Evaluating myself and what I've learned.

 As we've learned about leadership, I also learnt about and improved myself. Such as how important communication is in a team and as a leader, whether that's through taking or actions. Learning how important communication is has improved my confidence, as I know how important it can be in a team to share your thought or even just start doing what's needed. 

In a team I also learnt more about how important caring for others and being willing to help is. I think actually thinking and talking about how important these skills are have made me improve them. Such as how I've became more willing to help, such as working at the fire works, along with how much I care about others in my team and what they say.

The biggest thing I've learnt about leadership over these weeks though is that anyone in any team can be a leader. You don't have to be in power or the loudest, you can lead with such simple and easy thing such as just doing what you think is the right thing, like helping someone out, by participating 100%, or even just following the rules properly.

In conclusion over these past couple of weeks and in Manukura in general I've really improved on what I know about being a leader. I learnt I don't always have to be the loudest to lead, I just need to do what I think is right. To me a leader is so many things, but a few key values and traits I think they all need are being caring, having integrity, communicating, being honest and finally being willing to take risks.

Manukura Pilot reflection writing

 This term I, along with a few other boys, started the Manukura Pilot class. This is a class with the goal to change the current way of learning for the better. So far three weeks in here are my thoughts.

I think this class is working very well, fulfilling every goal it set out to complete. The work seems more interesting and feels like it will actually be helpful when I’m older. Compared to learning about random subjects that have nothing to do with our future, we're learning about subjects such as leadership that would help us anywhere in life. As well Sam’s teaching style also helps me to understand the subject more since he talks to you as if it was an actual conversation instead of just telling you what to do. This lets you get more in depth with your questions being answered straight away and it's easy to be actively listening. Lastly this class makes you feel more in control of your learning. You get to choose what tasks you do and when you do them as long as you’ve completed them all by the set time frame. Additionally we’ve got a lot of input on rules and how this class runs.

 Though I don’t like how much time I have to do everything. We have a lot of time, which might seem good to some but for me it makes me do less work as I procrastinate a lot. Having heaps of time to do tasks slows down how much work I get done because I think I can do it later, and I don’t want to put all my effort into it. I also get bored of something after 2-3 hours working on the same subject. As well I think the work could be more targeted, as it feels less satisfying to complete work that's too easy or I haven’t put effort in to complete. 

Leadership qualities tournament

 Have you ever thought of the qualities someone needs to lead? and which ones of them are the most important? Today we had to answer these questions. First we had to think of 32 important leadership qualities, and start comparing them two at a time.

My inspiring leader

 This week in the Manukura class we had to make a slide show on a leader that inspires us. I chose a local leader who I know quite well, Caleb Smith. I chose him as he's a very good leader, being outgoing and social. Leadership positions he has been in our, captain of his football team, heads of school, Manukura GPS

My personality type.

 

In Manukura we are learning about who we are, so today we did the Disc Test which is a personality test.

My personality test is Stabiliser or SC meaning it's considered a steady personality but is really close to a 

conscientious personality.  I'm not that surprised by this result as I agree that I have all the strengths, 

such as even-tempered and cautious when making decisions. But I also have the weaknesses such as

being fairly reserved and desiring the same response from others.

Radio Show Learning Reflection

 Radio Show Learning Reflection

Recently I've been working on creating a radio show segment with a group of people, Bill, Lachie and Stanley. For this radio show segment we had to pick a subject which we talk about and then interview relevant people about it. Our group chose to talk about Manukura's plans to change learning. Manukura is a boys leadership group here at Otaki College, and they are planning on changing learning by running a class which is more controlled by you. You can listen here. 

I think our group did very well as we all contributed where we could and with what we are good at. Though we could have practised speaking skills more, as some parts felt awkward or robotic. 

I also think I contributed well to the group, as I wrote most of the script and helped with other little things. Next time I could be more willing to change my ideas when others disagree. My communication skills improved a bit through this activity as I thought about others ideas more, though I don't think I thought about them enough.

This was an interesting activity for learning but I would have liked to have more time for our radio show. Because I felt that it we had to squash things together and rush some parts.

My first essay

 This is my boy in striped pyjamas essay.

In John Boyne's novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, an important relationship is the one between Bruno and Shmuel. This relationship helped me to understand a key message, which is to never judge a book by its cover. The boys first meet when Bruno decides to go exploring where he was told not to, when he then comes across “a dot that became a speck that became a blob that became a figure that became a boy.” From this, their relationship starts at asking each other some simple questions and being confused about the other's problem to being best friends who will make sacrifices for each other.

When Bruno first sees Shmuel he does judge him, thinking he’s really different and weird. “Bruno was sure that he had never seen a skinnier or sadder boy in his life but decided that he had better talk to him." But he ignores this and talks to Shmuel, asking questions and even coming back other days. When talking to Shmuel not once does Bruno let his prior judgement get in his way by bringing the problems up, but instead asks questions and learns why Shmuel is skinny and sad. This ends up with them becoming best friends and making each other's problems a little smaller.

At first, the relationship between Bruno and Shmuel is confusing as they both have so many questions about each other's lives: 

'Where did you come from?' asked Shmuel,... 

'Berlin.'

'Where's that?'... 

 'It's in Germany, of course,' he said. 'Don't you come from Germany?'

'No, I'm from Poland,' said Shmuel. 

This quote is from when they first met and kept asking questions. It shows that they don’t know anything about each other but still care about each other's views and stories as they have so many differences even though they are so similar. This showed me that the best thing to do when you meet someone new is to view them as equal to you, asking questions about them and being honest about yourself.

Later, the relationship  is now developing into them being friends even though their views are sometimes the complete opposite. A quote to show this is: 

'There aren't any good soldiers,' said Shmuel.

'Of course there are,' said Bruno.

'Who?'

'Well, Father, for one,' said Bruno …

'There aren't any good soldiers,' repeated Shmuel.

'Except Father,' repeated Bruno.

Here Bruno and Shmuel have completely opposite views of soldiers but end up agreeing to disagree. This quote shows they really care for each other and don’t mind if the other disagrees with them. This helped me understand that everyone can have different views and that even if your views or opinions are different you can still get along. 

At the end of the novel, we see that their relationship is now developed into them being best friends, making sacrifices for each other and forgiving each other. 

When they go exploring in the camp things take a drastic turn for the worse, but Bruno sticks by his friend, “You're my best friend, Shmuel…My best friend for life." It shows that they’re now best friends, even though not too long ago they were complete strangers, living completely different lives and facing different problems with only their age in common. From this, I understood that you don’t really need anything in common to get along with someone, you just need to listen and be honest to them.

Through the novel, the relationship between Bruno and Shmuel develops from strangers asking about each other's mysterious lives to best friends making sacrifices to help the other however they can. This happened due to them having no one else to talk to, so they spent as much time as possible talking to each other. This relationship helped me understand a key message in the novel, that you don’t need to judge someone from first impressions, but instead ask questions and find out about them. In my opinion, this novel has a great way of showing that you can go from enemies to best friends, as long as you don’t judge the other party on what you’ve been told about them, and instead on what you have learnt of and seen of them. It shows this by Bruno being raised to think of Jews as lower than him and that they are not human, while Shmuel was treated as lower than human most of his life so he hated the soldiers and others who treated him that way. But they end up becoming best friends because they didn’t judge each other on what they were told.