WHAT?! Teachers? Obsolete? Wednesday started off with a debate on the weird motion that teachers are obsolete. Students as the opposition, teachers as the proposition. It hadn't even started and it was already keeping me on the edge of my seat. The proposition proposed that technology was going to take over education and the world would solely rely on it for the education of humans. When the opposition inqured about third world countries that don't have access to technology and internet, they offered mentors and home-schooling as a solution. However, the opposition wasn't satisfied. First of all, there are a thousand and one distractions that can occur when it comes to the use of technology. How do we know that they're learning and maximizing their time? Also, how can we be certain that the content that children are learning is even true. Or if they're even learning content for that matter. Another point that the opposition pointed out is motivation. Children, teenagers, humans in general need motivation when it comes to doing things. How would a computer motivate humans more than another human. They're not able to push them to higher levels. In the end, it's just a machine. Yes, I agree that technology is useful on so many levels but we can't rely solely on it, especially not for something as vital as education. The proposition also proposed that mentors or supervisors would suffice, especially someone who has known the child since their infancy. They didn't agree that a person who has experienced world cultures would be a good mentor. Well, why would a mentor suffice but not a teacher? How is a child supposed to get a global education when they are being shown ideals by only one person who hasn't experienced the world? I shouldn't be refuting everything that the proposition said because they did have a good point: experiential learning is the way to go. Actually, both houses believed that experience was necessary regardless of their belief on teachers being obsolete or not. To no surprise, the Innovation Academy came up various times during both side's arguments. However, there has to be correct balance between content and experience. Teachers are not obsolete and it's something that we've realized as an academy this semester. On Tuesday, we had a Blendz meeting and realized we haven't learned as much content as we would like to have by this point in the semester. We came to the conclusion that this is because, apart from reading The Lean Startup, we haven't really learned content; we've just gone out and tackled things the way we thought we were supposed to tackle them. In reality, we could have been doing things much more efficiently if we read about things more specific to our business and not just startups in general. Also, we are starting a business without much knowledge in business and businesses. It doesn't sound logical. At all. Not only that but we wanted to have the opportunity to improve our vocab and English by reading (SSR) and having constant Socratic seminars; we wanted to improve our media skills by having the chance to play around with Photoshop; we wanted to become more effective and efficient with our endeavor. This is where Mr. Topf steps in. Recently, he has been more a mentor or supervisor rather than a teacher and we realized that this was not the best idea we have had. the last half of the week. Regardless of not yet having had content "lessons", we have had two successful Socratic seminars and SSR and are already finding ourselves to be more efficient during Blendz time. This takes me back to my main point: we had a supervisor and relied on technology way more than we needed to. Accordingly, we took matters into our own hands, asked Corey to give us lessons and are now ecstatic to try a new structure in the IA.
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This week we tried something new, we had simultaneous sales in two different places on campus on Wednesday: in high school during break and lunch and in middle school during lunch. We had never had simultaneous sales in two different places and it was overwhelming, exhaustive and we definitely were not as efficient as we needed to have been. First of all, we had to set up and taken down our stand many times. We spent all morning setting up for the high school break sale and for the middle school lunch sale. Once the break sale was over, we spent most of mid-morning cleaning up the high school stand, taking everything back up to the class, making smoothies for deliveries and setting up again for the lunch sales. This was definitely not the best use of our time. The first sale hadn't even begun and we were already feeling overwhelmed and exhausted from running around all over school. Not only were we setting up the stands with the supplies we had, but we were also looking for equipment that we should have thought of at least the day before. By the end of the day, I, along with most, if not all, of my classmates, were exhausted and felt we couldn't even pick up a finger or get our brains to reflect about the day. At the end of the day, I felt like we had worked double the amount of time and put in double the amount of effort to sell the same amount of smoothies we have sold other times; times which didn't require even a fraction of the effort we put into setting up and taking down the stand. Drew came up with a good solution: when we have sales, each person should be in charge of getting one or two things and should be in charge of setting up those things each time we have a sale. In the long run, we wouldn't have to rely on others to see how we could be helpful because honestly, when we ask around, it makes everything and everyone a lot more overwhelmed. Also, we would become experts in what we would do which would make us a lot more efficient in the long run. Now that I think back on Wednesday, I realize that as soon as the 8:00 am bell rang, we were all running all over the place doing things that we thought were the best use of our time, when in reality, this was not the case. Some people had too many things on their plate when others didn't have much at all. This goes back to the conversation of taking initiative that we had a couple of weeks ago and how we should all start taking more initiative because it is the best way to step up your game and persevere in whatever you're doing; but in all honestly, it was hard to see what had to be done when everyone was all over the place and roles were not defined.
