I spent seven years at the Alameda Community Learning Center. During these seven years I have developed tighter bonds with friends than I would have at a traditional middle or high school. I have learned how to work with other people and I have gained leadership skills that only ACLC could teach me. Additionally, I have become better with time management (still not the best) and I discovered that I have a strength in the general subject of History. I understand how to use many pieces of technology and often teach my parents how to use any new kinds of technology that they acquire. ACLC has positively impacted the way I live every day.

 

Personal Qualities, Work Habits and Attitudes

Through my many years at ACLC, I have maintained work habits that I will have for a very long time. Any school in the world should be considered as a social environment. ACLC is a real school and a real social environment. I have friends at schools around the Bay Area, but my some of closest friends are the ones I have been at ACLC with for four or more years. Being a counselor at Hannah Camp during my junior and senior years has helped me gain the personal quality of responsibility. Looking after kids is one of the most basic and important responsibilities a person can have.

 

New Basics

ACLC has helped me discover my interest in history and civics. I always had an interest in geography, so this helped with learning about these new subjects. The main source of this interest is because I got my own room when I was eight, and I said I wanted a big map on my wall. My parents took me seriously, so my dad got his cousin to come over and paste a gigantic map on my wall. Since then, I have gone into my room whenever I was bored and just gazed at the map. So many names of countries, cities, and islands memorized through about nine years.

 

Thinking and Reasoning Skills

Molly’s English classes have helped me figure out that I almost always use logic when I think. I am always predicting that things will happen, but it isn’t very often that I am correct. This habit carries over to when I am playing Ultimate Frisbee, although a better word for how I think while I am playing, is tactical. Always thinking who needs to cut when, whether or not the throw is worth trying, if there is a continuation for the person I throw the disc to. Overall, if an action of mine will cause something good to happen, I will make sure there is success in that action.

 

Interpersonal Abilities

There are two main things that ACLC taught me, one of them is how to work with other people. Most facilitators have group projects that they assign every year, Sarah, Patricia, Gabrielle, and Randy have science fair projects, Carlton has the bridge competition, and Lynn has the Of Mice and Men trial. I have participated in the projects in Patricia, Randy, Carlton, and Lynn’s classes. These projects have helped me gain new skills from other people and vice versa. Being in the Leadership class has obviously helped me become a better leader, from leading a small group, to teaching middle school kids how to throw a Frisbee so they can play Ultimate.

 

Technology

The second main thing ACLC taught me was how to work with technology. ACLC is intended to be a school that is very familiar with technology. Most facilitators like the assigned homework to be typed if possible, especially Molly. Other facilitators, such as Lynn or Terry, will assign homework that requires commenting on an article on a website. At home, I am usually the person to figure out how to use a new piece of technology, most of the time it’s something my mom will use in her classroom at Bay Farm Elementary School.

 

    The things I have learned at ACLC are things that a traditional high school could not teach me. I would not know as many people as I do, I would not be as familiar with technology as I am today, and I would probably would have an entirely different set of habits. ACLC is school unlike any other, and I am glad that I attended middle school and high school here.