Core Competency Reflection

Personal Awareness & Responsibility

Strengths:
1. I can express my needs and seek help when needed.

Having the skill of mathematical reasoning is one of my weakest points; even so, chemistry
is also one of my weakest points. The memorization and applying math to this course, especially
when it's an IB course, made it much more intensive. I was starting at a 3 (around 70%) at the
beginning of the year and found it very hard to keep up with the class; other subjects and work
were making it hard to get satisfying scores. It got to the point where I felt that I was going to
end up with a very poor mark. It ended up with me asking for help from friends and a tutor,
which I had not had before. When I asked for help from a tutor, it helped me get a satisfying
score of 5 (86%). Being able to get a much better score after getting help from someone who is
knowledgeable in that field makes it helpful to get help when in need from an academic or
personal standpoint.

2. I take personal responsibility for my choices and actions.

When it comes down to my choices and actions, I make sure to take responsibility for them,
no matter what. An example of this is when I worked very briefly as a host at a breakfast and
lunch restaurant. When I made a mistake in placing someone at the wrong table, I apologized
and took responsibility for accidentally overplacing more people on one side of the place;
fortunately, they did not get very angry at me as it was my first day on the job. Although it was
my first job, I did quit due to the unprofessionalism presented at the diner, but it did teach me
more about not being afraid to take the blame for my actions.

Improvement:

1. I use a variety of strategies to manage my personal well being.

My personal well-being is important to me and something I value. It was something I

prioritized, but at times I have trouble coming up with ways to maintain and check in on myself.
I had trouble maintaining my well-being in a physical sense. During the summer, I injured my
body by pulling my neck and shoulder muscles, making it hard to fall asleep due to the pain.
This led me to go to a chiropractor and adjust. Instead of letting myself heal and taking a break
from working out at the gym, I decided after a couple days to go back to exercising, injuring
myself more. I finally decided to take a rest until I fully healed.
Social Responsibility

Strengths:

1. I can Identify and appreciate different perspectives on issues and use and evaluate
strategies to resolve problems.

When there are issues that my friends have with each other, I tend to hear from a different
perspective. I listen to both sides of a situation before coming up with my own. This example
comes from when two people I knew were having trouble with their relationship and one of
them came to me for advice. The first step I took was to listen to their side of the story first, and
then I would listen to the other person's perspective without bias. I would evaluate how to
resolve the issues by listening to both sides and coming up with a good solution. This helped me
realize my strength of being able to see different perspectives instead of jumping to conclusions
to settle out complications.

2. I value diversity, defend human rights, advocate for others, and act ethically in all my
interactions, including online.

Respect is one of the most important things to have, not just for myself but also for others.
When it comes to respect, I respect people no matter what the cause is—religion, race,
sexuality, or age—because that is what I value in others. Online or offline, I make sure to act
ethically so they will not be attacked; instead, they will feel welcomed and admired. An
example of this can be when I used to play games online with one of my friends, but they
started to become more hostile to people, becoming rude and weren’t exactly acting like they
should. I consoled them about this; they would slowly become much friendlier and advocate for
others in the end.

Improvement:

1. I am aware of my community and environment and work independently and

collaboratively for the benefit of others.
Although I try to do my best at working and collaboratively for the benefit of others, I find it
troubling at times. When it comes to being aware of my community, I am not the best at being
able to keep up with it in a sense as I am not completely familiar with everything happening
around me. What I want to improve in is my community awareness and being able to
understand any situation that is occurring around me.

