Briana's+Reflection

Briana Leo January 13, 2008 __Senior Privileges: A Project Reflection__ Democracy can be defined in many different ways. Webster’s dictionary, for example, defines it much differently than a student in our senior seminar class would. Through this process, a learning experience about democracy and its meaning has occurred within everyone in this class. While working to improve or a change an existing policy within our world, community, or even our school, our minds were stretched to look beyond the fuzzy lines of what our textbooks tell us and apply our meaning of democracy in everyday life. As we interviewed various officials throughout the school, I also learned what democracy meant to others. Their viewpoints, in turn, changed my own. I learned that democracy is about more than having citizens of our country allowed a say in how our country is governed. It’s about speaking up, having your opinions be heard, and voicing your thoughts. It’s about using our privileges that we already have and always striving for more. It’s about learning to question, to think, to speak, and to believe. Democracy is about putting your own thoughts out for everyone to see and learning from the responses you receive in return. From this project, I learned a few things about myself. As I worked with my team, I found that I work better with a large group than just myself. Distributing the work load shifts the energy and helps control and manage the project as a whole. Also, conferencing and sharing ideas is made easier when you have someone to bounce your ideas off of. I also learned that I am a people person. Through interviews with various adult advisors within the school, I found myself at ease with asking questions and submitting my own opinion. Speaking on an intellectual level with another adult isn’t nearly as intimidating as I had expected and was surprised to find that I did fairly well. I also learned the importance of being a leader. When the rest of our group was sitting around, thinking of something to do towards the project, there would always be someone who stepped up and began to dole out jobs. I had expected this to not go over well with the group, as if taking directions from a peer is ever easy. However, the group responded well and always took what was placed in front of them, getting the task done quickly. It probably also helped that it wasn’t always one person who dictated jobs to the rest of the group, the person in charge was often alternated. The group itself worked well together. I can’t think of anyone who didn’t really get along and the work was mostly evenly distributed. Everyone took on a task and stuck to it, there was no one person who was doing everything nor was there a major slacker within the group. Everyone got along really well and when we broke up into groups to interview, there was no argument over who was with who or other issues. I believe that how well we reacted and worked around each other was one of the reasons that this project proved to be such a beneficial learning experience.