My Portfolio
Introduction
Welcome to my portfolio. Through this portfolio I would like to present my view on the IB learning profile, how I identify with the ten core values and what the core values mean to me. But I would like to start by talking about the last few months and the effects that learning from home and getting education online, , has had on my and our life. The Corona pandemic has changed our way of life. It affected our lives on three basic levels, health, social and economical. Our health became a big concern, social contact was limited and the economy was stressed in a way we haven't seen in generations. People had to cope with new rules ("Het nieuwe normaal") and 'normal' things became a privilege.
The current Corona pandemic made me rethink a lot of things I took for granted. My view on a number of things has changed significantly. I feel I'm a lot more independent now and I keep discovering different strengths that I never knew I had in me. My understanding of what is going on in the world also greatly increased. Not only how the pandemic is affecting things but I also learned a lot about human rights and discrimination, Just last month, on May 25, a black man named Georg Floyd was killed by a white police man. Floyd kept begging for his life by repeatedly saying the words “I can’t breathe”. This didn’t happen because Floyd was a dangerous criminal and thus arrested , this happened because of discrimination. The police officer named Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for almost 9 whole minutes. Floyd was handcuffed, and could not move at all. This was unfair treatment, and sadly George Floyd did not survive. His death was a wake up call you can say.
You can focus on the good that came from it, people are finally taking action and things seem to change for real this time but on the other hand, discrimination was and is still there. It is not like discrimination was just discovered because of this happening, discrimination has been present for many years even thought this is not acceptable, especially now in ‘modern’ times. I have learned a lot from this event. I know that I can never understand how it is really like to be discriminated in this way, or being in this persons position, but I know that this isn’t right and it should stop. The corona virus might have caused a pandemic and health crisis, but discrimination is also a pandemic for all humanity.
Thank you for reading this.
The Fourteen core values
Below I will explain my view on the fourteen core values, for the diploma program, according to my own experience and ideas.
1. Inquirers:
Inquirers are people who are always curious and strive to evolve their learning experiences by always looking for something new. An inquirer is a person who enjoys learning new things to improve her knowledge and who has the skill to work independently with a love for knowledge. Having this amazing personality, you gain a lot of knowledge and information which is very important. As an inquirer you do not just ask questions because you need to, you ask a lot of smart questions to gain the knowledge to solve your problems or to eliminate your doubts, or maybe just out of curiosity to improve and evolve your learning.
I do not think inquirers are people who only ask questions to others, but also ask questions to themselves. “Why is this that way?” “Why is it made that way?” “How do we do this or that?” These are questions I sometimes ask myself when I notice certain things in my surroundings. This is why I do not think they only ask questions to other people or just right away look it up on the internet.
I believe that Inquirers are very social in a way. The questions they ask are, in my opinion, very interesting and relatable. For this reason, I like to talk to inquirers. Thus, I believe this can also be a way of communication. I think that this a very good way of communication because every question you ask yourself or others, can be very interesting. Especially when other people have different kinds of thoughts then you or other people.
I think being a inquire is a very good personality and I can relate to quality. I can relate to them because I also act similarly, for example, I always ask myself questions like: “What is that ring around Saturn?” I first thought this was a weird question to ask, but later I did my research and I was amazed by the answer I got. I enjoyed this process and wanted to learn more and more.
I also use this as a way of communication. My friends and family sometimes call me a ‘social butterfly’ for this reason. I like to talk to inquirers because they think and look at things from a different perspective which can be helpfull in a lot of situations. When I’m interested in something, for example WW2, I first look at the most common perspective, and then look at another perspective which helps me better understand the situation, to understand what actually happened. This helped me to evolve my knowledge and love for learning more.
2. Knowledgeable:
Being knowledgeable, to me, means you can discover and explore ideas or problems/errors. This is an important aspect for me and I believe even one of the most important things in life for a person to possess, because you can learn something new everyday. Knowledge is an important and necessary asset to everyone. There are a lot of different kinds of knowledge. There is, for example, school knowledge, where you absorb the information school provides you. There is self knowledge, where you explore who you actually are and get to understand yourself better and better. There are social experiences that might even be negative things you experienced in life, you can, for example, learn from your mistakes in order to improve yourself. There is also curiosity, this is when you want to gain additional knowledge about a subject. For me, these four examples of knowledge are the most important forms of knowledge.