We've had a different week: we were only in school for three days rather than five due to parent-teacher conferences and we had two important sales on our days off. I say important because the sales were crucial to inform parents about our product and generate the further integration of the community. Yes, we sold a lot and were successful, but most important of all, we made mistakes, faced challenges and learned. The most salient aspect is that we're flexible and adapt successfully to unexpected situations. For one, we were supposed to be four people at the stand during each shift but due to communication issues, we weren't. So, for the first part of my shift, we were only three people working: two smoothie makers and the cashier; we were missing the delivery person in charge of taking smoothies to teachers who had pre-ordered. For this, the three of us had to adapt as well as we could in order to satisfy our customers, so we switched up roles: the cashier delivered and the smoothie makers turned into cashiers. This was not our ideal situation but we had to make do with who we had at the moment. We had another hiccup. We only had S/. 5 coins and bills as change, not the S/. 2 that everybody seemed to need. There is nothing more annoying than going to a store, trying to buy something and getting asked "tiene sencillo" by the cashier, resulting in the impossibility of making a purchase because you don't have small change. We were in situations in which we had to owe customers their change or customers even ended up buying more smoothies than they intended to. These situations were not 100% negative for us because it was an opportunity to start building trust with our customers but they also had the chance of giving us a bad rep for being unorganized and unprofessional. After these two situations and challenges, we realized that we can adapt in situations were it is necessary and make the best of what we have. After each sale we have, we make a list of what went well and what not so well. In my opinion, we don't use these to their fullest potential. First of all, they're not looked at again after we have finished talking about things. Second of all, they should be compiled into one big list that can be turned into a checklist we follow each time we have a sale. Yes, we have used checklists before but they tended to be one general checklist, something that was not efficient. What we really need are short checklists that focus on different aspects of the sale such as setting up, things the cashier needs, materials the smoothie makers need, etc. I have been reading "The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right" by Atul Gawande, a surgeon, author and public health researcher. This book focuses on the use of checklists at a personal, daily level and at a professional level. I have always been a fan of using checklists because they allow me to become more organized regarding things I need to accomplish. But when it comes to using checklists for Blendz, we either don't make them detailed enough or just disregard them because of the basic connotation they have. Yes, they are basic but they are crucial to getting things right. When I think back to August 4th and see all that we've accomplished as a team until now, I can only say I am PROUD. We've definitely had our ups and downs as individuals and teams but we've been able to push through them and succeed. We've accomplished to establish a brand at school by starting our own business on campus, the first time any student or group of students has done this. Most importantly though, is that this semester has been all about learning. I've learned things not only about entrepreneurship and business, but also about myself. These 3 months have been very valuable regarding what I've learned about myself. First off, I like to learn in an environment of doing and applying theories into practice. I had never considered myself a hands-on learner but as theories got more complicated, I realized that I understood concepts better when I put them into practice. I knew this from previous experience but was able to enforce it this year, especially while reading The Lean Startup; having book talks and applying the theories talked in the book to Blendz, was a great way to actually learn things. This is valuable for me to know because it makes me realize what type of college I want to look for, a potential career path and future job. This also makes me realize why I was so interested in studying medicine and becoming a doctor and why I'm now interested in interior design. Another characteristic I've learned is that I am able to adapt in new situations. I have been in the IA for almost 3 months and I feel, as well as been told by my peers, that I've adapted well into the class and the culture. This surprised me because I was scared that I was not going to blend well due to everyone already being together for a year and knowing each other really well. Realizing this is valuable for me because rarely do I step out of my comfort zone; this was a perfect way to do that. In the future, I know that I shouldn't get as worried as I do about being placed into new situations because I know