Kimball Khetani

Ms. Wade

English 9

October 20, 2019

Connecting Adam Aronovitz’s Activity to the Odyssey

     Life begins at the end of you comfort zone

- Unknown

    When I walked into the library and saw paper, scissors and tissue paper, I thought that the activity was going to be a little childish. When we got started I was confused with the directions because he gave us a totally random country, and we had to make resources out of the material we had and try to give it to the other country. The two countries were Minia and Maro.

    As Maro, our country got to work and made some schools and houses with the paper. We went over to the other country to try to give it to them the schools and houses but they would not accept them. We tried making some more things to bring them, but they still said no. We finally gave up and came to the conclusion that Minia was very arrogant because they didn’t think that we could make what they want. At the end of the activity we all came together to talk about what went well and what went bad. And I don’t think that anyone said anything that went well. The main thing that everyone from Minia said was bad was that we were trying to give them stuff that they didn’t want and maybe if we had let them explain what they needed then it could've gone better and everyone would be happy. 

    During the activity I also noticed that Maro had virtue. We were always trying to give Minia what we thought they wanted. We found all sorts of things to make out the origami and tissue paper. We made money, houses, schools, transportation, water and fields. Maro attempted to give all of those items away but we never considered asking what they might have wanted. 

    Adam showed a lot of metis coming up with this activity. It was interesting how he kind of set us up to fail and disagree with each other. When we were not succeeding in what we wanted to do, we didn’t realize what we should’ve been doing better. I found it cool that when we all came together to talk about how the Minia and Maro could’ve taken a different approach in which we all agreed with and found the reasoning to our failure. 

    Overall, this activity was really cool. I really liked the activity and talking about it at the end. Adam did a great job explaining and executing the activity.

Enjoying The Ninth Grade

Making The Ninth Grade More Enjoyable

Enjoyment is an incredible energizer to the human spirt

- John C. Maxwell

    Excitement is one of the many things that boys are looking for at this age. As fourteen year old boys we need to be moving around and we can’t be just going to class everyday. We are all worried about applying for schools and writing essays, taking the ssats, having conversations with our parents, and interviewing. We are so stressed out that we need to have the time and ability to relax and chill.

    I think that we should be able to have more senior time at the Boonisars house. After a long day of hard work and sitting in class for a long time, we should be able to have fun, hang out and do whatever we want. I think that on Fridays after lunch we should have senior time instead of study hall. At the end of the week I want to just be excited for the weekend. We should have the senior tie on Fridays from two until three that way everyone is calmed down and they know that after lunch they can relax, have fun, hang out with their friends, go to sports, and then have a great weekend.

    I also think that we should meet with our committees more often. Meeting with committees is a fun time to hang out and talk about how you can accomplish your committee goals for the year. Talking with your committee group is a great way to develop your teamwork skills and expand your thinking skills by coming up with new ideas.

    Another thing that would be great is if in the schedule, we had more study halls. In the seven day rotation I only have one study hall during the day. Last year I had two and we were in eighth grade. This year in ninth grade we have lots more homework but less study hall time. I think that Fenn should change that.

Fenn is a great school, community, and place to be during the day. But there are some changes that could be made. Having more senior time, more study halls during the day, and meeting with the committees more often would make the ninth graders life some much more manageable considering the amount of work we have to do with all the secondary school stuff and even just homework. Overall, the ninth grade is a time for us to be leaders, work hard to get into secondary schools, but we also need time to relax and live a little.