I truly love and enjoy learning new things in school. I feel grateful for all the ways school allows me to learn. This even makes me more excited to learn new things in the coming school periods. I always try to fully understand the topics that come up in school and I really try my best to improve my knowledge.
Self knowledge, for me, is also very important because knowing yourself, and knowing your personality kind of makes you understand who you are. You can do things that you like in life if you know yourself. You know what you want and how to achieve it which, I think, is a good thing.
I think that everyone has experienced bad things in life. It can be emotional, like a relative dying, or maybe the break up of a relationship you were in, but I believe these experience make us grow too. The mistakes we make in life give us knowledge and help us in the future. We cannot ride a bike when we first try it, right? We try a couple of times and eventually we succeed. So, we do gain knowledge from after almost everything we experience as humans.
I am personally a very curious person which is good most of the time. Because of this, I gained a lot of extra knowledge in life. I ask a lot of questions, I research a lot of things and request answers on the things I question in everyday life. School also helped me improved my basic knowledge because of this. The world is full of interesting things and people hold a lot of knowledge, it would be a waste if we would not explore just a little of it.
“Knowledge is power” Is this actually true? I would not say that if someone knows a lot or has a lot of knowledge he or she is instantly smart. I think it depends on how you use this knowledge. Do you use it to satiate your own curiosity, or do you just let it be and do nothing practical with it? Thus knowledge is power but sharing the knowledge is the art.
What I think after all is very important, when talking about knowledge, is that knowledge is never-ending, and that we can always discover a lot more.
“I believe, that every day you have to dare to ask yourself if you have learned anything new. The day you haven't learned anything has been a day lost.”
3. Thinkers:
Thinkers are people who are very critical and apply their thinking skills to different situations, for example on very complex problems. Thinkers require different ways of thinking about something. I personally think that thinkers don’t always ‘think’ to solve a problem first, but look at it from every angle to truly understand what is in front of them.
From what I have experienced, there are two kinds of thinkers. There is the thinker that is open minded and can easily share her ideas and solutions with others, and there is the thinker for whom it is not so easy to share ideas and solutions with other people. I think the second thinker is more common than the first thinker. This is because I feel that people these days judge more and much easier. For example at school, teenagers have a lot of insecurities and are scared to share their thoughts and ideas, I think this is a waste of potential. In school we should have more opportunities for people that cannot easily express their ideas, and create an environment in which they are not judged right away. Of course ideally this would be the case, not just in school, but everywhere.
4. Communicators:
Communicators are speakers, people who can express themselves very well. They have their minds filled with lots of ideas and can share these very well and mostly very easily. They express their ideas in a very creative way and, most of the time, can do so easily in different languages. Their way of speaking is very effective and can motivate other people to follow the communicator. They can work individually but can also collaborate with others. Communicators aren't just good at speaking but they are good at listening too. By listening to other people and their ideas, then processing these ideas, they learn and find out how to most effectively communicate with that person. I think that communicators are very important people and everyone needs at least a bit of this skill. It would be good to practice this extensively, for example at school.
As a communicator you have to be convincing. To achieve this you need to have a number of things in place. You have to develop trust in yourself and you need to be knowledgeable about the topic you are talking about. I believe that knowledge and communication go hand in hand. Further as a communicator, you should also master your language well. There are a lot of communicators, but sometimes I can see that some like to communicate more with the people that speak their native language, because they feel more comfortable. This is why, in my opinion, feeling comfortable is very import when you are a communicator and to be a better communicator I would like to be able to think, listen and communicate fluently in multiple languages.
At this moment I communicate a lot with my friends but also with my family. With my friends I speak English and Dutch. Most of the time I speak to my friends in English for two reason, first to improve my English and second to gather more information and to see what their opinion's are about the different topics we discuss. With my family I speak Persian or Turkish. This is because my family is from Iran and can speak both Persian and Turkish. I also like to give presentations so I can speak in a way that affects my listeners. At the end of my presentations I never forget to ask if anyone has questions, because I love to answer them and listen to what other people think.
