World History Humanities World History Humanities PortfolioPortfolio

22ndnd Semester 04-05 Semester 04-05

Ehren McLarty, SophomoreEhren McLarty, Sophomore

Yucaipa, CaliforniaYucaipa, California

IntroductionIntroduction

Wow! What a year it has been! We have enjoyed learning and experiencing education as a class and we have gained a lot from these experiences.

Throughout this second semester we have been learning a lot about the Journey to Excellence document and goals. These goals have been incorporated into our everyday assignments and we have learned to recognize and appreciate the steps that we have taken toward reaching these goals through our assignments and our learning.

Outlined in this portfolio are the 10 goals of the Journey to Excellence document and some of the assignments that help us reach towards the achievement of these goals.

Table of ContentsTable of ContentsAcceptance of God – Song Drama

Commitment to the Church – 1-07 Journal

Interpersonal Relationships – Debate

Responsible Citizenship – Database

Healthy Balanced Living – 2-16 Journal

Intellectual Development – Hypothesis

Communication Skills - Speech

Personal Management – Media 1,2

Aesthetic Appreciation – Song Drama

Career and Service – Legacy Project

Acceptance of GodAcceptance of GodSong DramaSong Drama

Surrender one’s whole life to God; develop a relationship with Jesus Christ; and allow the Holy Spirit to work in one’s life.

Song Drama

Acceptance of God means, not only to accept the existence of God, but to accept every aspect of God including the salvation he offers us. Ever since childhood I have been taught about God, so accepting his existence has never been an issue. I did not need to really make a choice I just knew it. There was no question in my mind ever since I was a small child. However accepting the salvation that God offers us is a personal choice. I made that choice this past Christmas.

Although I did make that choice during this school year I would not say that any of my classes, teachers, or assignments prompted me to make it. However there were some assignments that helped me to move in the direction of fully accepting God.

The assignment I chose to demonstrate this goal in my life was my second semester Song Drama assignment. For this assignment I was required to pick a song that demonstrated the freedom that God gives us. I chose a hymn called Glorious Freedom. This song talks about the freedom that we receive when Jesus breaks our “fetters in twain,” or frees us from our sinful lives. This happens when we accept God and accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.

The thinking and planning that I did with this song helped me remember that one of the most important steps of accepting God is accepting Jesus and his gift of “freedom.” When we accept the existence of God we can accept his free gift and once we have accepted that it is much easier to accept the other aspects of God and also to accept his plan for our lives.

A person cannot really say that they have fully accepted God until their life here on earth is over because there will always be a new test of accepting some new aspect of God’s great plan. However what we must learn is to be cheerful and joyful about accepting God’s plans.

In the book Hind’s Feet on High Places, by Hannah Hurnard, a young girl, Much-Afraid, goes on a journey to become a citizen of the Kingdom of Love. On the way she learns many lessons. One of these lessons is Acceptance-with-Joy. This is a lesson that we must learn too. Once we are able to accept with joy all the plans of our God then we can fully accept as he is and joyfully do his will.

Commitment to the ChurchCommitment to the Church1-07 Journal1-07 Journal

Desire to know, live and share the message and mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

1-07 Journal

Commitment to the church has always been a very important part of my life. I have always loved going to church and like to be involved in what is going at my church. Currently I help lead out in the Kindergarten Sabbath School class, participate in my own youth class, often read scripture reading for church, and play with two amateur musical groups that are formed by the members of our church. I enjoy helping out in the areas, especially playing music at our church and the local nursing home.

I don’t think that school focuses a whole lot on this aspect of our lives. It is generally considered a private, home-life issue and people don’t say a lot about it in school. However I think that it should be a very important part of our lives. Commitment to the church does not mean only going to church and helping out there, but being committed to sharing God’s message, through words and by example, all of the time wherever we are. Being committed to the church also means being committed to the Seventh Day Adventist principals and being committed to sharing God with those around you.

We did have a few discussions this year that highlighted this aspect of our lives. We talked about issues in the church. We talked about being a part of a church. But in particular we talked about missionaries. We talked about the Crusaders who used force and violence to spread their religion verses the missionaries of today who teach mostly by example and encouragement. One assignment that we did to go along with this discussion was 1-07 Journal. For this assignment we were required to draw two pictures, one representing the style of the Crusaders and explorers, and the other showing the style of the current missionaries. Then we were to explain the difference between the two styles and why having a gentler, kindlier way of presenting the gospel is better.

This assignment helped us see how true commitment to the church means that we are committed, not just to converting people in anyway possible, but in being living examples of Christ; being committed to showing his love, compassion, and kindliness. Being committed to the church is not being committed to a building; it is being committed to a way of thinking, acting, and speaking. It is being committed to a way of life.

