GS Portfolio

Welcome back to my blog! This post is for the second Action Project of the Humanities class, Endurance. In this unit, Apothesis, we started to think about our futures and contemplate where we would go from here. As the end of the school year nears the end, everyone is preparing to step into the next chapter of their life. We continued to look at how other influential figures have endured and their journeys over their lives. We also examined the difference between endurance by force and choice and the skills required in each situation after a Field Experience at Bender's Martial Arts. While we were there, we engaged in a fitness boot camp that tested our physical and mental limits. For this Action Project, we were tasked with creating a survival guide that could serve as a map for our futures. The survival guide focuses on our dream or mission and what we will need to fulfill that mission as we grow up. I hope you enjoy reading about my plan for the future. I hope you enjoyed readin

Welcome back to my blog! This post is for the first Action Project of the Humanities class, Endurance. In this class, we have been learning what it means to endure. We looked through history to see moments where humans endured, such as Ernest Shackleton's survival in the Antarctic and the Holocaust, while we read the book Night by Elie Wiesel. We also introduced small challenges we would have to endure, like holding an ice cube in our hand for as long as possible. For this Action Project, we have been tasked with committing 24 hours to a challenge with a clear mission and guiding question. My mission for this AP was to build and improve my woodworking skills and create something that is important to me. My guiding question was, what is the best bridge I can build? For 24 hours, I worked toward creating a wooden bridge by myself with only a small amount of woodworking experience behind me. While working, I recorded my progress by taking photos and filming time-lapses. The video belo

Welcome back to my blog! This post is for the second Action Project of the STEAM class, Social Entrepreneurship. In this second unit, Develop, we have been learning about what makes a business, especially social ones. A social enterprise is a business aimed at addressing a social cause where investors make investments with a vision of contributing to social welfare and not profit entirely. We focused heavily on analyzing the bits and pieces of businesses, such as their mission/vision statements, legal structures, marketing strategies, and more. For Field Experiences, we spoke with Eric Davis, the founder of Global Citizenship Experience Lab School (GCE). Having the chance to meet Eric was incredible because he was the founder of the school I have attended for 3 years, going on 4. It was interesting to hear his vision for the school and the importance creating GCE has had on his life. Leading up to the Action Project, we were asked to create as many business ideas as possible and eventu

Welcome back to my blog! This post is for the second Action Project of the Humanities class, Equality. In this unit, Hxstory, we continued our conversations from the previous unit about the inequalities of race, gender, and class in society. We focused on reparations for slavery, Critical Race Theory, Brown v. Board of Education, and micro-aggressions that can contribute to racial tensions between groups. For Field Experiences, we spoke with Isabel Strauss, a designer and architect investigating how architecture can be used to create an egalitarian society in her Master's thesis project, Architecture of Reparations. We also met with Anthony Holmes, a survivor of the torture enacted by the Chicago Police Department from 1972-1991. Finally, we traveled to the Weinberg/Newton Gallery and met with Lisa Lindvay, the education director for the gallery For Those Without Choice exhibit. This talk helped us think about how race, gender, and class inequities are impacted by laws and policies

Welcome back to my blog! This post is for the first Action Project of the Humanities class, Equality. In this first unit, we have learned about equality and how to reach an egalitarian society. We also dove into intersectionality, sociology, and social stratification. We started reading There There  by Tommy Orange, a novel following the stories of Native American characters in Oakland grappling with a complex and painful history and identity. With the idea of creating zines for our Action Project, we had multiple Field Experiences that gave us a chance to observe and study all kinds of zines. These FEs include looking at the zine collection in the Joseph Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, Co-Prosperity artist space and gallery to investigate underground and independent media, and Howling Pages Comics, where the owner promotes zines created by young people and small press or independent comics. This Action Project asks us to choose a historical event that exemplifies the

Welcome back to my blog! This post is for the first Action Project of the STEAM class, Social Entrepreneurship. Throughout this unit, we have been learning about human behaviors. Understanding the behaviors of ourselves and other people can be crucial in seeing how businesses run with the guidance of several different kinds of people or how people react in certain situations. To learn more about our behaviors, we took a few personality tests, such as the Meyers-Briggs, DiSC, Big Five, and the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Management test. These revealed several pieces of my identity that surprised me or affirmed what I already knew. Next, we spoke with researchers from the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation. This research organization specializes in an aptitude test that can help test takers derive more satisfaction from their lives by discovering their natural potential. For this AP, we have been asked to identify an idea for improvement, either within ourselves or GCE Lab School. I have