IFP – Conference Planning Reflection (LO1)

The IFP conference in Timor Leste is less than a week away now! I thought this would be the perfect time to reflect on the whole process so far. I am really proud of the day my group and I have planned together we have perfectly tuned the day to everyone’s strengths, for example, I have a ‘teaching’ segment because I am very extroverted and am able to hold people’s attention for that period of time whereas other team members are focusing more on guiding small groups through activities.

Going forward I am going to make sure I work on compromising on elements of the days itinerary because I have noticed I am usually reluctant to allow other people their turn in the spotlight. I also want to work on my organisation skills as there was a lot of work that should have been completed earlier in the process that my group and I are completing now.

IFP G11

I joined IFP with very little idea of what it was because it had been recommended by a friend of mine and it has been a really eyeopening experience. IFP is a global organisation spreading peacebuilding skills through conferences all around the world and if I stand out as a good facilitator I could be selected to run one of these conferences which would be incredible. My school has a clear peacebuilding narrative that forms an undertone in all of our classes however IFP became a class that explored this narrative and how and why it was so important which was really interesting as although it seems very clear cut, peace is good and violence is bad we learnt about exceptions and various scenarios and above all how to use empathy to patch up the conflict. All in all, even if I don’t get into a conference IFP has taught me some very valuable skills about resolving conflict which is sure to come in handy in the future!

RC3 – Viva Voce

When I began to gather my data for my EE I realised that with my current research question I wouldn’t generate enough data to effectively draw a conclusion. Therefore I edited it to compare the max lift to drag ratio produced against the camber of the aerofoil, thus factoring in the angle of attack creating a truer to life experiment. If I could further or repeat my experiment I would definitely consider different aerofoil shapes as I limited myself to the NACA 4 digit series but it would have been interesting to see if the relationship remained consistent across dramatically different wing shapes. I wouldn’t expect to find one relationship that works across all aerofoils but rather observe the differentiation between them and thus how important the camber is for each. I think I have used the most appropriate strategies I had access to as my simulations were highly accurate and I compared them against data from simulations used by engineers and physicists in this field, however, if I had access to a wind tunnel it would be very interesting to be able to compare my own experimental data against the theoretical data.

Interim Reflection (R2)

I encountered many problems when gathering my data as the CFD simulation I was relying on as a comparative device for my initial data source wasn’t compatible as my initial source didn’t have the same degree of flexibility in how I could manipulate my variables. This led to me attempting to find another CFD simulation which I achieved after a lot of research. Researching the different CFD simulations and methods to calculate the lift to drag ratio that will be my dependent variable in my investigation has definitely broadened my understanding of this topic, as before I hardly understood CFD software and how it operates or the different possible methods that different software use to gather the same data and the various strengths and weaknesses of these methods. I have chosen to consider how different variables interrelate within my EE question rather than comparing how one isolated variable affects another as this will lead to more realistic conclusions.

Grand Paradigms

Grand paradigms are essentially fundamental beliefs about what our purpose and place in the universe are. There are 3 Grand paradigms that dictated the purpose of humans and in turn the norms and values of the society at that time, these are the Classical Paradigm, Modern Paradigm and Post-Modern Paradigm. The classical paradigm states that humans are the centre of the universe and are placed there by God with their purpose being to worship him, in this paradigm it is believed that the only path towards truth is religion and therefore that religion is the most important knowledge as knowledge leads to truth. The Modern paradigm challenges this; it dictates that Science is the only path to truth and that human purpose is to discover and explore the universe, it also refutes the belief that humans were put there by God and that the universe is centred around them, instead supporting evolution as creating humans and making them superior beings to all others on Earth. This paradigm doesn’t forsake religion however but instead believes that the ability to reason is a gift from God and therefore its purpose and the purpose that he wanted for humankind is to use their ability to reason to discover and explore the universe and that reason is the path to truth rather than religion. The final paradigm is the Post-Modern paradigm and the one most people operate under nowadays, it states that humans were not created or placed on Earth by some superior being but are rather evolutionary accidents and just one of the billions of species on Earth and were not given any abilities as gifts from God but rather just through the evolutionary process. It also takes an entirely anti-religion stance believing that there is no God or superior being at all and that there is no path to Truth, disagreeing with both the modern and classical paradigm.

