How was Santiago able to communicate with the merchant with the candy stall if they both spoke different languages? What is this feeling or ability that transcends speech and allows for humans to communicate and understand each other? 

The second person who Santiago encounters is “the King of Salem” who gives him many advices. He seems to know a lot about Santiago as he writes his family’s names in the dirt and reads his mind on multiple occasions. Although he tells Santiago he is Melchizedek, the King of Salem, in one scene he looks up to God, apologizing for this vanity. There is a lot of mystery surrounding his power and character, but he serves as a wiser figure to Santiago. Like the gypsy, he tells Santiago to follow his dream in exchange for a tenth of his flock. The interesting thing about his advice compared to that of the gypsy is his emotion and encouragement attached to the personal words. He almost seems to know Santiago on a personal level as tells him the importance of following destiny and that the world will help those who see this. He even gives Santiago “magic” black and white stones to take on his journey. His words of encouragement and wisdom finally push Santiago to start his journey in a way that the gypsy’s did not completely. The old man's influence has taught him these life lessons that he will value for the rest of his journey and life.

Weirdly enough, I thought the merchant’s daughter who Santiago likes was similar to his sheep, personality wise. Like his sheep, the girl had never seen the world and lived her everyday life focused on only what she was doing. The sheep also are only focused on eating grass and drinking water. Santiago read to his sheep and he talks to her, telling her stories about his adventures. As strange as it sounds, I feel like Santiago liked her because she reminded him of his sheep (unconsciously of course), something he was familiar with.

I’m very interested in the old man who has told Santiago he is the King of Salem. His character is very mysterious and he even claims that he helps people who decide to follow their dreams. I wonder if the story he told Santiago about turning into a gem for the discouraged miner who believed in his fate was real, and he really has magic powers, or if he just told it to Santiago to get his faith and trust. It’ll be interesting to find out more about his character.

What are the similarities between the characterization of Santiago and the Englishman? What about differences?

Day 1

Lesson: engineering design process and potential and kinetic energy
Activity: Straw Shooter

Day 2 

Lesson: civil engineering and architecture 

Activity: Build a Bridge

Day 3

Lesson: electrical engineering and basic circuits

Activity: Circuit box

Day 4 

Lesson: Newton’s laws and structural design

Activity: Balloon Car

Day 5

Lesson: Materials, cost, and effectiveness 

Activity: Marshmallow Tower

Day 6

Lesson: Introduction to VEX and robotics 

Activity: Engineering based education kits such as VEX IQ kits, LittleBits, Lego Mindstorm, K’nex, etc.

After discussing the curriculum to see if it would be the appropriate level for an elementary school child, the elementary school principal asked me if I could make a flyer for that could go out to the students and their parents. I designed the flyer and I’m hoping to do a quick handout that they would read on the announcements. I’m also researching how children learn best and they different ways to approach STEM education. So far I’ve noticed that most engineering education is project and challenge based, which is similar to the outline of the curriculum that I have created.

I thought this first chapter was really interesting and I was hooked to keep reading more. It’s really interesting to see how Kara is dealing with the loss of her father and magic in her life. I’m also very curious about Mary who obviously isn’t just a nice little old lady and could serve as a threat or a mentor from here depending on how she is.

     My elementary school did not have any engineering related after school teams so I knew that our community was lacking there. My program uses cheap and easily obtainable materials for the projects so it wasn’t expensive or hard to implement at Weber. Since this curriculum was affordable, I’m hoping to release it online eventually so that schools across the nation can use this curriculum as a basis for planning engineering related activities in school or at home. This fulfills my goals of getting minority groups, girls, and low income students into STEM activities and engineering education before stereotypes take hold. We have built a straw shooter, a bridge, a lightbulb, a circuit box, a balloon car, and a model tower, and they loved all of them. That’s thing that I really enjoyed about teaching elementary school kids—they were able to apply their creativity and when they understood something, their faces lit up and they got excited, a reaction I was looking for.

     I was not expecting so much success of the program and I’m glad that it doesn’t end here. I started a VEX IQ robotics team that will be there following school year. I will mentor it and now kids in my area can finally have access to engineering education and may want to join the VEX IQ team the next year. These types of afterschool activities also really push for a higher level of thinking and challenges gifted students. 

     This project turned out exactly how I had hoped so given the chance, I wouldn’t change anything about the project. My sophomore year as a whole has also turned out pretty good as well. I have put in continuous effort for good grades balanced with my extracurriculars and although things can never be perfect, I’m glad how it has turned out. In the end, I have done the best I could do in my given situation so I don’t really like to think if it could have been better because that leads to disatisfaction on how much I’ve already done. Instead, I’m proud of myself for being able to handle the stress and seemily eternal coursework. I’ve grown to accept myself for how I am. I used to and still do struggle with being too much of a perfectionist and anxiety gets to me many times, but I’ve learned to appreciate my accomplishments rather than thinking what could have been. So in addition to my school work, I’m also content with my friends which I’ve had a great time with this year and I’m really looking forward to this year.

     In English Leadership specifically, I definitely have grown as a writer. I got commended on the STAAR test and my writing, especially rhetorical analysis, has much improved since that in the beginning of the year. But most of all, my writing now has a style and a voice. I have a way of writing to call my own which no doubt will be changed and perfected over the next few years but I’m glad to have this over robotic choppy sentences. Also, I’ve gotten to re-experience what it is like to read something I enjoy and for fun – which I hadn’t got to do in a while. I liked all of the novels that we read in class and my choice novels as well. 

     I’ve also learned that I’m a student who is motivated by my studying environment. I can focus working at a café rather than at my house where I’m tempted to talk to my sister or watch TV. As silly as this sounds, I also really enjoy doing work when I have good supplies. If I have a cool set of colorful pens or nice sticky notes I’m more inclined to use them and do my work with a better attitude than if I dreadingly just wrote down information with a black pen. So, I’ve decided to make the best of this stationary addiction and get some fun supplies that can help me out the next school year. 

     This Genius Hour project was definitely my favorite project of the year because it let me change things in the real world. I didn’t just read things, I actually did them with results to show for it. I’m glad I had this opportunity to do such a project and it’s been a meaningful experience for me to be able to share my passion of engineering with others. I’ve learned a lot about curriculum writing and now have a great appreciation for teachers, especially elementary teachers who have a lot of patience. Many students, teachers, and parents repeatedly expressed their enjoyment of this program and have asked to continue these mentoring sessions during the summer. I’m still shocked to have it even come this far so to be honest I wasn’t expecting to have to expand on this project. But since the whole summer awaits and I already do tutoring and babysitting, so I thought, why not add summer engineering camp mentor to that list too? After all this was all only possible because I didn’t limit myself, so when even the sky’s not the limit, I can reach the moon.