​Anjali Phadke's P​ortfolio

 

At the Dayton Regional STEM School, the five qualities are a main staple of our learning. Communication, a widely used quality, has never been used to talk to professionals outside of school, until now. In this ninth grade year, my greatest growth has been communicating with a “stranger” outside of my comfort zone as well as being able to clearly communicate my thoughts in an email or a piece of writing. As a 14 year old teenager, I wouldn’t categorize myself as the best communicator. My parents tell me this all the time. Sometimes, with texting, my main point gets muddled when read by the other person. My sarcasm may get the best of me, and all in all, let’s just say I am not a world class communicator. When I learned about the location aspect of this project, I was very much overwhelmed by the fact that I, a “world class communicator” would have to talk to someone else, about something that I wanted to have. I am not usually accustomed to this. I have never really talked to a professional about something that I wanted before, it was usually the opposite. I think that the “stranger” that I did talk to, really helped with my communication skills, but also my knowledge.

 

The first person that I talked to was Angela Mason, Dorothy Stang’s niece (Dorothy Stang was the person that my partner and I were trying to make a marker for.) Regarding the marker, The Ohio Historical Marker Project celebrates important figures in history, specifically, history in Ohio. Markers are made to show the importance of figures, and are a recognition to them. The actual marker is put in a place that is related to the figure. The markers could be put in schools, parks, or any other public or private land. Regarding the timeline, all I knew about Dorothy Stang, was that she did “stuff” in Brazil during the time women’s rights were going on. I guess I had some interest in the subject, although I was really more interested in learning about how Dorothy Stang overcome these problems. With the knowledge that I gained from both Angela Mason and Dan Meixner, I was able to learn about some of the things that Dorothy Stang went through.

 

Throughout this project, I feel like I have really changed as a person. Not only with communication, but with stress as well. Since my communication skills were not the best, I tried to rely on my partner Chloe for a little while. When we made the scripts for our phone calls/ emails, I let Chloe help, at first. After the first call with Angela Mason, my partner threw me under the bus. She knew that I was having trouble with all of this, and I really thank her for doing what she did. She made me realize that there is no problem talking to a person and asking that person about something that you want. She told me that I could take over. With her being the master at communication, I knew she wanted to help me be my best at that skill.

 

Throughout this whole process, I have come to understand that life will come with problems, and sometimes, communicating the problem will really help the situation. Also, as a bonus, I learned a lot more about how Dorothy Stang truly was an inspirational person who looked at how unfairly women were treated and decided that she could do whatever she wanted to do. She was unbridled.

 

One of the main ways I really got out of my shell in communication was emailing/leaving messages for Mrs. Angela Mason. This was towards the beginning, the research stage of the project. I think one endeavor that really helped me grow, was writing the scripts for the actual email/ phone call. Our teacher made us write scripts before we communicated with others. For one, he may not have wanted us to say “like” or “umm” a million times and communicate unprofessionally with potential partners of our project. Or, he just wanted us to feel prepared. Either way, making a script was really hard at first. Since I didn’t really know the person, I couldn’t really know what to say. So, like I said before, I let Chloe help at first. I mean, we both collaborated on all parts of this project, but at that specific time, I felt a little useless. So when I helped write the script when we were talking to Dan Meixner, I really tried to get out of my shell and really communicate with the other person. I tried to be as professional as I could, and I think it really paid off. Also, with writing the script for Angela Mason, the information that she gave us really helped me understand The Experience of Women, a little bit better.

 

Now, at DRSS, project based learning is something that really helps me learn. I am not just saying this because I don’t like tests, I am saying this because projects are an important staple to the culture of the school. The scripts play into all of this because the scripts show that DRSS is a professional school that really helps its students learn. The process of this script was to basically write what you thought. When I knew I was making a call, I could be a little less professional since I was talking. So, we wrote our script. Then, our teacher looked over the script and made corrections or told us if there was an error or told us if there was anything we were missing. The final product in this case, was the actual email or phone call that we made with the “strangers.”

