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Samira, a student of Chabot College once said, “Passion is a desire to do, or accomplish or feel love without...without any barriers.” We live in a world where our generation of youths are becoming more and more out of touch with their inner passion. In this world, we have set up a society and a way of teaching where students are taught in one way. They are taught a small, confined classrooms while information is simply shoved into their brains to process. These students are restricted to stay on one path and in this society, students are actually afraid to experience new things. In this generation, our younger generation is limited to the variety of experiences that this large world has to offer.
Moving the Classroom Outdoors is a book written by Herbert W. Broda. In this book, he goes over a vast amount of concepts of why teaching our youth outdoors is better than the way they are being taught today. Another reference that is frequently brought up in this paper as well is The Passion Project video, which was created by a student from Chabot. This video revolves around the idea of passion. It goes over a problem where the students of today are lacking passion. The student who created this video also interviewed several students from Chabot College on their thoughts on passion.
In this paper, my thoughts on passion and creating my dream school. In this dream school, I believe that the best way for students to unleash their passion is to surround them in an environment where they feel no judgement. I will also go over how a variety of subjects offered and an open space, outdoors will also help students discover their passion in my dream school. Students will have plenty of roles to play in the success of this school as well. Students will be able to create a strong community by actively participating in activities in the community, they will be able to have an open communication with teachers and have volunteer or leadership opportunities. Students in this school may be different because they should feel as if they are more open to try new things. However, in order to try these new things, they must not be afraid to try these things, at least enjoy what is offered and even try to learn from whatever experience they go through from this school. When a student graduated from my school, I want these students to feel as if they have a purpose. In order for my students to feel as if they have a purpose is if they understand their worth, they want to use their new skills to make the world a better place and if they are passionate about what they choose to do in life.
There are a few key qualities in an education setting that I feel should be more important. In order for a student to truly uncover their passion, these features must be present. Students who are allowed to express themselves with no judgement will help bring the most out of its students. A Chabot College student created The Passion Project video based on how passion influences students. She interviewed several students on this topic and one of the students, Romeo, said, “In a classroom it is like a home that people can be their self and let their thoughts and things out to other people without, without having judged.” Students cannot find who they are if they are confined within limits. The fear of being judged prevents students from stepping out of their comfort zone. Passion and feelings are what lie within the soul. These factors are more often thoughts expressed in a place of security. Students feeling safe to express who they are will bring them one step closer to finding what they are passionate for. This is an important feature to a school setting because it will help students figure out their purpose in life. This kind of surrounding of other people trying to find themselves will influence others to do the same as well. In the Passion Project video, the narrator goes over this idea and says, “We find that when you’re surrounded by others exploring and expressing you can’t help but explore and express your own self,” Being able to express your own individuality is truly important. Everyone is unique in their own ways. An environment of acceptance will further make students feel more comfortable to be true to themselves and express who they are as a person. This positive surrounding is great for students to find their passion. Any passion a person has will give this person a greater purpose in life and have a feeling of importance. The opportunity to be able to explore yourself with no judgement should always be available to students.
The surroundings of a student also play a big role in a student figuring out their passion. Student cannot be confined to a small space for severals hours in a day. An education setting where it is more open and outdoors will better help students find their passion because they have no confinement or limits to explore new things and their surroundings. Herbert W. Broda wrote the book Moving the Classroom Outdoors and this book is all about how outdoor classrooms are very beneficial to a student’s education. He says in his book how, “A growing number of research studies are clarifying that a combination of indoor and outdoor instruction does result in improved achievement. Both teachers and students find an increased motivation that comes from a change of pace and place.” Nature can be very unpredictable. If a classroom is placed outside, an abundance of new things can occur every single day in this kind of surrounding. A change in weather perhaps or the animals in that surrounding. This can ultimately increase observation and heighten communication. The students that are confined in classrooms lack these wide range of skills. They are forced to focus on one subject which could ultimately drain energy if there is no interest or appeal within the classroom. A classroom outdoors would be fascinating, it would engage interest on what surrounds them rather than a walled up classroom. Broda states in his book that, “All content areas are concerned about developing process skills like observation, classification, inference, comprehension, description, evaluation, comparison, and data analysis. Outdoor activities can provide both the venue and content for practicing these skills.” All these skills can be taught through being outdoors. From personal experience, I understand how a confined classroom setting is. Confinement in a place for several hours is exhausting. Humans are filled with energy and even curiosity. Being outdoors allows us to breathe in fresh air and maybe even get in a little exercise as well. Passion cannot be created in a place of lethargy. Passion comes from a fire from within. This sort of fiery emotion comes from fascination and interest in a subject. The walls that surrounding a classroom actually prevent this interest because of the limitations it portrays. Walls confine you, but a classroom outdoors portrays the freedom and limitless opportunities that lay ahead of you.