As I had mentioned in my previous posts paradigms act as axioms that form the foundation that our experiences and education build upon to form our outlook and stance on events. When we look back through history it is clear to see how the paradigms have affected society as a whole’s outlook and value system, it is generally thought the further back in time you go the more religious societies were which clearly aligns with the classical paradigm which states that human’s purpose is to worship through religion and in many religions it clearly states that worship is the path to enlightenment which can be taken to mean Truth. This is supported by the fact that today’s society which operates largely under the post-modern paradigm is the least religious and features many different value systems as there is no path to Truth dictated and so people create their own paths and live their lives more freely in comparison to those who have given themselves a path to follow and base their life off of.

Conceptual Understanding on Paradigms

Paradigms act as axioms for our perception and interpretation of everything surrounding us.

A paradigm is essentially a model that dictates the way we interpret our surroundings, like a foundation for our experiences, values and beliefs to grow from. Much like how in maths there are initial axioms such as 1*a=a and from these we can build rules and formulae that allow us to tackle far more complex problems yet the foundation is always in the simple typically well-known axioms. In psychology paradigms are studied under a different name, they are referred to as schema and are defined as mental maps some of which are inherited with our culture and religion and others that are developed over time due to our upbringing, education and personal experiences. A key discovery is that when we have witnessed something that aligns with one of our many schema we tend to give it undue importance and view it as far more solid and irrefutable evidence that our paradigms/schema are correct than it truly is, through this process we strengthen our resolve in our paradigm and are more certain of its accuracy leading to more well-established stereotypes and viewpoints. However we also tended to ignore or disregard evidence that wasn’t in accordance with our paradigms and didn’t align with our schema, this led to what in many cases was a fact or an occurrence being disregarded as fake or unfounded when in truth there was nothing inaccurate about it. The former discovery was present in the film we watched during the first day of school 12 Angry Men, there was a man who clearly had racist views but he saw the fact that the boy was coloured as evidence that proved he had definitely committed patricide as it aligned with his paradigm that coloured people were wild and violent although it was unfounded and his skin colour did not prove or disprove his involvement in the crime.

An example in my life where there has been an argument based off of a paradigm which I didn’t see initially is my mother and I arguing about whether or not I should take a gap year. I believed I should and that there is no harm in it as it allows me more time to figure out what exactly I want to study and gain some work experience as well as reobtain my British passport so I don’t have to pay international fees. However, my mother has a paradigm where taking a gap year will cause people to fall out of the studying rhythm and that they will never go to university causing them to be disadvantaged. My mother’s paradigm was based on negative experiences her friends and her sister had after taking a gap year or long break in their studies, however, this wasn’t known to me during the argument and if it had been the conversation may have gone differently. The conflicting element was that both of our paradigms were formed on the experiences people have had on gap years yet the ones I had encountered were largely positive and the ones my mother had encountered were largely negative.

2 CUs on perception

Our perception is how we interpret the world however it is not necessarily an accurate interpretation of our surroundings.

Optical illusions are a very common trick to see all around us and we usually don’t think very much of them other than woah that was weird, however they illustrate a very important concept that what we see is not necessarily the same as what we interpret of it and that these interpretations are not universal. For example, in the presentation about perception we saw an optical illusion where you either saw an image of a young woman or one of an old woman and after you saw both it became very easy to switch between them. Initially, people only saw one or the other image which shows how they interpreted the same drawing in different ways, which became especially interesting when we discovered that the students tended to see a young woman whereas the teachers tended to see an old woman because of the age difference between the two groups of people. This can have very important real-life impacts as people see the same scenario but can interpret it in very different way switch can be why in many court cases we get conflicting witness testimonies as everyone is seeing life through their perspective which is a lens that affects what we perceive our surroundings and events to be. This shows that if we all don’t interpret our surroundings in the same ways some interpretations must be inaccurate as there is only one ‘true’ version there aren’t different ‘truths’ depending on who percieved the action and their interpretation of it.

Our perception is an explanation of our surroundings based on what we place importance on.

