Avalon High School Senior Autobiography
Senior Autobiography
By Alexander Celeste
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April 2010
Avalon High School Senior Autobiography!
April 2010
! My name is Alexander Theodore Celeste. One of my primary interests (academically and otherwise) is computer programming (which I initially learned mostly on my own before it became the center of my senior project), but I love to read and discover new things on my own as well. Iʼve lived in both Boston (the first 8 years of my life) and then Saint Paul (the place I currently live). My experiences as a learner come from 5 different schools throughout these 13 years of school (kindergarten, grade school-high school): Quincy School in Boston, MA; Mason School in Boston, MA; Groveland Park Elementary School in Saint Paul, MN; Crosswinds School in Woodbury, MN; and finally Avalon School in Saint Paul, MN. I went to all these different schools because of either my family moving from Boston to Saint Paul, or because the new school would provide me with a better education. Some of the moves between schools also came from completing the previous schools. The move to Avalon from Crosswinds was both the completion of Crosswinds and Avalon being a great fit for me. Each school brought its own challenges and fun times that brought me the experiences Iʼve now had in my learning career. Over the past few months Iʼve been writing senior journals that have been compiled into this autobiography. ! I mentioned the two cities in which Iʼve lived. But Iʼve also done quite a bit of international traveling in my life. There was one time when my grandfather was working in India that he invited us there so he could show us around. But well more than just the two weeks I spent there Iʼve spent what must be well over a year in Austria visiting my great-grandmother. In 2007 my immediate family spent 6 months living here with her (this year I spent a month with her and even had the privilege of holding her hand as she died). Almost every year that I can remember Iʼve spent at least 3 weeks in Vienna with her. Through all this travel Iʼve been able to grow as a global citizen because of the immersion in these different locations and their cultures. To me being a global citizen simply means being aware of the different cultures and expectations of the countries youʼve been in. It also means that youʼre not opposed to any other countryʼs existence or policies so long as theyʼre not morally wrong. After living in Vienna for 6 months. Being in India for just 2 weeks, I feel like Iʼve become a global citizen in at least Austria and being in India gives me some sense of personal experience and not just media to catch glimpses of 3rd-world countries and life. ! One of the main sources for your experiences as a learner and the content you learn is quite understandably your teachers. So the first thing for me to describe ought to be the best teachers I feel I have ever had. The first would be my second-grade teacher Ms. Radocchia at the Mason School. Aside from the fact that she bothered to put together a nice farewell photo album for me when my family moved here to Saint Paul, she built a classroom that was very lively and hands-on (much like both Crosswinds and Avalon are school-wide). The most vivid memory/example of this that is still with me is of a month long project building a “ship” in the classroom. I donʼt quite remember what it was for, but I do vaguely remember the physical act of helping with the building of the boat and the surrounding classroom activities. One other solid memory that I think was from second grade is one afternoon waiting for my mom to pick me up after school and being at the school later than my teacher. ! The second teacher would be Kristen Siskow. She was my homeroom teacher for the first three years (all the middle school years, grades 6-8) I was at Crosswinds. The two things I remember most about her were the lively homeroom meetings she led Page 1 of 6!
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Avalon High School Senior Autobiography!
April 2010
daily and the way she made Crosswinds such an accepting place for new students. The three-year looping meant that solid relationships between the students and the teachers could be established and thrive. The fact that Crosswinds is on the year-round calendar also helped sustain this sense of almost family-like community at the school. ! Next it seems natural to mention what the most important basic skills are that I learned at school, and that form the basis for some of my experiences as a learner. One very important skill would be reading: without it we wouldnʼt be able to learn much and also would have very limited experiences as a learner. Iʼm definitely a competent reader and you only need to look at my habits to find examples. For one, although Iʼve pretty much stopped doing this due to fatigue levels, I had been deeply in the habit of reading each night before going to sleep. This is what makes it clear why Iʼm one of the students in my advisory that actually reads during Reading Time daily. The literature projects are another key example. Some students canʼt really sustain literature projects because they may not be as competent a reader as others. ! How does this very basic skill help me as a member of society and a learner? Reading provides a decent and endlessly vast escape from reality. I like that reading provides me with that kind of escape (not that I have anything bad to escape from), and that Avalon facilitates it with Reading Time. I may be one of just a few students today that reads the newspaper daily, but the bits of news I get out of that are definitely a useful way to stay “in the loop” on some of the recent events that matter to me. Even more so I read blogs all the time, which is also a great way to get news that is relevant to my interests and life. ! Connected into this is what I think of as a good book that Iʼve read in the past 365 days. I wouldnʼt say that there is exactly a single good book, but rather that there is an excellent series of books Iʼve read from. The series is Lois McMaster Bujoldʼs Miles Vorkosigan series. The genre is science fiction, but the books are also a nice mix with what feels a bit like older civilizations in Europe. The main character, Miles Vorkosigan, is the son of someone who has had, and is still having, a fairly important military/ government career on their home planet, Barrayar. Milesʼ mother was poisoned when pregnant, so Milesʼ bones are very fragile, and break often. Miles ended up in a situation where he has two entire “people” to be (himself, and a fleet admiral). Most of the stories are tied to one or the other of these “people”, but one important point is that the fleet doesnʼt know that they work for the Barrayaran imperial security, when of course they do because Miles works for them in his other identity. ! In reality why I consider these good books has a lot to do with me enjoying many science fiction books. Not to mention the silent connection to an emperor-run civilization, which has no real connection to science fiction, but is a nice side component to the stories. I also really enjoy that Bujold isnʼt done writing the books, and that there will be more to come. ! Learning experiences arenʼt always tethered to the academic side of school. In most cases they are not at all connected. However, as a part of explaining what seems to me to make up these experiences I should probably say a bit about how I measure what I have learned. The way that schools measure what I have learned is using tests. If I can see the results of these tests then they are certainly one tool I use to measure what I have learned. But outside of those tools I measure what I have learned based on what information I can recall for use in the real world. So, in some areas tests may show Page 2 of 6!