that I will be able to adapt. One last aspect I've learned about myself is that my reputation is different to what I think of me. For example, I have been told that I write well and that I have my own writing style which is not something that really considered because I never considered myself a good writer, let alone have my own writing style. This is valuable for me to know because I am very hard on myself and when I am told of what I do well it makes me realize that I might be doing better than I actually am. One thing I definitely have to learn is to be nicer on myself. Regarding Entrepreneurship, I think of Blendz. What I find the most valuable lesson I've learned this quarter is that we always have a level of uncertainty about what we're doing. This is due to the fact that we don't have a plan that we know already works and we go head-first into projects not knowing if things are going to turn out right or not. This is important for us to know because we have to learn to not be scared of doing things. If we know that we won't always know, then it's a way for us to have our own piece of mind. This will allow us to go into projects and ideas head-first, not caring so much about the outcome but more about the learning. Another concept that I've learned is that we make assumptions all the time. We made the biggest assumption that people want smoothies on-campus; then, that they would like certain flavors and not others. Many of our assumptions have turned out right but there have been others that have not turned out to be right. This is okay because when assumptions are turning out wrong more times than right, it is time to make the decision to pivot or persevere. Pivot or persevere, another important concept I've learned this semester. When the company is not growing and there is no more potential growth, it is time to pivot. This means change and it’s not something to be scared of. This is valuable because we have our own piece of mind knowing that if things don't turn out the way we want them to, then we have the total right and freedom to change our path. Lastly, I realized that there are different ways of organization that help us accomplish our projects. When we first started out, we were working in teams. We had the Marketing, Product Development, Finances, etc. At first, this was working out fine for us but eventually, we weren't being as productive as we could be so we changed into Project teams, meaning that we would work in projects such as set-up team, second prototype team, etc. Now, we are separated as Directors such as Director of Architecture and Building, Branding, Operations, etc; everyone is in charge of a specific thing that needs to get accomplished in order to create a successful business. These three months have definitely been a challenge to me because I am learning things as I'm doing, realizing what I know well and what not so well. In the past I have "learned" something and then had the knowledge tested during an examination and if you did badly, you failed. In the real world this is not going to happen beyond college, if that; we will learn things and be able to apply them as we go. We will learn things about ourselves and we will learn things about life. We will have room for failure but definitely more room for growth.
For the past 12 years, I've acquired class grades because of the grades I have gotten on assignments and, essentially, because of how well I got along with my teacher. But these grades never actually measured how I was doing as a student in this class, let it be doing well or poorly; they basically just measured how well I could research, cram for a test, follow a rubric or BS my way through the year. These numbers gave you a reputation and no matter how hard you tried to improve, in the end, the teacher almost always gave you the same grade at the end of the year. On the other hand, this year I have gotten feedback rather than a number, and although we do have to have numbers for midterms, report cards and all that jazz, it's the feedback that counts. Two Thursdays ago, we started crowd-sourcing our grades for midterms. I knew a little bit about what was going to happen because of what Karen had told me last year, but it was a totally new experience. I had never been in a position where my classmates helped determine my grades for my courses. But, essentially, what really mattered was the feedback we were receiving from our peers. I remember Corey asking me what I thought of it, and although I hadn't thought of it much, on the spot I came up with the most genuine answer I could muster: "I really like it because I get to hear what my classmates think of me, of my work and what they think I deserve rather than basing my grade on just my assignments and what my teacher thinks. I also like to hear people's perspectives of me and of what I strive in, what I need to improve on". My answer really surprised me but it is the whole truth "I really like it because I get to hear what my classmates think of me, of my work and what they think I deserve rather than basing my grade on just my assignments and what my teacher thinks. I also like to hear people's perspectives of