There are plenty of roles that students will play in the school. These students will be able to create a community. Activities that students will be involved in will help bring the community more closer. The students involvement in these activities in school will give the community a more sense of togetherness. A student named Emily that was interviewed in the Passion Project Video spoke about this sort of community and said, “People want a family; community is family you know where we come together, we meet, we hangout. It helped me see a bigger picture see the bigger that it’s not all about me. Even though I am a key key figure a key chess piece it’s not just about me, it’s about the whole set.” Students being involved in creating a community will bring everyone together. They will be able to connect with each other on a deeper level. The time spent together with others in a positive way is only beneficial to people in this community. These students will not even notice how important their role in their community is because community activities can be viewed as such a simple thing. But sometimes, the simplest things always matter the most. Rollo May once said, “Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.” Understanding one another is extremely important. Students accepting one another in a community will ultimately lead to accepting and understanding one another. This is the key to a very successful and even happy community. Everyone in complete understanding and appreciation towards one another is what will keep peace and serenity. Although creating community activities may seem as if it is a small act that a student can do, it makes a pretty big impact overall. Community activities will lead everyone to enjoy one another’s company and have a better appreciation of each other. People will even be able to learn more about each other with more time spent in this community. Time well spent in positive energy will only influence others to feel this energy as well.
Students will also have even bigger roles to play in the school as well. There will be opportunities that revolve around leadership. Students can volunteer or take lead of projects that will help better the community in the school. In Broda’s book, he goes over student and teacher involvement in volunteering to create an outdoor classroom. He takes a picture of an appreciation quote for this newly created classroom and it says that Aaron Zerkle said, “Teaching and leading today’s youth often means getting your hands dirty and always requires your arms to be open and your heart willing to serve.” The youth of today are influenced by the way the older generation is. Students who are surrounded by teachers who do a lot of volunteer work will be motivated to contribute their free time as well. Students are influenced by leadership. The more volunteer opportunities that are available to our youth will have them feel more empowered by the work they would do for our community. Broda stresses the very importance of volunteering in his book and he says, “To be very blunt, it is simply impossible to implement and sustain a multifaceted and multi classroom outdoor learning program without the help of parents and other community volunteers.” With that said, it simply means that nothing can make true progression without the help of volunteers. Students in this school will be able to contribute their help to make this dream school a reality. Youth volunteers will also be able to learn from the program in which they are volunteering for. Students are extremely important and they play a huge part in this school with their help of volunteering. They will be able to acquire knowledge and put in leadership work with the volunteer opportunities they are given.
Students can also have a part to help improve the school system overall as well. Students will be able to have a voice in their education. They will be able to actually communicate with teachers with what is working in their education and what is not working. This school will improve if students are given a strong communication line with their teachers. In the Passion Project video, Ray, a student who was also interviewed said, “A great teacher is always like a student because they’re always learning so they’re always learning new and better ways to do something.” I feel as if this speaks many truths. Any person in this world, including teachers should always be open to learning new things. I believe that there is always something new to learn every single day. If this school allows students to help give teachers insightful advice or help with what they can improve, the whole school system will improve as well. This role a student plays to teach the teacher will better improve education as a whole. Students would be given a fair chance to learn the way they feel more comfortable if they are able to communicate that with their teachers. Communication is very important. In this video, Emily said, “The teacher’s job in instilling passion and I’ve had several teacher’s who’ve done that, is constant communication with the students, constant reassurance.” Trust revolves around communication and understanding. The students must feel like they trust their teachers in order to properly communicate their thoughts with them. The role these students play in this school will echo the ideals of communication. A strong trust between a student and a teacher will lead to a strong understanding between each other. That is what every school system needs. A mutual understanding between teachers and students. This dream school will only improve as the relationships between student and teacher improves as well. This whole ideal will only come true if there is trust and communication.