Interpersonal RelationshipsInterpersonal RelationshipsDebateDebate

Develop a sense of self worth, skills in interpersonal relationships, and understanding of the responsibilities of family membership and the ability to respond with sensitivity to the needs of others.

Debate

Interpersonal Relationships is an area that I have never really excelled in. I am not a very social person and often prefer nothing more than the companionship of my own family. However I do feel that I have skills as a leader and I usually get along very well with other people, particularly those that I don’t know as well as my own siblings.

This year was very good for me in this area because it really made me work with and learn to work well with other people. Doing everything through a computer makes it especially difficult, so it is an extra challenge to be overcome. Being in class and being a class officer were two ways that I worked in this area as well. We also had several assignments this year that required cooperating with, working with, and understanding other students. Often I would work with three or four other people to put together a skit or presentation or something like that. This required listening (or reading) carefully to other peoples’ ideas, presenting my own in a way that others could understand, and helping to incorporate those into a final product. All of these assignments helped me to develop my skills in Interpersonal Relationships.

One assignment that particularly helped me develop these skills was the Debate assignment that we had during the second semester. This assignment did require so much working together ahead of time to present a finished product as it did understanding the position and view point of another person to be able to respectfully disagree with them. It required listening to your opponent carefully to develop an understanding of where she was coming from on this particular topic. Then you had to formulate an answer that would present your idea and viewpoint as being correct. Often this had to be done by showing a weak point in their argument. Again this required careful listening and great understanding. Now I’m obviously not saying that this assignment developed my mind reading skills, however it was imperative to be able to discern what the other student was thinking and what ideas they were trying to get across.

Through this assignment and many others this year (as well as class discussions and activities), I feel that I have improved my interpersonal relationship skills quite a bit. I am learning to be able to identify with other people and help them and let them help me through this life on earth.

Responsible CitizenshipResponsible CitizenshipDatabaseDatabase

Develop an understanding of cultural and historical heritages, affirm a belief in the dignity and worth of others and accept responsibility for local, national and global environments. Being a responsible citizen is something that I had not thought much about before this year. I always knew that I would someday grow up and have a career, raise Seventh Day Adventist kids, and just be a good person. But I had never thought much about really trying to be an important part of my community, particularly my community outside the church.

Of course I have always been taught to be a responsible person and I think that this is an area that I excel in. My teachers generally have appreciated the fact that I can be trusted to, not only get my homework done and work towards getting good grades, but also in being a leader and example for other students, doing little jobs and errands for them, and even safe guarding information. Often, in my first year of high school, I would sit at a table for lunch and soon be joined by several of the teachers. I was often the only student at the table and the teachers would begin to discuss things that were obviously not meant for just anybody’s ears. But I think they trusted me to be responsible with the information that I heard.

However being responsible within my community and really endeavoring to improve it was sort of new to me this year. We did several things in our class that enabled me to really get an idea of just what being a responsible citizen means. One thing that we did was our legacy project in which we improved or supplemented life in our own community. We also had some discussions in class on this topic. However one assignment that really stands out as having helped us to reach towards this goal is the Database assignment. For this assignment we were required to look up several organizations in our area that provided help, encouragement, and services for those in need. We then compiled the information on these organizations into a database that can be referred to if ever we come in contact with someone who needs help or needs information about where to get help.

Being a responsible citizen means that we always endeavor to uplift the needs of our community and improve the life of those around us. This could also be called “Being a Christian.” After all that is what we are called to do. By doing all the things that I have mentioned we are able to live like Christ in at least one area of our life.

Database

Healthy Balanced LivingHealthy Balanced LivingJournal 2-16Journal 2-16

Accept personal responsibility for achieving and maintaining optimum physical, mental and spiritual health.

2-16 Journal

Health Balanced Living is not something commonly covered by a combination History, English, Bible class. Health is generally covered in a totally different class. However I am going to focus on the Balanced aspect of this goal.

Living a balanced life is pretty easy for me. That is the way I have been raised. We don’t work all the time but we don’t play all the time either. We eat balanced meals, get our exercise, and usually get enough sleep. We have fun time together and we also work together. Living a balanced life not only keeps you healthy but happy as well. People who just play all the time soon get bored with life and people who work all the time soon get tired of life. Keeping your life balanced between two extremes eases the stress and helps to create a happy, healthy atmosphere for you and your family.

One assignment that helped me think about this aspect was a journal assignment. For this journal assignment we were supposed to talk about accuracy. Being accurate is a good thing in many points of life, however it can be overdone. If you always try to be perfect in everything you do you will be disappointed because it is impossible. No person on this earth is perfect. So we must learn to live in the middle. We should expect and require some level of accuracy from ourselves and from others; however we cannot expect anyone to be perfect. When we live a balanced life we will be able to develop accuracy to a certain degree and practice it in our very own life.