me, of what I strive in and what I need to improve on" We first looked at English and I liked the feedback that I got, agreeing with almost all, if not all of it. The feedback went from "you speak and write really well but need to work on presentation skills and switching up your writing techniques" to "you need to be more emotional and less like Spock". I had never been compared to Spock before but this was really interesting for me to hear because I had a character who I could compare to and see what things I did that are similar to him and I could also strive to be less like him (although he is a cool human/vulcan hybrid, who wouldn't want to be like him?). Although I really enjoyed crowd-sourcing our grades and getting and giving feedback, I also found it to be a huge challenge. I have never been one to reflect much on what I do, let alone on what others do. Giving feedback to others and having to think about what they do well and how they could improve, was complicated for me, especially when giving feedback for Media. During our talks for this discipline, I felt like I was at a disadvantage from everyone else simply because they had already been together for a year and had seen everyones process of making the documentary, the piece that I consider the biggest Media project yet. Also, in my opinion, giving feedback for Media requires knowing each other on a more personal level that I have not yet acquired with everyone. I say this for two reasons: one, media is about balancing time between producing and consuming and it seems to me that it takes a deep level of familiarity with someone and their work in order to know that they are balancing between production and consumption; second, media is also about being able recognize bias, being skeptical and basically just evaluating a wide range of sources and I feel that I have not been in a situation where I have been able to see this for most, if not all, of my classmates. The point I'm trying to make though, and I feel that I've gone somewhat off topic, is that numbers don't really measure how you are doing as a student; rather they measure assignments and your ability to research or how much of a teachers pet you are. Feedback is better, more helpful and more effective. Although we do get teachers' feedback and comments, I consider them valuable only for that one class that you are struggling so much in or for that one class which you know you can do a lot better; I have realized that getting my peers feedback is most valuable of all because I get to see myself through others' perspectives and I learn some things about me that no one else had thought of or realized, such as me being like Spock.
We're living in a world that's whirled and rushed; but some time or another, we have to give ourselves the chance to stop, sit and think. After completing our second product test on Monday this is exactly what we did. Tuesday afternoon was reflection time and Thursday brought around team discussions to form our short and long-term strategies.
The past couple of weeks had been the busiest; looking for suppliers, trying out new recipes and refining the old, ordering and cutting the fruit and setting up for our first whole-day sale. We were so focused on doing things for that Monday, that we weren't really sure what we were supposed to be doing after our second product test. I mean, we had tasks assigned in Asana, but were they top priority? Were they the smartest way to be spending our time at the moment? Were there other things we could be doing? What was our short-term strategy? What about our long-term strategy? These were all things we had to figure out before we could keep going, especially if we wanted to become more efficient and time-savvy. As a team, we sat down, strategized and prioritized our tasks. Although this constituted as sitting in a circle and discussing and not getting any physical products completed or checking off any tasks in Asana, we definitely got organized; we finished Thursday with a much clearer idea of where we want to go and what we should be doing now which, to me, is more important than getting things done at this point. Sometimes we are so caught up in what we're doing that we don't realize that we could be doing some things a lot more effectively and efficiently. After spending around 3 hours talking as a team and figuring out what we need to do, I personally feel that we are better prepared to attack and get things done now. We have important tasks that need to get completed and not so important tasks that can wait for a little bit and we also what strategies we want to apply in the short and long term. As I said before, we're living in a world that is very rushed and seldom do we just stop and think, but, little do we know that sometimes that stopping for a moment is the only thing that could make our lives easier. Every day we find ourselves being slowed down by speed bumps or stopped by roadblocks, but this is no reason to stop what we're doing and give up, especially if you have a great team backing you up. This week, I've found myself even more challenged than before and I realized the importance of having great people to help you out.
