Today I Graduated!

Today was the day i have always dreamed of!

Second Semester

The second semester was very successful. I was able to carry out basically everything I wanted. I didn’t get to do the student vs. faculty game but I was able to play MC Fireball at the lock-in with everyone. It was a lot of fun. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. They listened to my instruction well and everyone understood what to do. I was able to keep their attention for about 45 minutes to an hour which, I feel, was pretty impressive. Before the lock-in I had a little trouble with getting the supplies I needed. I had permission to use the balls and cones and I was also allowed to use the gym. The only problem was that the school didn’t have the mats I needed. So I went through Mr. Eckerson to get the mats I needed from Paragon.

It was a little stressful because as we got closer to the Lock-in I still didn’t have my mats and although I trusted Mr. Eckerson, I could just see things going terribly wrong in my head. I was already nervous about weather or not the students would listen to me or even want to play my game and now I wasn’t even sure if I was going to have the mats! Mr. Eckerson pulled through for me though, and in the end I was very pleased. All my apprehensions and fears were not realized; it went smooth enough for me.

Another thing I had to do this semester after the Lock-In was prepare for my finial presentation. I didn’t think too much about it, I had already started a power point, I knew what I wanted to say, almost everything had run smoothly, why worry over it. Well, because I didn’t “worry” about it in the beginning, I was definitely worried about it now. So I sat down and worked on it. I added more pictures, fixed up a few of the slides, made everything pretty and neat, and put in a few more things I had learned. I felt pretty prepared to do my rehearsal now but I was still nervous.

I’m glad that the semester is closing because it means that I have completed my senior year along with my senior exhibit, but I still have a good amount of work to do. As I look back on my accomplishments so far, I am very pleased. I couldn’t have done anything like this with out the people here at the school. Mr. Eckerson, Mr. Dawson, Mrs. Garbutt, and SLC.

My final thoughts...

Senior Exhibit has been a long, frustrating, informative, and most importantly a gratifying experience. I have learned a lot about myself and how difficult it can be at times to get everything you want done. I am not for a moment upset with how everything turned out. I worked very hard all year on this project and I feel like it was successful on every level. From my learning experience to my application to my written document and my final presentation everything seemed to just come together. There were, however, plenty of times where things went less then perfectly.

Working with teachers, administrators, heads of departments, and students alike also proved to be something I learned a great deal from and about. There were times when I had an idea but in order for it to work I had to talk to a lot of different people. First I had to talk to a teacher to see who to go to, then I would find that person, either a head of a department or an administrator, after I talked to them and they gave me the okay, I had to get the students to play. I mainly went through the student life committee to get my ideas to the rest of the student body and I had a lot of fun working with them. I realized early on in the year that a lot of planning went into the SLC events and that if I wanted to get my games out there and used in their events I needed to start early. This was not only the case for SLC, this early bird gets the worm thing happens to be a very wise, very true saying. In order for any of the things I wanted to get done to, well, be done, I needed to be one step ahead. When I went to Mr. Carole and Ms. McMahon I needed to have my schedule, the games, the rules, and why the school should use them all written out to show Ms. Wimble. It was not as easy as going in there and saying, “Hey, do you mind if I play these games with the kids a couple times?” It took a lot of work and even then, unfortunately, it was not able to happen.

Through everything I learned more then I could have ever learned with out this experience. The skills I gained from doing this will be with me for the rest of my life and I can see them being very beneficial to me during my college career. This experience has been indescribable, the lessons I am taking from this, the skill of getting in front of not only a group of my peers but a group of adults, and the self growth I have had, are all things I could not have gained with out Senior Exhibit.

After the Presentation

Gaga; the game we played in my finial presentation

Not too long ago I gave my finial presentation. A week before the finial presentation I went in front of three teachers for my rehearsal and they gave me a lot of feed back. They helped me think of new things to add in my project and gave me encouraging advice. When I went in there I didn’t feel unprepared but I felt like there was defiantly more I wanted to do but I wasn’t quite sure what it was. After I was able to give my presentation to an audience and hear what they wanted to know about what I had done, I was able to make the entire project stronger.

One of the things the teachers advised me to do was add statistics or some kind of grounding material to give my presentation just a little more stability. It wasn’t easy to find all the stats I needed and to fit it into my project but after I put the work in I was glad I had. It really made it seem legitimate.

I was a little nervous after I got the feed back and worked on it so Brendan came over and helped me the day before. It was really different to do the whole thing for him. Fortunately, when I did the finial in front of students it wasn’t bad at all. They were really cooperative, they asked questions, and participated in Gaga. I was very comfortable in front of the group of kids and I’m really glad everything went well.

Now I have to do the written document. I already have all of the rules, materials, scoring, and tips written out, all I have left to do is the introduction to my senior exhibit. In the introduction I will have the reason I chose the games, where they came from, how they build self esteem, and just a little bit more information on them.