For me using different language’s also is a way of communication. But as I also mentioned earlier, communicators have a special way of picking the best form of communication. It really helps to be able to read the body language of the person you speaking to, or understand why they use certain words or a certain tone. This can then be applied to communicate more effectively with this person.
“A communicator should be able to convince people and a speaker is, in certain situations, also a 'connector'.”
5. Principled:
I believe that principled people are people that are honest and show honesty. They also show respect to others, they can see their mistakes and of course take responsibility for their actions. This means they also willingly face the consequences of their actions. I believe that being a principled person means you are someone who has a very strong opinion of certain things that are important to you with a clear ‘line’ that should not be crossed.
I can also imagine that for some people being principled is a way to organize their lives.
I really recognize myself in this personality because I always try to be as honest as possible and make the best effort in my work because this is important to me. I don't like / enjoy finishing my work at the last minute because then I won't be able to put in my best effort. Why I tell you this? Because I feel you have to be honest with your teacher and show that you always show your best effort and try to learn everything they teach you.
I also try to show respect to the people around me, such as my parents, my teachers and my friends and family. I just think it's a good thing and a responsible thing to do because this builds trust, and thus makes them support me in the decisions I make. Showing my best and positive behavior is very important to me.
Besides good behavior, I think that having your own opinion is also very important. To show you are not a follower, but someone who makes up her own mind. If I believe in something and others think differently, I will not immediately change my mind. I will first look at what everyone has to say, analyze the information and form my own opinion. Sometimes people have a point, but sometimes I think my opinion is correct. When I feel this way, I stick to my own opinion and to what I think is right. I think it good when people can influence you in a good way, but I also know that other people try to influence you in a bad way, which is not ok. In these situations, I stick to my own opinion and I do not let anyone affect me in a negative way or allow myself to do something negative that might effect others, or myself in a bad way.
“I believe that principles are fundamental for life.”
6. Open-minded:
An open-minded person is a person who is able to accept another persons way of thinking and their viewpoints. An open-minded person might have a deep kind of understanding of things. They open themselves up too many different perspectives and they can accept themselves and others as they are. You must have heard the expression:”thinking outside the box!”. In my opinion people who are open-minded are mostly people who are able to think outside the box. They can accept and process the ideas of others and incorporate them in their own way of thinking. They are also people who do not want to do completely the same over and over but maybe make a little change, or even a big change in their patterns. I can really relate to this concept, because I really enjoy doing new things and looking at something in a different way, especially with the help of others. I feel that the people around you can really help you with your view of things. For example, working in a group, I used to like working by myself a lot, but when I realized that working in a group can really help you understand things quicker and change your perspective, I started to enjoy working together and communicate with others a lot more.
I believe that, as an open-minded person, it is also very important to have your own opinion as you do not always have to change your opinion or perspective on something, just because someone else sees things another way. But this is not a problem because you can incorporate their ideas and viewpoints in your own ideas. On the other hand, because you are open-minded and you see things differently from other people, you are able to learn and 'build' your own unique way of viewing the world.
This is one of the reasons I love DENISE, there are many different cultures and everyone is different from me, which means there is that much more to learn from other people
I fear that racism and sexism are still a factor in our society today, for example, as a person of color you have to work harder to achieve the same result as 'the native population'. I have experienced this and instead of becoming bitter, it has given me the strength to to excel in everything I do. I think if people are open minded that will also, maybe, help to solve this problem.
“I never give up.”
7. Caring:
The world is currently going through an epidemic. People are worried about their family and friends and wonder if everyone is healthy. Schools were closed and companies had to close their doors because of this deadly virus. Until scientists find a way to put an end to this epidemic, we need to step up and try to stay as safe as possible and help each other out. This is a very difficult time, people cannot see the virus and find it difficult to adjust their lives to something unseen. Everyone wants to go out, see their family and friends, but I think it is better for all of us to stay at home and stay safe until there is a cure a better treatment for the virus.