The reason why I say this week has been more challenging than others is because my phone was stolen. Yes, it might seem weird I'm saying this, you might find it superficial and you probably don't see how or why it's relevant. But it is. The thing is, my phone was just another part of me, like a third hand, and it feels like it was chopped off for no reason and without any warning. I had everything on it, from the basic pictures, chats and emails, to the most important: my homework planner app and Asana. With these 2 apps, I was able to plan everything I had to do for BlendZ and for homework in general; without them, I felt like a lost lamb without it's herder. But the importance of this anecdote is not that my phone was stolen but that I had great people behind me helping me, consoling me and figuring out ways to work around this "amputation". There simply are times that I cannot be more grateful for the friends and parents I have (shoutout to Karen and my parents!) and this is one of them. Karen was with me when my phone was stolen and she saw how I went from happy-go-lucky to crying, in hysterics and having a panic attack in a matter of seconds. She did everything in her power to try to calm me down: called my parents, talked to the sales associates in the store and fed me after we were basically pushed aside by the sales associates. It was an awful evening and I know I would have done something irrational if it weren't for her. I also have my parents to thank. The Sunday after the incident we went back to the store and we talked to the manager, to see if she could do anything (it turns out she couldn't if we didn't go talk to the police). My parents also helped me in any possible way when I couldn't open my iCloud Photo Stream on my laptop to access the pictures I took at Hiraoka when I went to look at blenders that Thursday. I was being challenged and I would not have been able to demolish this roadblock if it weren't for my team. The point of this is that although I had a hit a pothole in the road, I was able to work around it because of the great people behind me, backing me up. Now lets look at what has happened in BlendZ this week: We've been getting ready for our next sale! It has been fun, but definitely challenging. I had to come up with a new recipe in around 36 hours, figure out how much fruit we needed to order for Thursday and cut and freeze everything we had ordered by Sunday afternoon. It might not seem like much to accomplish in 3 days but it was challenging. In order to invent a new recipe, I had to rely on my parents to be able to buy fruit to experiment with. They were fine with this (at least for the most part I think) and I know I could not have done it without them considering they bought the fruit, yogurt and tried the recipe after I had spent a long time in the kitchen. This week I also had to test my math skills, something I am kind of lacking. I needed to order the fruit, but before I did that I had to calculate how much fruit I was going to need. I had the recipes figured out and all I needed to do was figure out how much fruit we would need for all 300 smoothies we were planning on making. But thank goodness I had Pedro to help me. I know that I would have royally messed up if I didn't ask him for help and I would have been a lot less confident about the amount of fruit that we were ordering. He was willing to help, check and re-check that we had done all calculations correctly, all for the greater good. The last big challenged I faced this week was cutting the fruit. We ended up ordering around 100 kg of fruit and without having a willing team like the one that IA'15 is, we would not have accomplished much by our deadline. Thursday morning up to lunch time was spent washing, disinfecting and cutting fruit. Thursday afternoon was spent cutting fruit and so was any other free time we had. We even ended up going to school for 3 hours today to finish cutting and setting up everything to kickstart the week with a BlendZ sale. It may seem obvious to some, but it really does make a difference to have a team that is willing to sacrifice a precious afternoon with family and friends in order to cut fruit with their second family. This is the importance of having great people behind us to back us up. I know I couldn't have accomplished half as much as I did this week without my friends, my parents and my team. All my examples and anecdotes seem really different when simply read, but they all have the same essence: the importance of having great people and teams to help you out in times of need. This might seem like a week where I might not have learned as much as others, but it definitely was one where I realized some very important things. I've always refrained about writing posts about anything other than school, but then my mom asked me "Why don't you write about other experiences, you've learned from them and that's what matters". And she is right on so many levels. My learnings don't come only from experiences in the IA, they also come from what has happened to me outside of the classroom in the past week and a half. Just because what I learned hasn't been completely confined to inside the classroom and Blendz and entrepreneurship, it doesn't mean that I can't take my experiences and apply them to the classroom. In the end, learning is learning, no matter how or where it happens. Yes, I know I already wrote a blog post about switching from the IB to IA but here's some insight into how it's been this past month-and-a-half, focusing on being CPO for BlendZ.
