Without a Plan, Do You Think You Can? By Ani Pirinjian and Alyssa Ceccanti-Harris

We stare at the feathery red hat filled with fluttering slips of red and green, wondering whose names will be called. Chiara, one of our two previous bloggers, sticks her hand into that giant hat and pulls out a single green sheet of paper. She delivers the name of one of this week’s bloggers, “Ani!” Ani turns to Alyssa and says, “I hope you get picked too.” Now the hat travels to Ember, our other previous blogger. Ember grabs a red slip, and Alyssa is chosen. Ironic, Huh?

Planning and preparation are the first steps to success. Without any rough sketch of what is coming ahead, the result wouldn't turn out well. While planning, one must consider the outcome they are striving for. For example, take this very blog. Without planning, this blog would never be put into action. The two weeks of preparation for the bi-monthly post consists of looking for and making connections within the five MarinSEL classes, some academic, but also social. For example, academic connections connect the films we watch in our Geography class to the books we read in our English class. Social connections are the ones we notice not necessarily in school but throughout our days and we connect back to MarinSEL with everything we learn in each unit. Our chosen bloggers must be the eyes and ears of the academy. Throughout the week, the two bloggers must take copious notes explaining what occurred in each class. In addition, they meet several times before the week is over to discover connections within the five classes and to decide a theme for their blog of the week.  Next comes the Friday meeting with Ms. Leonhart to look over the notes taken and the connections made. You need a plan before starting anything, from simple school projects to lifetime opportunities.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were put on the spot and didn’t know what to do? Not only when the teacher randomly calls on you to answer the one homework problem you skipped, but in an emergency when someone needs help and you don’t know how to deliver? Well, our very own Mr. Garcia is preparing us for any possibility. This week the twenty-five of us began CPR training in our health class. We went through a presentation of what to do in such a situation and then practiced what we learned on dummies. Now, thanks to planning and preparation.  we are prepared for a possible emergency that could happen any time

There was much planning involved with character design in our English class, taught by Ms. Leonhart. The assignment was to create a character and write a short story based on the book we recently read, The Milagro Beanfield War. Each student developed his or her own kooky character and wrote about a single event that occurred in his or her life. Now we are working on refining our stories with multiple drafts. Keep in mind that what you planned originally will not always be the same as the final outcome.

The writing process is very similar to life. You start with one crappy draft where all you are doing is sharing your ideas with the world. Then you ask your peers to revise the piece you have put together. You take their revisions and improve your paper. Once you believe your paper is perfect you take it to your teacher and earn a grade worth hanging on the fridge, proud that you have a paper that can be as perfect as possible. In life, you plan a rough sketch of an event to start off. After experiencing it for the first time you ask others for their opinion and revise your ideas. After an updated plan for the event, the experience is much better the second time and you are living the highlife.

To some students, it may seem like teachers just give out homework and grade tests. However, teachers put the same effort, if not more, than students themselves into assignments, curriculum, and tests. For instance, in World Geography, Mr. Madsen planned out our entire food unit. We started the unit with a simple online activity and we will get into more depth as we continue learning about different aspects of food.

In Mr. Zargar’s Biology class we have been learning about genetics and the passing down of traits from parents to children. This class has showed us that planning is not just a major role in school and work, but in important life changing decisions as well. Learning about different aspects of yourself that you can pass down to your kids, from the good traits to the bad ones, really gets us teenagers imagining what our future will turn out to be.

All of these examples about the importance of planning can teach individuals important tools for living well. Our country’s leaders should also have a plan.  In our final MarinSEL class, seminar, we watched a film to wrap up our energy unit. The movie was called Kilowatt Our and it discussed current issues involving energy and our country's use of it. As a class, we focused on how our government should come up with an energy plan in the next couple years. If we don’t fix the energy crisis, the problem will grow to be gigantic until it is irreversible. Who knows, maybe one of us MarinSELers will be involved in the writing of this energy plan.

            Overall, we have learned that planning is a mandatory step in completing the actions one wishes to take. Without planning, even MarinSEL would not be possible. Think about it: if we did not plan our daily lives, then the world would just be one big jumble of confusion. Planning and preparation are how we figure out what we want to do in life, who we want to be, ,and most importantly how we want to live.