I wanted to mention this, because I think that this crisis shows something very important. If we don't care about ourselves and other people, the virus can spread. We are now responsible for each other and our society. We must respect the regulations announced by the government, ensure that we are not too close to each other and stay indoors as much as possible, but we must also remember to care for others who live alone or have no family. Loneliness, not caring for people, can be just as dangerous as the virus itself. but we should also remember to care for others who live alone or have no family. Loneliness, not caring for people, can be just as dangerous as the virus itself.
I try to make a difference in this situation, by supporting my family and friends but also try to help people who can’t rely on others. I have a deep sympathy for everyone that is dealing with this right now and have to miss their family and friends.
Caring people are people who have a deep understanding, empathy and respect for others. I feel like caring people are not quick to judge, do not jump to conclusions, and really like to help others. Caring can also means being unselfish and catering to the needs of others.
To relate this to myself, I recently participated in a swimming event, where people would swim laps and, with each completed lap, 5 euro would be donated to children who suffer from cancer and are in need of treatment. I loved to do this because it felt good to help people who really needed help. I instantly cared about this event when I heard of it and immediately wanted to join. I collected 100 euro, and I donated another 50 euro for the children which all went to help children with cancer.
Other things also show caring, to care about finishing your homework to the best of your abilities, to care about your future can have a big impact on your results. When I really care about my homework or the test I have to take, I will study harder and be more motivated. It does not happen often that I feel I don’t care about something, this makes me feel as if I’m wasting an opportunity.
“Caring for someone or something makes a big difference.”
8. Risk-takers:
Risk-takers are people who look for the unknown or for a challenge. These people are often brave and protecting, they often like to explore and think about ways/strategies to accomplish/reach something they want. I believe that risk-takers really like the kick of doing something. Not only physically, for example climbing a mountain, but also academically.
In my opinion, I am also a bit of a risk-taker, maybe not in the physical way but academically, I like to explore new subjects, learn things I don’t yet know and to test and challenge myself. There are so many things that I would like to study, and when a new topic comes up, I cannot wait to learn more about it. For me it presents a chance to prove myself.
I also think that some people are not scared of taking risks but scared of facing the consequences. Of course the potential risk should be weighed against the reward consciously but if people would be more focused on the rewards instead of the consequences I think people would be more willing to take risks. Thus achieving greater things.
I wouldn't call a risk a risk if it has no consequences. A risk can of course have bad consequences, but it can also have good results. You can take a risk, but you must also try to determine the consequences in advance. This means I am prepared to deal with the consequences.
“Take calculated risks.”
9. Balanced:
Balanced people, in my opinion, are very organized and can plan well. I also think that balanced people treat other people as equals and aren’t prone to being racist or sexist. They might not take risks but they will plan their path to the future.
I myself am also a balanced person to a certain degree. I always plan out when to study for my tests, and I can interpret my results to determine what I can do better next time. I really don’t like it when my work is all over the place. I like it well balanced and organized. For me, learning and making homework is more fun when it is organized then when it is all over the place.
I also try not to judge people by their gender or by their skin color or culture. In my opinion everyone is equal and needs the same rights. A white man cannot get a better job than a black just because he is white.
I think, growing up, I also found a balance between feelings/emotions and rationality. I can discern well between right and wrong, and I know how to set my priorities and choose my path. I feel that this is very important to know as a person, to be able to organize your work, and find the right path in life.
10. Reflective:
Reflective people are, in my opinion, people that can have an in depth look at their work and at what they have done in life. I believe that reflective people can be very mature people, because looking at what you have done in life, reflecting on it, analyzing it, can sometimes be very confrontational and hard. Like all humans, people make mistakes in their life, facing these mistakes and reflect on them can be very hard. Realizing what you have done and facing the consequences, which you might regret, is difficult. But when you are able to learn from your mistakes, take responsibility and change things for the better, it will make you grow as a person.
I still have to learn to do this better but I always try to learn from my mistakes. For example when I reflect on my academic work or a test to see what mistakes I have made, understand and learn from them or when it’s difficult to work together with another student I try to analyse what goes wrong and think of how to better handle our next assignment together, so we will be able to better work together in the future.