The script was pretty much the end part of this project. At the beginning of the year, we first started with learning about the experience of women. This was the first step in this whole endeavor. Then, we looked at the experience of African Americans. All of this helps the project because all of our research figures are either African American, women, or both. Then, we looked about the whole process of Markers. We looked at the qualifications to create one. We looked at statistics and facts about the marker, basically dissecting the process and finding all the information about it. After this, we looked at women with Historical Markers in Ohio. We researched about them and their life based on the information from the marker text. Then, we basically had the same process except we looked at African Americans with markers. Then came our marker selection. Basically, we answered a survey talking about the three people we don’t want to work with and the three people we do want to work with. The next step was actually choosing our subject. Beforehand, our teacher told us to have a list of 10 people we would possibly want to research. Then, at a certain time, it was first come first serve. That was when we chose our subject, Dorothy Stang. Then, we got to enjoy Andy Verhoff's presentation about historical markers. Andy Verhoff was the guy who was my teacher’s main messenger from the Ohio Connections (the society that actually goes through the process of making the marker). He talked to my teacher throughout the project so that we could have all of our questions answered.  This is where we really got to learn about the specifics of the association and the marker and what we need to be worried about in the sense of the project. After this, we began our research. We researched for about a week until we created an individual Statement of Significance. We got two rounds of critique on this, revised it, and then we both combined our individual Statements to create a combined Statement of Significance. Then, we got another two rounds of feedback from 11th grade students and an expert on the subject. After this critique, we created our marker texts and we got another round of feedback from our peers. Once we finalized everything, we submitted our papers to drop box.

 

Regarding the idea of a script, I feel that our Statement of Significance was kind of like a script itself. It was like a script, in the sense that it showed the emotions and the opinions that are likely seen in one. It was like a script because it was persuading the audiences to think one way, or change their minds during the duration of the so called “script.” Now, I communicated my thoughts on a piece of paper, which was no easy task. It took hard work boiling down four pages of research into a measly few paragraphs of writing. I thought long and hard about the information of this piece. I really wouldn’t say I paid much attention to the intrigue of the writing because I was so focused on communicating that I knew all about Dorothy Stang and that her life was so inspirational. I felt like all information about her was pertinent to this, but, I didn’t think that much about how interesting the SOS (statement of significance) would be. All of this writing was the individual SOS. After I got feedback from my peers, I revised my SOS. Then, my partner and I combined our SOSs. I think the combined SOS shows that when my partner and I communicate together, we can really create a compelling piece. Even though I focused a lot of my attention on the biographical information, it paid off at the end when we were combining them together. Because of our communication, we saw that each of us had different things to offer to the “script.” We both communicated our ideas on one piece of paper, and I’m proud to say that it is a really good piece of writing.

 

I learned that even if you try to communicate all your thoughts on one piece of paper, usually, not all of them will end up on the paper. The same thing goes for the scripts. Even if you try to be as professional and poised as you can with your writing, 9 times out of 10, you won’t get all the things you wanted in the writing. This realization didn’t stop me from communicating with professionals (such as Angela Mason) though, it just made me improvise, which really did help me overall. Now, this SOS had a section that talked about our person related to historical context. During the time Dorothy Stang went to Brazil (which was around the 70s) a lot of things were affecting women in the U.S. The text that we used in our Statement of Significance was “Simultaneously in the U.S, the “glass ceiling” was preventing women from reaching the status of men. Title IX was causing women to reach a higher place in society through having equal education with men during this time. Like Dorothy Stang who embodied the drive that pushed others to do what they wanted to do, women were starting to do what they wanted to do instead of being told what to do.” Title IX was crafted to promote gender equity within the U.S. educational system and guarantee girls and women the same opportunities as boys and men. The “glass ceiling” is basically a metaphor. It shows that women can see their goal (because of the transparency of the glass) but they cannot reach their goal in the workplace. Basically, men are making more than women in the workplace. Although it wasn’t included in our SOS, at the same time as all of this other stuff was going on, the ERA movement was not ratified. The ERA or the Equal Rights Amendment strived to create gender equality in the U.S. It was sent out to be ratified by at least 38 states. The U.S had 10 years to do this, but, they only got three5 states to ratify the ERA, so, it was never included in the constitution.