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April 2010
that I learned what I needed to but I may say that I didnʼt because I canʼt seem to draw on that knowledge when it is really needed. ! I will say that math, the one subject at Avalon that is purely seminars and not projects for me, is the one that though I succeed in, I have the hardest time doing. Not in the learning and comprehending of the content, but rather in the use of it later. Thankfully itʼs rare, but when I am writing the Objective-C code for my senior project, and in some similar situations, I may know that I learned something I need, but I canʼt pull it out of my head. Standardized math tests are of a similar nature in giving me problems of recall and use. ! The way I work, I know that I will definitely learn more content through projects -and much better -- than through learning in seminars. I can imagine that this is the stark opposite for some, if not many, of my classmates. But it is the reason why Avalon is such a good fit for me. Throughout my learning career Iʼve enjoyed pretty much all subject areas, but there are a few in which I clearly do better and/or enjoy more. As mentioned, math I do well at and enjoy but later is sometimes a pain to recall the content. Other subjects I enjoy more include the arts, sciences, and language arts. Of course, at Avalon, my projects are mostly interdisciplinary and Iʼve enjoyed most of the projects that Iʼve done these past 2 years. ! Experiences will mainly show themselves in ways that we have grown as learners. One of the obvious ways Iʼve grown is what comes by nature of growing up. But the more important elements are deeper ways and tie closely to my experiences in school. The other major category of growth comes through learning with other students. ! My time at Crosswinds was definitely a time of sure growth for me as a student. This growth was due to the very core of what Crosswinds is about. Iʼll start with CARES, the basic set of values for the school. By the nature of it existing we all grew by its model. C stands for Cooperation, A for Assertiveness, R for Respect/Responsibility, E for Empathy, and S for Self-control. But Crosswindʼs focus on the arts and sciences also helped me grow as a learner in those and other course areas. Through the requirements of the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program we all grew as students who are active in our communities and are true global citizens. ! Avalon has helped in its own ways to let me grow as a learner. Most of the skills needed due to the independent nature of Avalon were already under my belt, but lots of the true and tangible benefits of a school that functions as project-based were not. The past two years of me being at Avalon has seen me growing as a student who has many skills needed in the workplace that traditional high schools, and even colleges, simply donʼt give you. Organizational skills and the task of setting up meetings are two of the biggest of these. ! But not only have all of these places allowed me to grow, but so have the people. In both schools the teachers/advisors really care about their students and help them along when needed. Likewise every student at Avalon, and nearly every student at Crosswinds, really strives to learn. The combination of the two make for a solid and nourishing learning community that truly fosters not just learning, but also growth of the learner as well. ! One experience to write about here would be what Iʼd consider the best thing to have happened to me during high school is finding Avalon. Not just having found Avalon
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for the last half of high school, but the events and my school career that led up to being a member of Avalonʼs community. ! It goes without saying that there have been things that have occurred at school that I wish had not occurred, the same with things Iʼve learned that I wish I had not. But every experience was a good learning experience nonetheless. Iʼd rather not go into detail about this, but the extra attention from speech therapists and social workers certainly didnʼt hinder my learning experiences even if they didnʼt help them. ! The school that I went to before Avalon for 6th to 10th grade was Crosswinds. Crosswinds is an International Baccalaureate school with a focus on the arts and sciences. There were only about 600 students in the school while I was there. Avalon is much smaller, but Crosswinds is also fairly small, so class sizes were manageable. The way that we were taught at Crosswinds also was, though not truly project-based, certainly a good baseboard for individual and successful learning (both required in a project-based environment). ! Also, if I had not been going to Crosswinds I may not have heard of Avalon. Yes, there are other ways I would have found this wonderful project-based school, but not ways in which I would hear what actual former classmates of mine at Crosswinds would say. Avalon was the third school I looked at back in 10th grade and from effectively the moment I stepped into Avalon for an open house one Saturday I knew that Iʼd found the perfect school for me. ! True to the initial feeling, Avalon has been a wonderful place for me to finish out the last two years of high school. Iʼve done quite a few cool projects and have managed to keep myself on track with the standards in ways that fit my learning style, but that no other school could provide for me. ! Of course, not every classmate of mine at Crosswinds could succeed at Avalon. There are only a few categories of students that can succeed at Avalon. I look at Avalonʼs student body as a wide range of students. On one end are those that are individual enough to almost need the unique learning environment Avalon provides, and then I feel like there are only enough students as could be counted by hand that end up at Avalon because no other school would take them. ! Now, that low end doesnʼt succeed. Anyone between the low and high ends has a good chance of succeeding at Avalon. Then those students, like me, who almost need the learning environment Avalon provides to succeed well will always succeed at Avalon. We can take the existing project process, and then expand it to our own levels with little things here and there silently improved upon. ! Overall we Avalonians are quite unique. In pretty much every other high school you will find certain solid categories that students fall into such as “jocks”, “nerds”, and so on. But at Avalon all you find are certain students sticking together based on one common characteristic, but that are otherwise entirely unique. I also believe that it becomes clear pretty fast which students wonʼt be able to succeed, and so they donʼt necessarily stay there. It just depends, but usually by winter break most of the students at the school have a decent chance of success. ! Almost none of my learning experiences have been easy. Each of them have had their own challenges to overcome. Genuine and lifelong learning experiences are like that. Crosswinds classes and Avalon seminars are easy, but in comparison even though the project process is easy for me the projects mostly arenʼt. To really learn something Page 4 of 6!
