Almost yearly reflection

I know the usual time for a yearly reflection is around about new year, but I’m choosing to reflect a few weeks late. Partly because I didn’t have much time for reflection at new year, but mainly because soon I’m going to be a year older... and each teenage year that passes is a landmark, one which marks the beginning of a new stage on your journey through adolescence. So, with almost 2 weeks remaining before I turn 17 I started thinking about what I have achieved this past year...

Achievements are important in society, we are trained from a young age to recognize them... I suppose this is why that was the first thought in my mind when beginning to reflect. People who excel in something specific are usually seen by others as greater beings, never is this more true than in education and in other areas around school. If you do well in exams you are seen as a better to those who don’t do well, if you excel in sport you are seen as a better to those who don’t. There are unfortunately many ‘achievements’ that go unnoticed or are overshadowed, and there are many people who are not recognized just because they are mediocre.

Now, I know I’m digressing, but I’m doing it for a reason... and that is, while I was looking back over my year I realized the amount of cool things I have done is phenomenal - mind blowing from my point of view. The thing is though most of these things are not normally acknowledged as ‘achievements’. In fact, very little of what I have done this year can fall under that category. This doesn’t really bother me in the sense that I personally am not getting noticed for these achievements, this doesn’t actually bother me in the slightest. It more bothers me because this may put people off doing some really amazing things that can be a great experience and also open up doors to a whole new world.

You’re probably thinking “what the hell is he talking about”, so I should probably start being a little more specific. What I’m talking about is web 2.0, something that truly has had a major impact on me over the past year for a number of reasons. It’s something that can help you achieve anything... And take you anywhere, including places you never thought you could go, or never knew existed. It’s something that has taken me from utter obscurity and placed me right in the heart of an international debate, something that has helped give me a place me in a team with some amazing students from around the world, something that has given me the tools required to create, collaborate, communicate and most importantly learn. It’s there for everyone… but very few have taken advantage.

Students are the worst hit… they are rarely exposed to the power of these tools. Besides they’d rather be out doing something that will get them noticed over their peers, but why blame them for it? Achievements will get them noticed by society, they will label them as the cream of the crop. Taking time outside of school to do creative things with the internet and the likes wont do anything for them in their eyes, and it certainly wont do anything for their college applications.

I’m drifting further and further from my main goal in this post. I guess that’s because looking back on what I’ve done I just can’t help but think that these opportunities weren’t just opportunities open to me, but ones open to every single one of my peers, yet I was the only one there to take advantage. The main reason for this is, well it’s why we blog; these technologies aren’t used in classrooms, and therefore aren’t commonly known to students, yet they could open up a whole new world of possibilities within education (and beyond), a world that most of us still can’t fully comprehend.

So, I guess that’s it… six paragraphs and I didn’t even manage to reflect fully on my year, but such is life. It’s not my birthday till Feb the 12th anyway… so there’s still time for another (shorter) post.


The Bass Player.


Photo credit - Reflection "III" by VisualAge on Flickr