My Experience at ACLC
Class of 2017
Introduction
When I was first enrolled by a friend who wanted to bring me along, moving from NEA to ACLC, I didn’t know what to expect. I remember my first time on campus, smelling the newly set asphalt and creating common connections with people through the awful smell. There was such a strong sense community within the first couple weeks. By then, I had already gotten to get a first impression of everyone in my grade. And throughout the years, I’ve gotten to know more and even had the chance to expand out to everyone in the community. In addition to creating many friendships, ACLC has also matured me as an individual, teaching me how to manage my classes and prepare for college. I can’t believe it has already been 4 years, my highschool experience will be remembered and will serve as a strong foundation for sociability and self-management as I continue with the next part of my life.
Personal Qualities
Prior to ACLC, those who knew me, would consider me a generally social person; I was comfortable communicating ideas to peers and close facilitators. Throughout my ACLC experience,I have developed my humor, adaptability, and ability to relate to others. ACLC initially caught my eye when I noticed all the opportunities to take a lead role and speak to multiple crowds whether it be in bevys, CCC, or class presentations. I have spoken at the bevy I lead, CCC, and all of my other classes as a presenter. Public speaking requires a lot of planning and responsibility.. This leadership process also helped set personal goals and create confidence as I achieved them. Overall, ACLC has given me the opportunity to fine tune my confidence, sociability, responsibility, and has even set seeds for honesty and selflessness.
New Basics
As far as the progression of high school goes, English courses have helped heavily develop essential skills like reading, writing and listening to perform at higher levels of education. Reading more challenging and fun text while being able to interpret, understand and even appreciate the work has given a new perspective on literature. In the process of appreciating and learning new literature I also wrote reflections and essays to communicate my thoughts and ideas. And to properly communicate ideas, I have learned to clearly and eloquently form sentences to rely information throughout an essay and also support it. While reading and writing about books, I also participated in group chats, or “Socratics” and learned that listening was also a very important tool. Some say you should spend 80% of your time listening and 20% of your time speaking. I was able to receive and interpret the idea of others and then reciprocate my own ideas in respect to theirs. I have been able to organize my ideas in a couple moments and clearly express them out loud completing the conversation. These tools have made a great impact in how talk, listen, read, and write. Ultimately it has given me the assets required to receive ideas and also express them.
Thinking and Reasoning Skills
Visualization has been key to solving day to day problems as well as in class lessons. ACLC has provided countless situations and different lessons in which visualization provides an efficient way to go about things. For example, I can’t even count how many times we were forced to be silent and just look at an image and try to understand what the artist was intending or what the image meant. Another example could be my visualization of my day to day schedule and how everything goes. People, however, do suggest that I write it down somewhere, but I prefer challenging myself to be aware of exactly how my day is going to look so I memorize and visualize my day as it goes. In regards to going about my day, I am also trained to make decisions based on expectations and my own goals. And when there is conflict, for example, my classes overlapping, I try to overcome and generate an alternative or compromise. Specifically, this year, I had honors English from third period to fourth and a college class right before it that slightly overlaps making me late. To compromise, I asked to leave the college class a little early so I wouldn’t miss important information in honors English. I only made this decision after realizing classes were only discussions about random topics and saw my last 15mins of the college class better fit at regular school in honors English as every minute is important. In doing so, and reasoning the rules and my own education I came to a conclusion and also displayed my skills in reasoning, decision making, and visualization.
Interpersonal Abilities
In such a close community as ACLC, there are bound to be people with talents within a group. I, particularly, enjoy playing ultimate frisbee and have been well trained in my skills and some rules. Playing on my own strengths, I have helped the team last year gain second place at states as well as earning the honor of becoming captain this year. I don’t see this as an opportunity to lead, but as an opportunity to be called upon when others needed guidance or inspiration. I teach others whatever I can and help them grow as I am also growing. For example a simple forehand throw can be tricky to learn at first but with some guidance it isn’t all too hard to master. I first recieved this guidance my freshman year and have reciprocated it throughout the years once I have learned it myself. However, even with a good team, there is always bound to be conflict. It is important for a team to resolve their conflicts, and having personally participated in compromise during team disputes, has also built my negotiation skills as an individual. A simple detail with conditioning can enrage other players but a small compromise can make all the difference in a team and a person. Overall, being in a open community has helped me develop my interpersonal abilities
Technology
Technology has always been a huge part of the CLC education and throughout the years, I have been acquainted with the appropriate calculators, software, and other technological equipment. Being in higher levels of math has forced me to be comfortable with the scientific and graphing calculator and I know without these, it would have been enormously more difficult to pass courses. Along with calculators, software was another important aspect of technology that had to be used to help ease the difficulty of courses. Compilers and online resources were essential to my coding education and my grades. Even something like google documents or excel spreadsheets have been translated into my daily life. Using these tools, also required a lot of background information and was slowly adapted into my knowledge. Whenever something had gone wrong, troubleshooting and fixing problems further advanced my knowledge in technological tools, giving me skill in assets I will need later on. For example, I helped teachers set up projectors and speakers during presentations when they weren’t working, work through coding issues and checked for syntax errors, and create online visual aids.
Conclusion
Having attended ACLC for 4 years, I have learned more than I could ever ask for. ACLC has provided a beautiful and comfortable space for learners to adapt and create at their own pace. I have personally leaped great bounds and can’t even, 4 years ago, imagine how far I have come. I have created relationships that will last a lifetime, a foundation for my future, and a love for ACLC. There is really nothing more to say about ACLC then just experience the experience. There are times when people would discredit ACLC and compare it to larger public high schools but I have never really understood them. In creating such a liberal space and also offering materials needed to succeed, the experience is really up to the learner. Everything is given but the capacity at which it is used to determined by the attitude of the learner. Walking away from this school will the toughest thing I do, but will also be the the first thing I do in regards to my future. Thank you.