This dream school can very well exist in this world. But it will only make a true difference in the world if the students of today are different as well. A lot of students are not open to new things. If students are not afraid to experience what this dream school has to offer, then progression will be made. In the narration of the passion video, it talks about a black armor of fear that prevents students to try new things. It says, “Students soon notice that this black armor, this ego, doesn’t protect or prepare them at all, but instead creates a weak and fearful unprepared baby. They learn to avoid any situation where they may fail and fail to learn what to do when they fall. And everybody falls eventually.” This is a mindset that is settled in many students. These students are not pushed to try new things, to step out of their comfort zone. The students of this school could be different when they rid themselves of fear. This fear is what hold back any person to truly find a passion. What people fail to realize is that there is so much possibilities beyond that barrier of fear we put in front of us. We stop ourselves from going further in life because we do not accept this fear. Ray, an interviewed student of this video also says that, “The teacher should definitely encourage us to take risks because without taking risks you’re stuck in one place. It’s when you take these risks uh when you pursue, it makes you pursue different things to open doors to possibilities.” People, not even just students must pursue risks, accept fear along with it. We fail to realize the unlimited amount of possibilities that lay before us because we choose to stop ourselves from moving forward. Fear is what stops us from progression. Once students embrace fear and accept the unknown, doors of opportunity will open before them. Students who are open to endless possibilities will eventually find their niche. If they are willing to just try it, to go past their fears, they will find their place of passion.
The school would offer a variety of options for students. However, in order for true passion to be found, students must be more open to appreciate the experiences they go through. Students should have fun with what is offered so that the experience is felt to the fullest extent. The narration of the Passion Project Video talks about the classroom and says, “Imagine it as a temple removed from society’s influences harboring a vault where time ceases to exist and where wisdom is practiced. Imagine a thousand possibilities between teacher and student waiting to unfold. Imagine passion burning away the black armor.” This black armor is what prevents us from reaching our full potential. This armor holds us back from feeling experiences that we go through. Students must not be afraid to enjoy and live in the moment. We are always afraid of the future or haunted by our past. The moment is now and the experience is what needs to be felt. Students who learn to enjoy the moment and live to their fullest extent will make this dream school a livelier place. Schools are often deprived of life because of this “black armor.” Students are miserable because they are so focused on figuring out their future. Our students in this school will be able to have fun and enjoy every experience that this school will offer to them. In Broda’s book, he introduces Catherine Padgett, a passionate outdoor educator. Broda says about Catherine Padgett that, “Beyond knowledge and passion, though, she feels that students need to be empowered to actively care for their schoolyard environment.” This ties into students “enjoying the moment,” because passion is derived from being actively conscious about your feelings. Students who continuously have feelings of care for any project they work on will lead into a feeling of passion. Living in the moment is tied to having a conscious mindset of what you care about. Passion comes from this ideal. Students will be able to figure out their passion by enjoying the moments they experience and also by knowing the feelings of what they care for.
Students often go through experiences on a daily basis. Unfortunately, some of these experiences go to waste because it is not learned from by these students. Students can be different by actually learning something from the new things that they go through. In the Passion Project video, the narrator says, “Instead of fearing mistakes we can learn to welcome them as a mentor teaching valuable skills of appreciation and hard work so when students step into the real world they are prepared to face all that life offers, welcoming her as a beautiful bride packaged with lessons and hardships.” This is important because that is how any progression in life is made. We make progress when we learn how to fix the mistakes we have made. Students fear mistakes, yet they fail to realize that mistakes helps create who we are as a person. We must learn how to accept these mistakes as our past and create a better future. In the video, Andrew, a student who was also interviewed spoke about success. He said, “I think you have to succeed and fail to appreciate what you have. You know you see all your failures and then you you take into account those failures and then you think okay well now you feel successful you know you succeeded for once. You know, you appreciate that.” Things usually go unappreciated because there is no failure or loss. When someone goes through so much negative experiences, the positive experience that they do go through feel so much better. This occurs because these people understand how it feels to be weighed down and they would have more appreciation of what they have. The students of the dream school can be different by accepting their mistakes. People will always consistently make mistakes. However, it is those that learn from the mistakes made are the ones who create a better future for themselves. The students of this dream school will be different once they learn from their past experiences.
