The Power of Relationships - Unit Self-Assessment
Reflect on the activities you in engaged in during our unit addressing The Power of Relationships. Demonstrate your investment in the experience by addressing the following prompt in a Google doc titled POR Self-Assessment, and share with Mrs. Trentanelli at [email protected] in class today.
SELF ASSESSMENT Evaluate your progress on the objective Engage in effective civic participation by identifying problems/dilemmas, proposing appropriate solutions, formulating action plans, and assessing the positive and negative results of actions taken. Use evidence from your work in this unit, as well as cited classroom resources, to support your self-assessment. Reference the proficiency expectations below for more information. |
YOU will be assessing your own progress on:
Engage in effective civic participation by identifying problems/dilemmas, proposing appropriate solutions, formulating action plans, and assessing the positive and negative results of actions taken. A student that is considered PROFICIENT will...
Also, consider offering specific suggestions to refine/revise/extend the unit, especially our experiences with senior citizens at the Madison Senior Center, in the PSL classroom, and at the Lantern of Madison. |
WE will be assessing your progress on:
Write arguments and Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English when writing. A student that is considered PROFICIENT will...
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Sample PROFICIENT Response
Everyday around me, there is a silent killer that so few people are aware of. I wasn’t even aware of the epidemic prevalent in my town, country, and across the world. This terrible plague targets one specific group of people, and it affects just about everyone in that group. As documented in a recent article from The Harvard Business Review, there is an outbreak of loneliness across the world, and while no age groups are immune, the elderly are especially susceptible. Some elders live alone without family around or caretakers and they can go weeks at a time without seeing anyone. Elders in nursing homes are often neglected or abused, but as soon as they cry for help, they are seen as crotchety and grouchy. The leading cause of loneliness is not the fault of the elders, rather it is the fault of everyone else for failing to understand. Like Ana May Halgrim Seaver alluded to in her reflection "My World Now," old people are not stupid; rather the polar opposite is true. Elders are the wisest generation alive right now, as they have the most life experience and as death looms over them, everything is put into a new perspective and they can focus on what truly matters.
At first, I was quite apprehensive to visit the Lantern of Madison, as I feared I would have to scream simple questions to a hard-of-hearing, dim-witted old lady and use the little information I wrung out of her to slap on a slide show for a few points. I fell into the trap of the “single story” of what I thought an old person was, because when I met Janet Rigby, I realized she was a teenager trapped in a failing body. She loves heavy-metal, she was daring and careless (she stole her dad’s car and went 138 mph on Bacon Road!) just like so many other people my age. It was easy to stay engaged with her as she clearly wasn’t stupid and really enjoyed talking to [my classmate] and I. The thing that surprised me the most was that she seemed to have a lot of respect for my generation, as she was very impressed by the paths that [my classmate] and I are choosing to follow after school and was delighted by our seemingly bright futures.
My experiences at The Lantern were not unlike those of Mitch Albom and Morrie Schwartz in Tuesdays With Morrie. On their second Tuesday together, Morrie reveals to Mitch that, "I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all of the good things still in my life" (Albom 57). There were moments during our conversations where Janet appeared frustrated and sad about her current challenges. But just like Morrie, she re-focused her attention, and our conversation, on both what she was still highly capable of, and the incredible experiences she had during her youth.
After visiting the Lantern, I don’t want my relationship with the elderly to end. The hardest, yet most simple solution to end the loneliness epidemic is to change the way I think about the elderly. They are wise, intelligent, and young at heart. Dementia and Alzheimers are simply mental illnesses, which is just as far out of their control as the flu or a cold. Another step I’m willing to take is to continue visiting the Lantern, and talk to Janet more and possibly meet new people, as this could help ease the level of loneliness they are experiencing, and I could gain a lifetime of knowledge from them.
Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie: an Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson. Broadway Books, 2002.
Seaver, Ana May Halgrim. “My World Now.” Newsweek, Newsweek, 13 Mar. 2010, https://www.newsweek.com/my-world-now-189256.
“Work and the Loneliness Epidemic.” Harvard Business Review, 5 Sept. 2018, https://hbr.org/cover-story/2017/09/work-and-the-loneliness-epidemic.
