K14 - Confidence – Knowledgeable Thinkers who are confident and explore new experiences (K14)
We all start life in the same state, knowing nothing, our mind is a blank slate. However as we live, we gain insight and experience, never to be the same again. This scenario is better put by Plato, in his famous allegory, The Cave. Please look at the above attached image of the cave as you read along. In this famous work by Plato, one is told to imagine three prisoners tied up to rocks, facing a wall. Behind the prisoners is a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners, people from the outside walk, casting shadows on the walls that the prisoners are forced to see for eternity. The Prisoners have never seen anything else so they do not realize that what they see are shadows of objects in front of a fire, much less that these objects are inspired by real things outside the cave. But! Imagine that one prisoner escapes, goes out the cave and experiences the world, a whole new experience compared to the mere shadows he had seen before. He has been enlightened, having experienced and seen something he cannot unsee. Now imagine that he goes back to tell his fellow prisoners who are tied up, about what he saw. But once he goes inside the cave, he realizes that his eyes have been blinded, and unable to see inside the cave. The fellow prisoners hear him and think he is crazy, as they do not understand nor comprehend the things he profess to have seen. And therefore they resist escaping, as they fear going outside. In simpler terms, what this means is that once one experiences and understands something, they cannot undo it, and others will not understand the importance of it, unless they too open their eyes to experience new things. If we fear learning new things, we are trapped in ignorance like unto the prisoners who remain chained, forever seeing glimpses of what reality could be, never really knowing what it is. I myself have seen this allegory apply to my life. When I was in America, I absolutely detested singing. I would just mouth the words in music class and when my teacher would ask me to sing, would comment that I sounded like a turkey. That hurt. I moved to Japan in 2016, and came to HIS, and once here my schedule had choir in it. And I was freaking scared and anxious, as I really did not enjoy singing with people. Sure enough, my first day here, I was asked to sing row row your boat in front of the choir. My voice cracked, I was sweating and I was embarrassed. At this point, I like to say that I was still a prisoner looking at a fraction of the reality I could be if I could sing. Fast forward a bit, and concert time was rolling around at my school, I for some reason wanted to challenge myself and make the most of the time I had in choir, so I started to sing, horribly at first, but then my teacher encouraged me to perform in a trio at the school concert. At first I was hesitant, but I agreed. I. Was. So. Bad. I literally couldnt get the dance down, and I struggled so hard, however I gave it my best. The above left picture is me putting on a show for 750+ people!, and I can proudly say I did my best. Once the concert was over, I was overcome with a feeling of pride and self satisfaction that I, a turkey had been able to sing in front of people! I never looked back. The year after that, I willfully pursued opportunities to sing and perform, and lo and behold I was given the opportunity to perform in a quartet with me being the lead character. I performed with all I had, unleashing my inner cheesiness, as I played my part as a boyish character who didnt want to grow up in the piece, I Wont Grow Up. I have attached a video clip of the performance above. This is definately a part of the best hours of my life. After this one, I was able to see music and performance from a whole new perspective, and I realize that that was the moment that I had come out of the cave, and seen reality and perspectives, I can now never unsee nor forget. For those who are reading this, the experience I felt you will most likely not understand, however I do encourage you to do something similar. Pursue new and mysterious things that scare you, and you will never look back. What I have learned from this experience is that Plato was right. Experiences make the man, and I love them. My goal is to pursue an online degree while working, so I can transfer to America once I have enough money. My side goals are, to go deep sea fishing for a summer gaining experience and money there as well. Although obscure this is my wish and my goal. I will not stop anything from letting me get experiences in my life.
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Marketing Team
Socially Personally responsible individuals that demonstrate reliability & commitment (S26) At Hokkaido International School, there is an annual concert held at the Kitara Hall in Nakajimakoen. In this concert, students are given the opportunity to perform and show what they have learned over the past year to an audience of over 1000 people This is a night where the students, parents, and teachers all come together to celebrate the hard effort we put into the arts. This night is one of the great highlights that this school provides. One of the great things that we learn at HIS is the importance of being reliable and staying commited. We do this through simple acts such as coming to class on time, to practicing and performing solos in front of our peers. But all-in-all this requires us as students to be socially and personally responsible, by showing our reliability and commitment to the tasks we are given. For me I was able to exercise this through the unique opportunity I had at HIS to be part of the Kitara Marketing Team. Through the course of the months leading up to the concert, we advertise to a wide range of audiences, the experience that our international population has to offer. We put up posters in stations, publish videos and fundraise at festivals. Being a part of this team required a meeting once a week, as well as work outside of school. We would visit local Japanese schools, use our connections as plugs, selling tickets to our concert as we went. We also created a system for the students to sell tickets to their parents and family as well. Our team made a goal every year to fill the hall with as many people as we could, with this years goal being 1000. So far, we've had an audience of about 600-750 people annually. Through this experience I learned how a large scale marketing/financial project is carried out, and I am grateful I was able to take part. Me and a fellow team member were in charge of collecting the money and tracking how many tickets were out at a certain time. If we slacked off or chose to quit and be lazy, the whole operation would have suffered. We all did our part to stay true to the task and we pushed through the months. On the concert day, nothing was more satisfying than seeing the seats in the concert hall fill up with excited and people who I know would wave at me from the seats. Sadly this year, this is not the case, as the coronavirus has disrupted many plans around the world. But the past two years have been such a blessing in which I was able to feel the benefits of being commited and responsible in my duties as a committee member. Above are pictures of the concert as well as a picture from one of our meetings. I will cherish the memories that the Marketing Team gave to me. Those evenings were ones I looked forward to, and I really was able to grow. Once I am in the corporate world, I would like to once again feel and experience these emotions. I am going to study International Business in college, and I know that experiences like this are far from over. Once I am in a career, I will be able to go into a task like this with experience behind my back, and all I need now is to hone and perfect it. This experience has taught me much. My goal for this specific husky is to work on my personal organization. One thing that I learned in this process was that each member must be fully on top of their own work for the project to move forward smoothly. Over the past few months I have been using a planner, planning each day and jotting notes. My goal is to do this for the rest of my life, and I know it will come in handy in group scenarios as well. |
Tadashi ShichidaSenior @ Hokkaido International School Archives
June 2020
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