Mission Topic, Purpose, and Hypothesis
Our mission is George Washington Middle School(GWMS) Photography Team. The purpose of our mission is to attain funds from an organization in order to start a photography team. Our hypothesis is that if we take pictures of a variety of students working and show the hard work done by the students at GWMS, people will start to notice and see that kids at this school actually have a future and that the teachers work hard to help them achieve their goals. Our project means a lot to us because not only are we making a difference in our school, but a difference in our community.
Real World Skills I’ve Learned
Three real world skills I’ve learned through this process are professionalism, communication skills, and problem-solving. By professionalism, I mean that there is a way to present yourself and show who you really are. Showing who you really are is showing what you can do when you’re put in the spotlight. Whatever you may do at home or in your personal life should stay in your personal life. You could be an entirely different person when you leave a professional environment, but as long as you leave your personal life and your profession separate, you will be okay. By communication skills, I mean that there are certain things that you should and should not say to anyone, not just someone in a professional position. For example, I was just about to promise someone something in this project when my teacher read it and stopped me before I got myself intro something that I didn’t know I was getting myself into. Communication skills should not only be used with people in a professional position, but with all people in general. You shouldn’t be rude to someone just because they’re not your mom, dad, teacher, or employer. Be kind to the people that don’t ask for respect but still deserve it. By problem-solving, I mean that when you are facing a problem, don’t immediately go call someone to help. People have their own problems. First, try to move to a solution on your own instead of focusing on the negative. Your parents are not always going to be there to help you with everything. I can use these skills outside of the classroom to get where I want to go in life.
Challenges We/I Encountered
Three challenges we encountered are finding someone to contact, keeping in touch outside of school, and answering some of the questions that would be easiest for the teacher to answer. Finding someone to contact was the first part of the project. We needed to find someone to help us start our photography club and we couldn’t do it without financing and support. We soon found the Alexandria Photography Club and their president decided to help us. Once they decided to help us, we needed to work on progressing in order to accomplish our mission and keep our sponsor. We would have to keep in touch outside of school so that they wouldn’t be waiting for long periods of time over weekends and breaks. Spring Break was a real problem. Spring Break came upon us in the middle of communicating with our sponsor and Spring Break is a time to relax and let your mind wander. Another problem was answering some of the questions that the Alexandria Photography Club would need answered. We would have to try as best we could to accomplish this mission with the least amount of help from the teacher as possible. We have accomplished a big part of our mission so far, however there is still much more to come.
Solutions We Tried Out
Some solutions we tried to overcome our challenges were searching smaller, more detailed subjects in order to find a sponsor, notifying our sponsor about breaks and when we would be able to contact them, and brainstorming together to think about what we wanted to do and how we wanted to handle the hard things. We’ve discovered that if we work together and support each other, we will be able to accomplish more and quicker. We’ve worked as a team to get the big things done and communicated well with each other and our sponsor in order to get to the point that we’re at now in our mission. Our solutions have worked, we have been problem-solvers, and our mission has advanced to the point where we know exactly where we’re headed and we have the rest of our mission planned out.
Next Steps
Next, we need to get these cameras up and running, gather people to join the photography club, and find a teacher sponsor. We have specific dates to have these goals accomplished. We will do this by getting the word out around the school about our photography club and asking people to join and help us make George Washington Middle School a better place.
Favorite Part of the Process
My favorite part of the process was communicating with the sponsor. It’s such a big feeling when we accomplish what we want to accomplish. It makes you feel like you can make a difference in the world when you get things like this done. We hope that we can get people to join our club and help us give GWMS a better reputation.