Everyday around me, there is a silent killer that so few people are aware of. I wasn’t even aware of the epidemic prevalent in my town, country, and across the world. This terrible plague targets one specific group of people, and it affects just about everyone in that group. As documented in a recent article from The Harvard Business Review, there is an outbreak of loneliness across the world, and while no age groups are immune, the elderly are especially susceptible. Some elders live alone without family around or caretakers and they can go weeks at a time without seeing anyone. Elders in nursing homes are often neglected or abused, but as soon as they cry for help, they are seen as crotchety and grouchy. The leading cause of loneliness is not the fault of the elders, rather it is the fault of everyone else for failing to understand. Like Ana May Halgrim Seaver alluded to in her reflection "My World Now," old people are not stupid; rather the polar opposite is true. Elders are the wisest generation alive right now, as they have the most life experience and as death looms over them, everything is put into a new perspective and they can focus on what truly matters.
At first, I was quite apprehensive to visit the Lantern of Madison, as I feared I would have to scream simple questions to a hard-of-hearing, dim-witted old lady and use the little information I wrung out of her to slap on a slide show for a few points. I fell into the trap of the “single story” of what I thought an old person was, because when I met Janet Rigby, I realized she was a teenager trapped in a failing body. She loves heavy-metal, she was daring and careless (she stole her dad’s car and went 138 mph on Bacon Road!) just like so many other people my age. It was easy to stay engaged with her as she clearly wasn’t stupid and really enjoyed talking to [my classmate] and I. The thing that surprised me the most was that she seemed to have a lot of respect for my generation, as she was very impressed by the paths that [my classmate] and I are choosing to follow after school and was delighted by our seemingly bright futures.
My experiences at The Lantern were not unlike those of Mitch Albom and Morrie Schwartz in Tuesdays With Morrie. On their second Tuesday together, Morrie reveals to Mitch that, "I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all of the good things still in my life" (Albom 57). There were moments during our conversations where Janet appeared frustrated and sad about her current challenges. But just like Morrie, she re-focused her attention, and our conversation, on both what she was still highly capable of, and the incredible experiences she had during her youth.
After visiting the Lantern, I don’t want my relationship with the elderly to end. The hardest, yet most simple solution to end the loneliness epidemic is to change the way I think about the elderly. They are wise, intelligent, and young at heart. Dementia and Alzheimers are simply mental illnesses, which is just as far out of their control as the flu or a cold. Another step I’m willing to take is to continue visiting the Lantern, and talk to Janet more and possibly meet new people, as this could help ease the level of loneliness they are experiencing, and I could gain a lifetime of knowledge from them.
Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie: an Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson. Broadway Books, 2002.
Seaver, Ana May Halgrim. “My World Now.” Newsweek, Newsweek, 13 Mar. 2010, https://www.newsweek.com/my-world-now-189256.
“Work and the Loneliness Epidemic.” Harvard Business Review, 5 Sept. 2018, https://hbr.org/cover-story/2017/09/work-and-the-loneliness-epidemic.
Sample NOT MET Response
The problem I identified in this unit was the lack of communication and relation between people in general, giving way to loneliness. Specifically in my experience, the elderly. It was decided that we would spend time with these people from the Lanturn retirement home, creating a memory booklet for individuals there. After the initial get together, we would visit them for an interview conversation about their lives. I personally was not present for the day of the interviewing, so I don’t have that experience. Next, we took a class to compile the information of each person that was interviewed into individual booklets. I handled education portion of Jim's booklet, being mostly where his education was. Finally, we took one more visit. This time my group presented our booklet to Jim. All in all, the experience was positive and I hope that happiness was exchanged that day. If there was something bad about my experience, it would be that I didn’t get to visit for the interview day.
The problem I identified in this unit was the lack of communication and relation between people in general, giving way to loneliness. Specifically in my experience, the elderly. It was decided that we would spend time with these people from the Lanturn retirement home, creating a memory booklet for individuals there. After the initial get together, we would visit them for an interview conversation about their lives. I personally was not present for the day of the interviewing, so I don’t have that experience. Next, we took a class to compile the information of each person that was interviewed into individual booklets. I handled education portion of Jim's booklet, being mostly where his education was. Finally, we took one more visit. This time my group presented our booklet to Jim. All in all, the experience was positive and I hope that happiness was exchanged that day. If there was something bad about my experience, it would be that I didn’t get to visit for the interview day.