Recently we did the Senior Exhibit Reception which was something I enjoyed last year because I got a better idea of what I had to do. This year I felt like the juniors really learned something and the parents seemed interested as well.

I’m so happy with how my senior exhibit turned out! I’m glad I had the topic I did and I’m really glad that I didn’t get tired of it. I wouldn’t do it again, but I’m not upset that I did do it. Overall it was a great experience.

2nd Post

Well the first semester has ended and the only thing I have done with my project is the retreat. Although I was working with Ms. Mc Mahon and Mr. Carol on introducing my games to the P.E. class, I have not been able to do that. After all the planning, we had worked out a date and a time but due to unforeseen circumstances I was out sick that day and for most of that week so we were not able to reschedule. Unfortunately, I did not have time to work out the details before the semester ended but I do have all the intentions to work it out another schedule with Mrs. Wimble.
The second half of this semester proved, for me, to be fruitless for the most part. I am almost finished with everything as far as the application part is concerned; all I have left is the written portion and my final presentation. For my written portion I was thinking about making a rule book but I feel like that is much too ordinary. I’m still working on that. As far as my finial presentation, I have a few ideas.
I also don’t think I am completely finished with the application. Although I suppose I have done the required application I would like to use my games to bring the school closer as well as to make people see you don’t have to be a starter or an award winning athlete to play fair and have fun. I am hoping, hopefully by going through SLC, to have a faculty verse student game in the gym. In my head, I envision splitting the school up into colored teams, a blue team and a green (or white, which ever our school color is now) team. That way everyone can be included in the competition even if they aren’t playing. I hope that, if this happens, it will be a fun thing for everyone to be involved in, in the way they are most comfortable.
I’ve been having fun with this project and I’m learning a lot. It isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Trying to organize everything is rather difficult and sometimes, as I have found, it doesn’t work at all. I think that had I chosen a different topic, I would have had an even more difficult time. I’m glad that I have been successful for the most part. Even when things didn’t go as I had hoped, I learned something. I’m looking forward to trying out my next idea, the faculty/student game, and working with the P.E. class next semester.

P.S. I have talked with SLC and MC Fireball is set for the Lock-In in March

Journal 1

Teaching an Angle Ball clinic at Camp Susquehannock

Since the end of my junior year I have been working on my Senior Exhibit. It started out as something that was really far away and I didn’t need to think about it, then I realized I needed to write journals and I had about five due and zero written. Although I didn’t have any journals written, I had started to work on figuring out what I wanted to do for my Senior Exhibit. I had also met with my advisor, Mrs. Garbutt, and bounced some ideas off her and tried to narrow all my options down. We got it down to 3; SCUBA diving, flying, and bringing games to FA. At first, I chose to learn how to fly. The idea was great, I had a friend with a pilot for a step dad and they owned a plane, what could be better? Well I’ll tell you, communication and stability. That plan to learn to fly was unfortunately a no-go because Mike, the pilot, and I were not able to communicate well enough to get a schedule together for me to learn, besides, the plane was up for sale and we didn’t know how long we would have it for. So I moved on and chose to bring games to FA. I am already a certified SCUBA Diver and although it is amazing I felt like bringing games that instituted a sense of confidence in athletics would not only be more fun, but it would also be worth while.

Now that I knew what I wanted to do, I had to decide what I was going to do for my summer learning. I already had a great idea; why not go to the place where I learned these games to learn how to teach them? And that is exactly what I did. For my summer learning I went to Camp Susquehannock, the most amazing place to spend your summer, and taught clinics and refereed 4 different kinds of games. The games that I was most focused on when I went there were Gaga, Angle Ball and Buff Ball. Once I got there however, I learned a new game, MC Fireball. After seeing how much fun the campers had playing, and how easy it was to play and set up, I decided to add MC Fireball to the list of games I would bring back to Fredericksburg Academy. I spent six weeks learning how to teach clinics, teaching the clinics on the games I was bringing back, and refereeing these games. While I was doing all of this I documented everything. I had the camp photographers, Tim and RK, take pictures of both the boys and the girls playing all of the games, I also had Tim record a game of Angle Ball that I plan to use in my finial presentation. I was also able to get all the rules and type them up.

Once I got home I put everything I learned to use and I contacted the SLC. I asked them if it was possible to use one of my games at the retreat. Before school even started I went in to school and attended an SLC meeting about the Retreat. I explained briefly some of the games I was using in my senior exhibit and together we decided that Angle Ball would be the best one to use for this event. I am happy to report that my first application, the retreat, went very smoothly. The only problem we had was getting half cones but I was able to get some before we left for the retreat. Since school has started I have been working with Mr. Carol and Ms. Mc Mahon on getting these games introduced into the P.E. program. So far I feel like my senior exhibit has been a great success and I’m looking forward to continuing it throughout the year.