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April 2010
you need it to be scary, hard, or generally just not easy to learn and comprehend. Iʼm not saying that I havenʼt learned anything in classes/seminars, but this just reinforces my point about learning more with the independent projects. ! Throughout all of my past learning experiences Iʼve had a wonderful, loving, and supportive family around me to support me in that learning. Without that kind of support it is unlikely that I would have gotten as far as I have. Though the physical act of learning content becomes primarily an individual task, a solid network of support is important so that we can sustain ourselves throughout the learning process. I would hope that this network of support never fails me throughout my entire life (all of which I intend to be a learner). ! This autobiography somewhat answers the question of where Iʼve been. My experiences as a learner are so intermixed with who I am today that I can hardly write about them or account for the things that led me to them here. The third and final major question for this autobiography is where I want to go from here. ! In 5 years Iʼll be done with a 4-year college degree from Saint Johnʼs University if everything goes as I intend it to. So, Iʼll have just gotten over the next-level of otherwise identical scared feelings that I have now about graduating from high school. By that time I hope to have a solid plan for either further education or job opportunities. There isnʼt a whole lot of overview details I can provide seeing as Iʼm not near this position yet. ! I guess that aside from career plans the one other thing that may actually weigh my decision for possible further education would be the job market. Even if I wanted a job today I couldnʼt likely get one, so hopefully the situation will have leveled out to a good market by 2014-2015 so I can get a job based on my educational expertise fairly quickly. If the market still looks grim I may very well decide to continue my education further. Iʼll just have to see. ! In 10 years I hope to be well along whatever track I decide to take and be far along on it. So Iʼm hoping that means through an initial college degree and potentially onto another, made a solid presence in the combined Mac OS X-like development community (Macs, iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads), and be well into having a wife and building up a family. I have no way of giving solid details, but I can say that all my ability to work towards these goals will be in use from the moment I graduate high school to the time these goals are met. ! There are two primary ways of looking at life: Living to work or working to live. I think that on average Iʼll work to live. Not that I plan to find a job that I really enjoy, but I just think that the leisure of life is the priority over work on this situation. Most of my time is spent in leisure and so other reasons aside, that is why it is the priority. ! Work will be a major portion of my life, mainly because of the fact that itʼs what will literally fund my life. I fully intend to find a job that fits me so perfectly that Iʼll enjoy and even want to work more than required, but still, life is there and what I plan to spend my time on. ! Life will always be my baseline and primary “mode” of what I do. In some ways the work within what is considered the job market isnʼt as truly life as what I do prefer to call “home life” (versus “work life”). We all prioritize our couple of decades on Earth this way, just none of us really fully agree on what to call the two overarching categories. ! I would prefer more time for life than work, but when the need for more funding to live arises then I, given the opportunity, wonʼt hesitate to work more in order to keep my Page 5 of 6!
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lifestyle afloat. This too is a common mindset, at least for those in the middle class. But do I draw the line anywhere? The answer would have to be yes, in percentages I donʼt want to work more than 70% of my time. Thatʼs also pushing it, as my life is going to take up more life than half of my time. But I canʼt be positive about any of that until Iʼm in the midst of it. ! Do I expect to take the chance of combining the two later on in life as some sort of consultant? That really is entirely dependent on how far I go in my career path. Ideally if I become a software developer I will certainly split off at some point, but even still I wonʼt really know until the time comes. All I know is that it is one possibility for my life that would truly be a goal, it just canʼt happen for two or three decades. ! In some form of a conclusion, I really canʼt describe my experiences as a learner due to them now being a part of me. So far my life has been what Iʼd hoped it would be, the balance between leisure and school is what Iʼd like, and my family is supportive in whatever I decide. But I know that after graduating lots of this will likely change. What I hope is that once Iʼm settled into my new routines the same balance as I have today can be gained and sustained throughout my entire life.
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