One thing that we should remember in trying to live a balanced life and develop accuracy is that the most important help for us comes from God. By developing some of the other goals already listed we can begin to obtain a balanced life style. When we accept God we allow him to work in our lives and to balance just the way that he knows is best for us. When we are committed to the church we balance out other aspects of our life with work for the church and work for God. When we become responsible citizens we add that aspect to our life and it can often give us great joy to know that we are helping others.

There are many ways of achieving a healthy balanced life, but the most important thing to remember is to ask for and accept God’s help.

Intellectual DevelopmentIntellectual DevelopmentHypothesisHypothesis

Adopt a systematic, logical, and biblically-based approach to decision-making and problem-solving when applied to a developing body of knowledge.

Hypothesis

Intellectual Development is obviously addressed by all our classes in school. This is what school is for. Therefore I could have chosen just about any assignment to illustrate this goal. I chose the Hypothesis assignment that we did at the beginning of this semester. In this assignment we were given a scenario and asked to make a hypothesis about what would happen. We were told that a strip of paper with a green marker circle at the end would be placed in a cup of water. Then we were asked to guess what would happen to that green dot after the paper had been sitting in the water for a certain length of time.

This assignment required thinking and analyzing. These are two basic parts to intellectual development. This assignment required logical thinking and using the knowledge that we already had to predict what would happen. Then, once we saw what had happened we had to analyze the results to see why we were right or wrong in our hypothesis.

Intellectual Development begins when you are born and continues until you die. It is a never ending process of learning. When we begin school we begin a sort of growth spurt in learning. During our school years we learn a lot in a relatively short amount of time. Every year we learn new information and add to the knowledge that we have. Therefore a student’s intellectual development is pretty easy to anticipate from year to year. When I started this year’s classes I had as much knowledge in store as your average student (and maybe a bit more thanks to my amazing parents). And of course throughout the year I gained more knowledge. How ever this year I learned a lot more about analyzing the world around me and using my store of knowledge to my advantage. I learned to utilize what I learned in class and apply it to other things in my life. This is an important skill to learn as I am growing up and soon to become independent. These skills will help me throughout the rest of my life.

Intellectual development is not only learning, memorizing, and spitting back out facts. It is developing a sense of understanding of the world around you, of history and it’s use for today, and of the importance of the knowledge you gain in school to the rest of you life.

Communication SkillsCommunication SkillsSpeechSpeech

Recognize the importance of effective communication and develop the requisite skills.

Speech

Communication Skills very much relates to Interpersonal Relationships. Communication skills are important to getting along with other people and be able to communicate your thoughts, ideas, and feelings to those around you. In short communication skills enable you to interact with other people. A person who wants to enjoy the company of other people and does not have any communication skills is like a person who wants to see their favorite television show but doesn’t have a TV. Without communication skills people wind up misunderstood and misunderstanding those around them. It is imperative to have at least some ability to communicate with those around you in order to get through life. Unless you are going to live as a hermit in a cave in the middle of nowhere you are going to have to be able to communicate with other people.

Communication is not my best skill. I can get along fine with other people but sometimes I have a hard time getting across what I want to say and understanding what someone is trying to get across to me. So the assignment that I have chosen to use with this goal is one that was an especial learning experience for me. I chose our Speech assignment for this subject. This assignment was to give a speech on Ellen White and some of the events that brought her to God.

For this assignment I was not only required to give a speech that would put across a certain message to the other students but also to work with other students who would also be giving another part of this speech. We had to work together to decided what each person would be responsible for. Assignments like these help to build up one’s communication skills because they require one to communicate.

Another aspect of communication skills, besides just listening to each other and presenting ideas, is the detail aspect. When you are trying to give a speech to a group of people you want them to understand what you are saying. You don’t want to stutter or repeatedly use the word “um.” You not only want them to understand the words that you are saying but to recognize that you know what you are talking about, you believe in it, and you are genuinely interested in telling them.

Communication skills are very important to life. In order to live around others you must develop these skills.

Personal ManagementPersonal ManagementMedia 1, 2Media 1, 2

Function responsibly in the everyday world using Christian principles of stewardship, economy and personal management.

Media 1, 2

Personal Management is a skill that I find pretty natural and easy. I like being organized and making sure that things run smoothly. Attending AE21 this year has really helped me develop this skill. I have to manage my time to be able to get everything done in a day that I need to. I also have to have everything organized in my work space and on my computer so that I can find what I need when I need it. Personal management ties in a lot with healthy, balanced living. In order to live a balanced life you need to be able to manage your time, property, and interests in order to keep you life well balanced.

I think that my personal management skills were pretty well developed when I started this school year, but as I said before they have certainly been fine tuned this year. The more I can learn to manage my life in the years to come the better off I will be to become a well organized, responsible person with a career and a family, and still what is modernly termed “a life.”

