Finishing Up! (finally)

The senior project has definitely done what it was purposed to do, keep us busy through out our senior year and discouraging laziness at the end of the year. Although I have not yet presented my senior project I am confident that I have been well prepared to do so. I am glad that we were the first ever Chinquapin students to participate in senior seminar and I am confident that it will be successful through out the future senior classes. It gave us an opportunity to experience true autonomy and taught it what it really means to get things done on your on and what it takes to do that.

I Am Better!

In August I doubted myself more than I should have. In August I believed that I would not be considered as a participant for the TEDxYouth conference. In August I had no idea how I would start work on my project. Now, in December my mind is made up, I have participated in the TEDxYouth, and I am ready to dive into working on my project.

I am more confident in my ideas, I realize that I can make them realities and I don't need anyone to tell me how to do it. By preparing for the conference I was able to get a taste of what working on my project would be like. It won't be easy but I am confident that I will be able to deliver an encouraging and captivating performance.

I Finally Found The Drive to Write My Blog

I completed my reading about a month after school ended and since then I have been struggling with exactly what to blog about. Here it is August 1oth, less than a week before school starts, and still I haven't decided what to write about. So I've decided to just go for it, here goes.

Before I had even read the first chapter of Drive I was enthralled by the introduction. Pink writes, "Rewards can deliver a short-term boost --- just as a jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a few more hours. But the effect wears off ---and, worse, can reduce a person's long-term motivation to continue the project." (pg.8). That statement is so true and it helped me to understand a lot of things that I have experienced. I remember back in elementary school one of the little girls from my neighborhood (let's call her Susie) was really enthused about a new rewarding system her school had come up with. The deal was that every student that got commended performance on their TAKS test (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) would receive a check for fifty dollars (Keep in mind the fact that we were in the third grade, so fifty dollars is alot of money.). So Susie took the test and got the fifty dollars. Well, the nest year when it was time to take the test again she found out that there would be no reward and here attitude towards succeeding changed. She didn't care if she passed or not because she couldn't get the fifty dollars.

That school got what they wanted, state recognition, but at a greater price than they had prepared for. They had given the children the wrong kind of motivation and in return they got little to no self-motivation and made the kids expect to be rewarded for succeeding. These children were given a short-term boost and no long-term motivation. So as far-fetched as Pink ideas seem they are true and I got all of this from a couple of sentences in the introduction.