When people ask me why I switched out of the IB and into the IA, they are simply baffled. I simply tell them that I was never really interested in doing the IB Diploma and I regretted my decision as soon as 11th grade started. They all seem to answer something along the lines of "oh some people are not ready for the academic push" or simply "innovation es malaso, a las universidades no les va a importar"; but I'm learning not to fight it because what they don't understand is that just because I'm not sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher talk all day doesn't mean I'm not learning, it simply means I am learning effectively and liking what I learn. Lets just say I have learned a lot more doing and through experiential learning than sitting and listening. Lets talk about what it's been like being the CPO of a business. At 17. How many teenagers can say they have been founders, investors and workers of a company not even at the age of legal adulthood? Being Chief of the Production team can be quite fun, especially since we get to try new things all the time; but when it comes to being chief while starting a business, it can be quite stressful and overwhelming. Think of it: you are launching a product, it has to be exceptional and you are the leader of the people creating it. Basically, it means that all pressure is on us in order to make a desirable product. Honestly, when I signed up to be on the Product team, I was expecting it to be all about trying new smoothie recipes and talking with customers about what we should try next, but there is a whole lot more to the production team. First of all, for our first BlendZ sale, I ran all over Lima looking for the cheapest place to buy fruit. And I accomplished it. Our next step was to find a supplier who can provide all the fruit we need for the recipes we have now and fruit for other recipes. That sounded quite easy to me at the start, but once I spent around 2 hours trying to contact people, being nice to people who had no intention of being nice to me and talking with people who wouldn't talk to me if I had no "previa cita", aka appointment, I was really wondering what I had gotten myself into. This was Thursday, and for Monday I had to have completed a budget for fixed costs, a budget for recurring items, find a list of three suppliers and an idea of the three locations to put our stand. We're almost two months in to school and some people still ask me why I made the switch. The answer is simple: I like to learn and I want to learn. This was simply not happening with the IB. I learn through doing and living; by making mistakes and applying what I know in order to learn. I am able to do this in the IA and this is what matters. Just because I don't need to cram for 3 hours-some people's definition of "academic push"- for a test the next day, does not mean I am not "learning". I am actually learning and enjoying what I learn, the most important thing of all. What a successful day! On Thursday, we had the chance to prototype BlendZ during ICC. I spent the first part of the week driving around Lima looking for the cheapest place to buy fruit and Wednesday morning was spent cutting. Thursday was the big day though; around 2 or maybe even 3 hours were spent squeezing oranges and setting up the stand between the gym and the track, with a view of all ICC activities of the day. Today, although excited and determined to win all ICC activities of the day, we were more worried about selling, starting to establish our BlendZ as a brand and having everything go as smoothly as possible; and indeed it did! We sold around 85 smoothies in a span of 40 minutes, something we honestly were not expecting. But that's not the most important part of that day; what mattered most is that we figured some things out, we learned things that we could not have learned without the sale and found out that there were crucial things in order to sell and get prepared that we had not thought of before. Everything we found out are definitely things that will help us become more successful as we start out business and establish the brand at school. We came to the conclusion that our product is very desirable and most people are willing to pay the price even though it was higher than other things sold on campus. We also found out that people are willing to wait in line when the product offered is a great one and they are also willing to give feedback in order to improve our products. On the other hand, we found out some flaws such as the line was not too quick and a more effective cashier system such as 2 cashiers. We had also implemented a ticket system that turned out to be confusing and somewhat unnecessary. These were things we would definitely need to improve in order to give our clients the best experience possible.
I have always thought of myself as a leader; but not really a "loud" leader, one that lead by actions rather than talking. So when time came around to decide who would be the Chief Production Officer (CPO), I decided to step up to the plate, and rather willingly I must add. I have almost always been the leader of groups projects: I'm responsible, keep track of things, turn things in on time and I usually know what is going on most of the time, but I have never been leader of a project thats lasted more than 2 weeks (and this one would certainly last more than that). When I jumped at the chance of being the leader of my group, my teammates agreed because I am the most responsible of the three and I can keep track of everything but they also gave me one condition: I had to be more ASSERTIVE. This came as a shock to me seeing as I did used to have a problem with assertiveness as a child but I honestly thought I had come out of my shell. But alright, I was up to the challenge of becoming Paolo's level of assertiveness. The first meeting we had was the most stressful for me because I felt that I was being overpowered and shut-down by my teammates and their stubbornness was putting me on edge. So I took a 30 second walk to cool off and came back into the class ready to attack. Although they were still as stubborn as they had been before I left the class, I had a new attitude towards working with them: I was open about their ideas as well as they were open about mine, seeing as I had told them that that was what needed to happen if we wanted to be successful. Over the course of the week, I have found myself changing sentences from 'can you please do this' to 'please do it' or 'have you already done it'. Yes, I might sometimes give in to people, but being CPO has, and still is, helping me go from the "follow my actions and we'll be successful" leader to the "do what I say and we'll be successful" leader. Yes, this might sound bossy to some, but in reality, it is exactly what my team needs in order to succeed. |
Author"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light." Archives
June 2015
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