent and responsible enough to get myself where I want to be. If anything, ACLC has taught me how to be independent enough to keep myself motivated and appreciate all kinds of subjects.For example, in my English classes I was able to look at writings from different perspectives and that made me enjoy English more than I ever have before. In my math classes, I was lucky to have a facilitator that encouraged learners to internalize math processes and was always there to help.  I have learned how to be honest with myself and ask for help when I really need it and appreciate certain subjects that I used to hate.  I have gained a lot of social skills from being at ACLC because of the emphasis on community at our school. I have had the opportunity to participate in peer counseling and educational leadership which has shown me how valuable support from a community is. I was a peer counselor previously and I would have meetings every Tuesday with another peer counselor and a group of five middle-school girls. We would talk about how their days went and offered a safe environment for them to voice their thoughts. From those meetings, I was able to support my lower-classmen and I also got to experience managing a group environment. It was a meaningful learning experience that I would like to take with me as I go on to college.

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New Basics

All my life I have been a pretty quiet person, I enjoy observing, sitting back, and listening to what other people have to say. After coming to ACLC, I really had to learn to step up and communicate. Whether it be in a Socratic Seminar in English, a Learner-Led Conference, or speaking in Spanish class, I had to get over my fears to actually get my thoughts out. Now, I feel more confident to speak in front of people, even though I still feel nervous. I have learned to value communication from simple talks with a friend, to trying to have a full conversation in another language. I am deeply interested in having meaningful conversations with people because I now feel comfortable to voice my thoughts. In almost all of my classes, my facilitators have inspired me to critically think about my surroundings. In social studies, we would often watch videos about current politics or issues going on in our community or nation. In English, we read about so many different generations and time periods and it has really opened my view of the world. Learning about things from different perspectives has helped me to shape an idea of the person I would like to be and who I want to become.

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Thinking and Reasoning Skills

Unlike many other schools, ACLC has taught me how to critically think and not just memorize facts for a test and then forget them. I honestly love learning, I like to widen my perspective on the world because there was a time where I thought the world was very black and white. As I grow older, the world has started to burst into color as I learn new things. I realized that there are so many options in life and that I am able to make choices for myself, independent of anyone else. I am not saying that I am being reckless and doing whatever I feel like I want but instead, I feel confident in making decisions that will benefit my growth as a person. A lot of this confidence has come from learning how I learn. At ACLC,  I really learned how to organize the way I study and identified how I learn so that I could succeed in classes and not accumulate a lot of stress. I know different strategies, for myself, of learning for different subjects because the way I take notes for calculus is completely different than the way I take notes for Spanish. Knowing how I learn has helped me to be flexible with my choices but, also know what I want for myself.    

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Interpersonal Abilities

Outside of school, I help teach children ages 3-14 different styles of dance. I have worked at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond since my sophomore year. In addition I have taken various classes there since I was five years old. Over the course of my time there, I have worked with many different people from diverse backgrounds and learned dance styles from around the world, such as West African dance, ballet, modern, jazz, and Traditional Mexican dance. Inside of school, I participated in educational leadership, which for me meant that I was assisting a facilitator in their classroom every week. I would spend fourth period every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in a seventh grade classroom helping out with organizing the in-class library, grading, making posters, and helping learners that were stuck on assignments. It was a great experience because I was able to assist not only the facilitator but also my fellow learners.  Learning from these experiences has helped to become more comfortable with communicating and negotiating with not only my peers but also people in higher positions.

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Technology

In this generation, I feel like it is almost impossible to try to avoid using technology and I am not ashamed to admit I have a good knowledge of how to use different technologies. There have often been times that I have received criticisms for use of any electronic device; regardless, of what purpose I was actually using the device for. I think that it is amazing that we now have the ability to access an infinite range of information with a tap of a finger or the click of a button. From 5th grade to 8th grade, I was in an online home-school program and I was completely dependent on technology to complete coursework. For my freshman year of highschool I was in a “hybrid” school meaning that while taking regular classes we also had online classes which has made me very comfortable using technology.  I  have used computers, tablets, smartphones all for important things like communicating with my facilitators, professors, or my supervisor at work. I use devices to complete homework, write papers, play music in dance classes, learn new languages, and the list could go on forever. However, I do think that there is a limit that comes with using these kinds of technologies. I can easily apply technology to many tasks that I encounter throughout my day but I also know how to put my devices down. I like being able to “log off” and enjoy the things around me but still have the knowledge to be able to survive in this electronic age.

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Conclusion

It is crazy to think that high school is ending because as an eighth grader I looked at graduation as if it were some far away planet. However, here it is right in front of my face and I still cannot believe it. It went by so fast I still remember my first day of freshman year, when my hair was much longer, my voice much quieter, and my confidence much smaller. If I could show my younger self where she is headed, I think that she would be happy and proud. I know that I am proud of the person that I am right now and I know that I still have a lifetime of growing ahead of me but I think that I have gained enough skills and abilities to prepare myself for whatever may happen in the coming years.