Critical Thinking
Strengths:
1. I can analyze and make defensible judgements, draw conclusions, and consider a variety
of perspectives.
 During my geography classes, I have learnt to draw conclusions and consider different
perspectives due to writing many essay papers. I would write essays where I would have to
consider different sides to an argument and write about both, how it may be positive or
negative. This resulted with me being able to come up with conclusions that wont sound too
one sided, but instead one where I will be able to give information. This also helped with me
being able to come up with justifiable statements about a topic I may be having where there is
more than a yes or no answer to discussion.
2. I can ask good quality questions, gather relevant information, and come up with well
developed conclusions.
When conducting research, I gather evidence to support my claims and arguments. For
example, in one of my social studies research papers, I wrote an essay about the prejudice that
Japanese people endured during World War II. I conducted thorough research on this subject,
only consulting sources that had a direct impact on my interests. This thorough approach to
information sourcing not only increases the credibility of my work but also guarantees that my
analysis is based on a thorough comprehension of the subject, leading to a more compelling
and convincing presentation of ideas. This research strategy also enables me to provide readers
a more nuanced view of the historical experiences of Japanese people during that turbulent
time.
Improvement:
1. I can explore and create new ways to represent my learning around a variety of
problems, events, issues, and needs.
Although I can present ideas, it is much more difficult for me to come up with ways to
represent my learning through a different variety of instances. When it comes down to this, I
tend to have a tough time and it takes a long range of that to come up with anything, which I
feel is an improvement I can try to work on as I feel it is lacking in some instances. During my
grade 10 year I had to come up with a project about indigenous peoples and how they have
suffered, but I was lacking in coming up with a way to showcase it, which was a struggle for me.

Creative Thinking
Strengths:
1. I can use the environment around me, including others, and my unconscious mind to
generate new ideas.
In my grade 9 year, during art class I was assigned to make a project out of anything that we
had learnt from the past year. I decided to use oil pastels to create a painting where a man is
playing the piano using different dark colours such as purple, blue, and black. I was able to
create this by thinking for a little and thought about my experiences, playing piano as a kid. This
example demonstrates me using my unconscious mind to generate new ideas.
 2. I can persevere and understand that failure can be productive.
When I first started playing the guitar, I had trouble with how to play, I was constantly not
being able to play chords how I wanted it to. I knew that it took patience and perseverance to
get better. After a month of failing, I was able to be more productive and get the hang of playing
chords. This example helped me understand the importance of perseverance and understanding
failure is the key to success.
Improvement:
1. I can take my ideas, evaluate, develop, and refine them and make something productive
out of them.

Being able to refine an idea is something I feel I lack and something I feel can be improved.
Being able to create a product out of my ideas is what I feel I can improve on, and this is
because I find it hard. An example of this is when I was in French class, and we had to come up
with a board game. I found it difficult to refine my idea and be able to advance in it more;
therefore, it took me a while to further improve how it was made.

Communication
Strengths:
1. I can listen to contribute meaningfully to discussion and debate, consider different
perspectives, and build consensus.
When it comes to listening, I feel I excel in this category during discussions as I try to build a
consensus or argument to further support my side. I listen to different perspectives to help
myself understand something, such as during a “court case” in grade 10 in social studies. We
had to build up a case and I was able to do this by listening to the opposing side, further
building up my argument and winning at the end.
2. I can work with other students to plan, inquire, and solve problems.
During my French class of last year, we had to come up with a video to help demonstrate what
we learned about in groups. I was able to plan and solve problems such as who would play
which role and speak. I was able to work with other fellow students to help solve any issues
which were present such as translation and planning to make the video.
Improvement:
1. I can reflect on the processes of learning and share what I have learned.

Reflections at the end of my classes for subjects such as English are quite tough for me to
write. When it comes down to this, I try to improve on how to write about better reflections,
but it takes a while for me to start writing as I find it difficult to reflect and process what was
taught during the semester and/or year in which I attended class.

Personal & Cultural Identity

Strengths:
1. I understand that culture is a broad concept that includes things like my geographic
region, nationality, sex/gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, language, and religion.

I see this as a strength for myself because I feel that the things listed above are genuinely
broad topics that take a lot of research to understand because of how difficult they are to
understand sometimes. Things like these are a broad concept for culture to be a thing, but they
nonetheless create culture in our community.

2. I understand how what I value had and will shape my choices.

I value many things in my life, but my main values are family, faith, and respect. These
values help me shape my choices, such as how I treat people. My respect for people is equal to
everyone, as I believe everyone deserves the same amount of equal respect. My family and
faith are interconnected, as they make me who I am, whether it be my extended family, being
faithful to my religion, or people.

Improvement:

1. I know my strengths and what makes me unique.

Knowing my strengths is what I feel is what may need the most improvement of all. Creating
this list was genuinely tough, as it was difficult for me to think if I have any strengths in this
category. Assignments or questions where they ask me to list any of my strengths are what I
need to improve the most and be able to list them due to my difficulty in this part about
knowing myself.