We don’t register everything in our surrounding as we deem it unimportant and focus our attention and energy on the more meaningful things happening around us e.g. in a classroom setting you usually don’t register the noise of the AC or the feeling of your feet on the floor as you’re focused on what the teacher is saying/doing rather than these other factors. However, just because you don’t register the AC or your feet on the floor does not mean they are not part of your surroundings but they are insignificant as they are unimportant in comparison to the other things happening around you such as the teacher teaching. Therefore they don’t play a role in your brains explanation of what is happening or happened during that class as they are unnecessary and irrelevant details. Another example of this could be in the videos we watched in class where we were focused on counting the number of throws between people in a certain colour shirt (white or black) so we gave the most importance to this task in the video and our brains disregarded any other information that didn’t seem useful or needed to effectively complete this task. For example, until it was expressly pointed out some people didn’t see a gorilla enter the frame however most noticed when one of the people left as they were given importance because they are catching and throwing the ball. As we were focused on the people and what is moving in the frame the gorilla wasn’t disregarded by everyone’s perception however elements that had no impact on the passing of the ball such as the curtain gradually changing colour was missed by everyone. This means that our brains created an explanation of the video which didn’t involve the curtain changing as that wasn’t given importance as it had no bearing on the task we were focused on completing.

R1

I have always been interested in aviation specifically fighter jets and the physics surrounding them and was a member of the RAF Cadets when I lived in London, which is why I chose to write my EE on the topic of aerodynamics. I chose to manipulate the wing form as this brings in D.T. another subject I have a lot of interest in. Due to my time at RAF Cadets I already have good foundational knowledge on aerodynamics and all my further research has been building on that which has definitely made tackling this very complex area of study easier. The biggest struggle so far would be working out the intricacies of my experiment as I’m using a wind tunnel and haven’t worked with one before which has made the experiment in my EE far more challenging, however, it has been enjoyable learning how to operate new apparatus and combining my two favourite subjects and an area of interest.

MUAY THAI – 2nd Reflection

I have been boxing for almost a year now and although I have been actively trying to avoid my academic life and active life colliding my schedule has left little to no time for boxing towards the end of Grade 11 although I do still go for 3 hours a week (Mon, Wed, Thu) I had hoped to be going far more often and to be engaging in two hour sessions to test my stamina and allow me to reach the next level quicker. I am also afraid that at the beginning of Grade 12 as my workload increases boxing will have to take a back seat however I intend to do everything I can to prevent this and will still set outside a guaranteed 3 hours a week to box no matter what is happening in school. This clash between my activities and my academics had actually improved my planning skills as now to ease my workload throughout the week and free up time to box I am far more productive over the weekend (which also means less last-minute homework), which reduces my stress levels on its own as I’m not staying up late at night writing essays or IAs as often now.

I don’t want to compromise on my boxing too much as I do ultimately want to pick up a second Martial Art (my 3rd in total) at my gym so that I can begin my MMA training as I do not yet know a ground Martial Art so I was considering Brazillian Jiu Jitsu but I am afraid that there will not be enough time to achieve this as I am struggling to find time to practice one discipline, scheduling a second and extra session for my MMA training could negatively impact my Academic Career as I will have far less free time to complete any work set.

Initiative for Peace Conference – 1 MONTH TO GO!!

This year I joined my school’s IFP Program and after working really hard throughout the initial 6 months (this is where the teachers evaluate you and your commitment and later use this information to select the conference facilitators) and making a conscious effort to participate more in debates and expand my social circle to help enhance my collaborative and communicative skills, I was selected for the Timor Leste Conference (my first choice).

I have been so excited to work on this trip and it has been a very unique experience for me as when we began this was the first CAS experience I had ever planned myself (project week hadn’t yet formally began) and I had never attended a formal conference myself before joining IFP. This meant that I had a lot to learn about structure tone and the types of activities that we would be working on especially as this IFP conference has been running for a few years in Timor Leste so future delegates already have expectations and preconceived notions about the type of content, activities etc. However despite how overwhelming the blank 7-day timetable looked to the group and me, we began dividing it up into daily themes and the logistical duties (organising the delegates in rooms, creating a booklet, cultural evening etc.) were also divided into groups of 4-6 people (across both East and Dover). Breaking this down into smaller chunks made the whole conference suddenly seem a lot more manageable as instead of a week I was now responsible for only a day and a half (although all facilitators assist on all days).

My one definite area of improvement in terms of planning for this conference would be my communication with Dover which is a key component of collaboration as this is a joint-campus project however we only see each other approximately once every 2 months and our schedules rarely line up (their project week and internal exams are at different times to ours so we end up missing two sessions for every event etc.). We definitely need to open a steady stream of communication especially at this critical stage as we are no longer brainstorming but rather filling in the schedule and gathering what we need to run the decided activities, we must ensure that we take everything we need to Timor as we won’t have as much as a wifi connection there so improvising activities on the spot and trying to create last-minute resources will be increasingly difficult there.