“I think reflection has an important place in our lives. Once you are able to reflect on your actions in any form, you will be able to evolve."
11. Teamwork
I like working together with other people, but sometimes it is tough. When I work in a group, I face many challenges. One of those challenges is to get my ideas across to the other team-members. This is sometimes difficult for me because I have many ideas that I want to share or express. That can be quite difficult at times. Especially if you are not sure whether your ideas are good or not. On the other hand, I think it's great to test your ideas within the group.
During teamwork I also learn a lot of things like, how to communicate with other team members, make a planning together with the team, keep appointments, help each other and give each other feedback.
I myself am a very social person , which is why I think it is very important to work with other people. I never mind meeting new people. At school we also work in teams for our assignments. That way you will get to know your fellow students. You can see how they tackle certain things, how they give feedback and what their principles are. What I don't really like about team work is people who act as free knights.
I have worked a lot in teams as well at school as in sports. I love basketball, it's a team sport and I have been playing the sport in an official team for almost 2 years now. I like doing this. it's very nice to have the support of your teammates. You can really count on the other players. However, sometimes it can be scary. Sometimes I have a fear of abandoning my teammates, for example, after we lost a game. Fortunately, I still have my coaches who always help me keep it up and focus on the game. I feel the the coaches are also team players. They try to correct me and help me all the time, because they are also passionate about their job. They know I want to get better at sports, so they always support me and the team.
12. Respect
In my life I have experienced many people who were not respectful of other people. This inspired me to be respectful of others. Ever heard of the phrase "treat others the way you want to be treated"? I try to live according to this rule. It is very important to me because I have learned that we are all human and that we should all be treated as equals. This is why I think I am a respectful person and why I treat everyone with the respect they deserve.
I believe that one’s upbringing has a great effect on how respectful you are in your life. Parents of course play an important role. I also think that all schools should pay more attention to upbringing. They are not only responsible for teaching the standard lessons but also to prepare us for the future in the ‘real’ world. Fortunately our school takes this responsibility serious. The teach respect as one of the core values and don’t allow things like bullying and this has been implemented throughout the school and all students are aware of this. Later, in business life, people will bring this respectful behavior to the ‘workfloor’ and set a good example for others.
13. Resilience
Many people have called me resilient, and I also consider myself a resilient person. After difficult times and difficult decisions in my life, I can quickly recover and learn from any set-backs. Of course this depends on the situation but in most cases I am able to quickly recover and carry on, both at school and socially. Of course I try to avoid problems and mistakes in my work, but of course they do happen once in a while. Where most of my difficulties come from is when an assignment is not entirely clear, but the good thing is that I have found the courage to ask my teacher for additional explanation if needed. This has helped me a lot and is now one of the things where I learned from my mistakes.
In my social life, I also had some difficult decisions to make, like the decisions between who to be friends with and who not, who is a good influence on my life and who is not. The only way to find the answers to these questions is experience. If a person only makes good decisions, where does that leave the learning process? Isn't it all about learning? When I experience something bad, I don't look at the things that went wrong, I look at the things I learned and that is very important to me. Take the lessons learned, close the book and look forward, this makes one resilient. I want to have a life full of learning and not only academically, but also socially.
14. Life full of learning
My goal in life is to have a life full of learning. I believe that learning is the most valuable asset available to us. Learning new things is a gift to all of us. Why not do it our whole lives? Not only academical but also social learning is very important.
I am learning something new every day and I might not directly need the acquired knowledge but I am sure I will use it in one way or another in the future. Every day I ask myself “What have I learned today”. If the answer is nothing, I perceive the day as a lost day and I will take action and try to force myself to start learning again. For me, gathering knowledge means that I will gain knowledge to be able to make the right decisions and to be able to help people by with the things I learned. In Persian culture they have a nice saying "You learn from the cradle to the grave".
“knowledge is power, but sharing and using knowledge is an art.”
"For the love of education, I learn and explore"
- Nisha Jarehani