The assignment that I chose to go with this goal is perhaps geared more towards managing my thoughts and actions than my time or material items. For our Media assignment we learned about and did a worksheet on advertisements and how advertising agencies use advertisements to get peoples’ attention. We learned many different tactics that are used to make the products in advertisements seem appealing and desirable to those who don’t have them. These tactics are designed to make people want them.

When you have learned how people try to get your attention, it is often much easier to ignore them. Paying attention to advertisements is generally not a good use of ones time and energy. By learning about advertisements and how to ignore them we can better be able to manage our time and energy efficiently and put it to better use.

Personal management is something that is important to develop so that you can use you time and energy better. One way that this can be done is by eliminating from your life that which is not important and/or useless. When you do this you will have more time for other things in life, and especially for listening to and acting upon what God wants you to do with your life.

Aesthetic Appreciation Aesthetic Appreciation Song DramaSong Drama

Develop an appreciation of the beautiful, both in God’s creation and in human expression, while nurturing individual ability in the fine arts.

Song Drama

Aesthetic Appreciation is another area of life that has always been natural to me. I love nature and I love the arts. I play music, paint and draw, and enjoy learning about and experiencing nature. I particularly love animals and I enjoy observing them and learning about their ways of life. Another aspect of aesthetic appreciation that I enjoy is singing. I love music and I love to sing. I will sing just about anytime anywhere. So the assignment that I chose to go with this goal is the Song Drama assignment.

For the Song Drama assignment we selected a song that portrayed freedom as a gift from God. I chose a song called Glorious Freedom. It is an old hymn that is not in the current hymnal. This song spoke of the freedom that we receive when we accept the gift of salvation and are cleansed from our sins. We were to either, play a recording of the song, or sing and/or play it ourselves. We were also supposed to create a skit illustrating the song and explaining through actions what the song was saying.

Both singing and the dramatization of the song were ways of expressing aesthetic appreciation. The most important thing about this form, however, was that in expressing the message of the song we were expressing the message of Christ. Whenever we spend time learning music, enjoying nature, or some other form of enjoying God’s artful world we are and should be expressing, enjoying, and spreading the message of Christ and of God’s word. When we did our Song Drama’s we were expressing God’s message to us of his gift of life, love, and freedom. We should be doing this in our lives every day; weather through the arts and nature or some through some other form. This is the most important part of our life here on earth, and the part that must be accomplished before that life is ended.

Aesthetic Appreciation is a big part of sharing God’s news with those around us, even if we don’t know who they are. It is still important and essential to us and to others that we affect through our actions, words, and thoughts. Aesthetics is just one way of expressing this and showing it to other people. When we show people God through the arts or nature or any other way we are serving them in Christ.

Career and ServiceCareer and ServiceLegacy ProjectLegacy Project

Develop a Christian work ethic with an appreciation for the dignity of service.

Legacy Project

Career and Service is one of the most important goals of all. After accepting God and being committed to the church, this goal will automatically follow. When we begin to serve others we also find that it fits into many of the other goals such as Personal Management, Aesthetic Appreciation, and Healthy Balanced Living. Career also has a big part in our lives. When we decide on and follow a career we are basically deciding what we are going to be doing for the rest of our lives. And if we really have accepted God’s will for our lives and are committed to following it, this career will be a service to those around us.

I have always enjoyed service. Being able to give people some joy or improve their lives in some way has always given me joy when I accomplish it. It is also very enjoyable to do things anonymously so that the people you do it for are always wondering who is being so nice to them.

The assignment that I have chosen to go with this goal is a year long and on going project that addressed all of these aspects of service. For this assignment we were asked to come up with a project that would enhance the lives of those in our community or help those in need. The project that I decided to do was one that was designed to help people feel special in their community. I made a list of some people that I wanted to include in this project. Then I collected their birthdays and every time someone had a birthday I baked cookies for them. I also gave cookies to some of their friends announcing their birthday. This allowed the person to be remembered on their birthday, which is always a pleasant thing.

Service should always be based on Christian ideals so that when you are providing a service for someone, even if you are not telling them in words about God, your actions will be describing him. The same goes for a career. When you are in the work place you should never forget that you are portraying God in your thoughts, words, and actions. This is one of the most powerful ways of witnessing.

Career and Service is the goal that you will spend the majority of your life pursuing. It is always important to make sure that whatever you are doing, God comes first. Then you will be the ultimate witness for him through the work he has appointed you to do.

ConclusionConclusionIn these reflections I have talked a lot about witnessing and being an example for God. That is really what life is about. All throughout school you are being prepared and really already pursuing your life’s work of living for God. That is what the Journey to Excellence is all about.