This dream school is meant to be different from the ways schools are now. I would want students who graduate from this school to walk out of here feeling as if they have a purpose. In order to feel as if they have a place in this world, they must understand their worth. Samira was a student who was also interviewed in the video. She spoke about self acceptance and said, “You start to feel comfortable within yourself. Like even if every single person’s story was different and no one was like each other’s, that right there teaches you that your journey is okay and it’s okay to be here.” It is important for students to walk out of this school, understanding how worthy they are. In order to do that, this school must teach them to accept themselves for who they are. When people begin to appreciate themselves, overall, life gets better. The negative factors in life get smaller. When you accept yourself, you understand your worth. You know how important you truly are. You would know what is good for you and look to better yourself as a person. In this video, Samira also quoted her favorite quote, “to thine own self be true,” and she said, “as long as you’re true to yourself then you can then you can love unconditionally. Like you can accept people unconditionally because you’re not worried about what people think about you.” I want students from this school to graduate feeling as if they accept who they are. They appreciate everything about them. This school will allow students to learn to accept themselves by preaching that self love is important. If this ideal is consistently spoken about, it will make students feel more comfortable within themselves. It almost has to be a daily reminder to remind students that loving yourself is important. The youth of today are not taught about self love. They are set on a specific path and destination that revolves around a strict schedule of classes. Learning to appreciate yourself will ultimately make you happy. Students who are taught that it is okay to love yourself, your personality, who you are as a person will understand that they are truly important to themselves.
This school that I envision will have students graduating from this school with a larger purpose to better this world. These students will learn a variety of skills from this school. As soon as they graduate, they will know their purpose and use their set of skills to make the world a better place. In the video about passion, Elaine, a student who was interviewed spoke about learning a variety of ideas and said, “Because you have students from so many different areas of life and they’re all throwing out ideas. That’s what’s fresh and that’s what’s new and that’s what’s gonna create this better world is this new, these ideas, these moldings.” I would want this dream school to provide students with a variety of ideas to learn from. With an array of different things to choose and learn from, students should graduate from this school feeling well rounded with knowledge. This knowledge that they would acquire should make these students feel useful and use their knowledge to help better the world. Kofi Annan spoke about knowledge and he once said, “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” Knowledge is the key to free yourself from lies. You are able to understand more concepts and values with more knowledge. I want this school to be prepared with the knowledge that it provides. These students would be able to better the world because they can spread their knowledge to other people as well. They would have the power to inform other people and this would lead to a positive progression in society. The youth of today have the power to make big changes in this big world. All it requires is the knowledge of truth and the passion to make the world a better place. Continuously learning new and different things is what moves our society forward. This school will bring truth to ignorance and shine light upon newfound ideas. There is always something new to learn. I want students to gain knowledge on the variety of ideas that this school will provide and take this learning experience with them to the bigger world. All of this new ideas that they learn would be put into making this world a better place.
There are plenty of careers that students can choose to pursue. However, I want the graduating students of my dream school to know what they are passionate about. Passion will be preached in the school’s morals so that the students are influenced to choose a passion in which they want to pursue. In the Passion Project Video, Karina goes off about passion and says, “The more passionate or the more that you love something, the more that you learn from it because you’re you’re I guess you’re separating yourself from yourself. You’re having like an out of body experience and you it’s like a reflection almost like wow this is so beautiful and I wanna do this forever. Like I wanna be in this moment and then you’re just reflecting upon it I guess.” Passion is not something that can be truly understood, but it is meant to be felt. Feelings are not always explainable. I want this school to make students feel passion for something in the world, for anything really. Students should be able to pursue a career in which they have a strong feeling for. When you are truly passionate about something, you put your all into it. You put everything you feel on the inside, in the work in which you are passionate for. The outcome of any project you are passionate about is pure quality. We need more of this in the world because people are losing their individuality due to this strict, confining system. Ralph Waldo Emerson speaks his thoughts about defying conformity and says, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Choosing what you are passionate about life is being truthful to yourself. Passion comes from within and no one else has it but yourself. Being your own person and pursuing what you feel is best for you is what I believe should be an accomplishment all students from my school should experience.
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