The results of this retreat have left me more motivated and determined than ever. It was decided that for my project, i’d be working alone, and on education reform. I seriously couldn’t be happier.

Working alone has a huge effect on me. It makes me more motivated, less stressed, and often, because i’m less stressed, leads to the production of better quality work. I’m aware that there will definitely be some disadvantages of going solo, because making a documentary is a lot of work for just one person, but i’ll deal with them as they come.

In addition, I was able to do a lot of thinking about where I want to go with my project, and I was able to narrow down who I believe my audience is going to be. Now I can start to get into the specifics of who i’m going to interview, and where i’m going to go. I was able to bring my audience from “the community” to “parents with kids in school, educators, and students”. I’m going to work to convince parents that alternative education is not only something that you should let your child do, it is something that you should encourage. I’m also going to work to convince educators to create these programs within schools, and I want to talk to some different educators (probably a few different principals) about how to do that and the process you’d have to go through. Lastly, i’d like to convince students to push for the creation of these alternative programs in their own schools, or, if one already exists, to join it and encourage others to join, too.

Convincing the community that alternative education programs are effective and should be implemented as much as possible is just one aspect of my project. I am going to work to tie in the tension within education reform to this project as well. I’m going to have to do lots more thinking about the tension aspect, but I will write weekly posts sharing my accomplishments and breakthroughs on the subject, and the progress that I make on other aspects of my project, as well.

Overall, I was amazed at what I was able to achieve over the November retreat. I met a lot of cool people and made so much progress on my project. I can’t wait to meet with my mentor so I can really start planning out who I need to get in contact with, where I can go to talk to experts, etc.

I could write more, but here I’ve made sure to share the most important and relevant things that happened over this retreat. I got so much out of this weekend, and i’m very glad that I now have a path to go down, and that a lot of things were cleared up for me. Education reform is a tough topic to boil down, and I didn’t know how I would ever do it, but this weekend eliminated much of my confusion and answered a ton of my questions. I will be sure to keep you updated.