At the beginning of the year, I demonstrated ownership by helping other people and having a positive attitude while working with partners. I understood ownership to mean taking control of something or doing a project all by myself. I thought ownership meant that you had to actually own what you were doing, and take care of everything by yourself. My understanding of ownership has changed over the course of the year through projects like the Adaptations of the First Americans, and the Earth Rocks project. I think the Adaptations of the First Americans helped develop my understanding of ownership because our group had trouble focusing, so we didn’t finish our project in time. I took ownership by taking it home and working on it to finish it. I got the supplies I needed and I found a day that I had time to do it. I also made sure that all of us in the group brought it home at least once to finish our parts of it. I think I took ownership in the Earth Rocks project by helping everyone, and giving us all different jobs to do. I also made sure that we didn’t miscommunicate and make a mistake, and made sure that everyone always told us their ideas before doing them. I think both of these projects really helped me develop ownership really well. By the end of this year, I know that ownership doesn’t mean taking control of something and doing it yourself, but just providing support, being a leader, and keeping your group members in line. I think I have also become more of a leader. At the start of the year, I was afraid to voice my opinions, now I am much more confident. In summary, I think that this is a much better interpretation of ownership than at the start of the year.

At the beginning of the year, I demonstrated helpfulness by helping other people with their work. I understood helpfulness to mean doing other people’s work if they were struggling and giving feedback. I think that I demonstrated helpfulness in my Space Odyssey exhibition, and I think that I didn’t demonstrate helpfulness in my Two Roads Final Project. Why I think I demonstrated helpfulness in my Space Odyssey exhibition is because a particular person in my group was having trouble focusing, was going off to talk with friends, and not having anything to do. They weren’t getting their work done and it was setting our entire group back. How I helped was by switching roles, so they could paint the model and I could write our script. I think this helped a lot because it was probably more entertaining to paint than write a script. We got a lot more work done, and we got a good grade. I don’t think I showed helpfulness in my Two Roads Final Project because my partner did most of the reading and most of the work. We were reading about a boarding school in Breen, Colorado, and we were supposed to create a letter to the council on why they should change the name of the town. My partner read most of the article by herself, and wrote the letter pretty much by herself. I think I could’ve demonstrated more helpfulness by offering to write down the key information, or I could read the article and she could write the letter, etc. I know I could’ve helped her a lot more, and I plan to show more effort and helpfulness in the future when working with a partner. By the end of this year, I know that helpfulness means sometimes having to adapt to changes, helping people with their work, and helping people stay focused and on task. Ultimately, my understanding of helpfulness has not necessarily changed, but grown to learn more things about it.

At the beginning of the year, I demonstrated respect by always listening to whoever was talking, being polite, using full body listening, etc. I understood respect to mean being kind to everyone and always listening to another person’s ideas before voicing my own. I think that I demonstrated respect on the Chaco Canyon trip and my Intersession. I think that I demonstrated respect on the Chaco Canyon trip because I always listened to our teachers or the person that was leading us on the hike. I followed all of the rules and I helped other people to follow them as well. I made sure to be mindful of the ancient structures and petroglyphs, and lastly, I didn’t touch or do anything that I wasn’t supposed to. I made sure to help clean up and help my teachers with anything. I think that I demonstrated respect on my intersession for pretty much the same reasons as Chaco, except there weren’t any petroglyphs or sacred places at the sand dunes. I still helped my intersession leader clean up everything, I made sure to keep my room clean, and lastly, I always followed the directions that were told to us. I showed respect in both of these trips, and I helped other people as well. By the end of this year, I know that respect means doing all of these things, as well as helping other people to show respect. I think that helping other people to show respect is a big part of having respect yourself. As a result, my understanding of respect has grown more than it has changed.