 

My second artifact is one specific email that I had sent to Angela Mason regarding questions that we wanted answered about Dorothy Stang. First of all, this was probably the first time I asked a person outside of our school for something that we wanted, so it was a big moment to hit the send button. Like I talked about before, we created a script for this assignment before we sent it out to the person of our choice. I think that this email was the most important email because it explains a lot about this project and it shows a little aggression in a polite way. What I mean to say is, I asked for what I wanted, and I succeeded in this endeavor. This fits into my growth because it shows my new way of communicating. Because of the script we made, I was able to be prepared before I emailed my person. This instilled confidence in myself, which really boosted my communication skills. One main concept that was included in this email was about the Ohio Historical Marker Project and the actual markers themselves. Again, the Ohio Historical Marker Project celebrates important figures in history, specifically, history in Ohio. Markers are made to show the importance of figures, and are a recognition to them. The actual marker is put in a place that is related to the figure. The markers could be put in schools, parks, or any other public or private land. I was really glad I got to send that email because it showed my knowledge and my professionalism all in one piece of writing. Like I said before, it gave me confidence.

 

When I first started my SOS (the individual aspect), I focused a lot on communicating my knowledge about Dorothy Stang. I wasn’t really paying any attention to whether the piece was persuasive or interesting. When my partner and I communicated our thoughts on the subject, I found that it was okay to miss some things, because that’s always going to happen when I communicate my thoughts on paper. Although I’m not a world class communicator, this assignment really showed me what to communicate and what not to communicate to the specific audience I was writing for. In my individual piece for example, there were a few sentences that I didn’t really focus on because I was so interested in writing all the information I could. “As a women at the time, she was striving to help others. She did so when she was a part of Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. As a women in the country of America, she was striving to help.” I wasn’t even paying attention to the words I was using! Because of my writing, there was some information in my piece that was successful in going to the final Statement of Significance “While she was in Brazil, she built 30 chapels and 30 schools. In Brazil, she survived many diseases like dengue fever and intestinal worms.” Is an example of some writing that went into the final piece. This assignment was a growing experience because it showed me that not all of my thoughts will be communicated on paper, and that is okay. It is also important to make sure that I focus on all parts of the assignment, not just one. When I sent that email to Angela Mason, it was exciting and terrifying at the same time. I mean, I have sent emails before, but never for something that I wanted to have. Specifically, we were able to ask questions about the research that we wanted. Our questions that were in the email are “What was her main motivation to help the people in Brazil? How did her going to CJ and being a part of Sisters of Notre Dame relate to this?” I think that because of this email, it was easier to send emails to people like Dan Meixner later in the project. Communication is a skill that will always be there for me to use. When I go to college or when I get a job, communicating with people is a must. For example, I want to be a pediatrician. How am I supposed to help a patient if I can’t communicate with lab technicians? If I don’t get test results then I can’t communicate those results to the patient or the patient’s parents. When I go to college and take internships or partake in research, I will never be able to work successfully in those conditions if I can’t communicate. This project required me to specifically ask for what I wanted. It taught me that asking for what I want when talking to a stranger was okay and that it didn’t matter if I didn’t get all my thoughts on paper. So, in the future, I will always try to communicate wherever I go. When my partner and I combined our SOSs together, I learned that I really had to focus on all aspects of the assignment given to me. I couldn’t just talk about the biographical information, I had to talk about why all her biographical information was important. There will always be room for improvement. I will never become a world class communicator because, no one really is one. I will try to communicate my best when talking to people or texting or emailing. The real truth is, everyone communicates in their own way. I may revise my communication skills, and I may change them up. When I get older, I may add a sense of sarcasm. The main fact is, this project taught me how to communicate better, and my communication has gotten better. I will always be revising my communication skills and that is what really excites me. If I go to a new part of the world, I may learn to communicate in a different language. I think what really excites me, is communication itself. People, animals, or any living thing can communicate and it is wonderful to really see the different ways in which they do. Like how plants move towards the lights, or how babies cry when they want to communicate or how people use expressions when they are dancing or singing or contributing to a play!  I now know that because of this project, that communication is an endeavor that will stay with me for life. I have to understand that I can ask for what I want, and that I have to see all parts of the project, not just one part. I will never be the best communicator, but through the projects that I go through, my communication will just get better.