Ko Wai Au Presentation

This is a presentation I made detailing me and most things you need to know about me. It covers this like My family history, Pepeha, A bit of my life story, My abilities skills and qualities and the primary challenge I have had to overcome. It was designed as a slide of prompts so I apologize that there is not much detail around each point.

What is Leadership?

 I believe that leadership is the ability to admit when you are wrong. If you are able to do this then people will respect you for it. This obviously isn't the only leadership quality and a few other include being good communicator, having integrity and having a high level of resilience.

If you want to be a good leader you need to be able to communicate well, if you are too scared to speak up to the older and bigger people then you will never get anything back from them. Not being a good communicator means they will see you as a smaller person and they will never respect you.

Having integrity is a very important quality in being a good person and also being a good leader. If you are a good leader only when people are watching then you don't have integrity and shouldn't be in a leadership position.

Being resilient is very important too. If things get too hard and you can't do them then you need to keep trying. Being a leader is never easy and that means you have to be resilient otherwise people will see you as weak and will try to find ways to get a new person to take over whatever you were in charge of.

Radio Show Learning Reflection

 Radio Show Learning Reflection

Recently at school we have been making podcasts. We had to find a topic that related to the school that we were passionate about and then start planning. First we would think of various people to interview and then we would write some questions. At this stage some of the group members were being a bit annoying because they couldn't work together and still be sensible. When we had a set time with the interviewees we wrote out some questions to ask them and sent them a copy of the questions so they had time to think of some answers. When we had interviewed them I picked out a track for our intro and outro(Swagger Stagger by Lucas Pittman). I started editing and finished in about one and a half weeks. The most tedious part was probably editing out the ums and ahs. Some parts we had to rerecord because they didn't sound right. I used a software called reaper. I would highly recommend it and even though I had no experience with audio editing I still managed to do a good job. I had some trouble with exporting but it all was resolved in the end.

Some things I would change was my group members. I worked well with my partner but the other two members didn't work very well together.

I contributed very well I think because I did most of the question asking in my interview and did all the editing.

It took a bit but communication did improve towards the end of the project.

I enjoyed this project because it gave me a lot of creative freedom.

Attached is the audio file so you can listen to the finished product.

For context Manukura GPS is a boys leadership program run by Sam Ward. He wants to change the way students have to learn.

Manukura GPS in 2024.mp3

Essay: The Boy in the striped pajamas

 In John Boyne's novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, an important relationship is the one between Bruno and Shmuel. This relationship helped me to understand a key message, which is that friends can come from the most unlikely of places. Even during such a horrible time period, if people put what little differences they have to the side, I think that anybody can become friends. They seem like they are going to become good friends because they aren't arguing and they seem more interested in what they have in common such as football and becoming friends.

At first, the relationship between Bruno and Shmuel is tenuous because they don't know each other very well and have not developed a trusting and friendly relationship. Boyne shows us this with this quote, "'Hello,' said Bruno. 'Hello,'" said the boy." To me they seemed cautious but mostly just curious. These were the first words the two boys spoke to each other so I feel this is when their relationship is the most fragile because they don't know anything about each other.

Later, they are starting to become very good friends and have been having fun and talking almost every day. This makes me think that they are going to end up being the kind of friends that tell each other everything, share everything and have no secrets. The author shows us this with, "'I'm sorry, Shmuel,' he said quickly. 'I should have given you some chicken too. Are you hungry?'" This shows that Bruno truly cares about Shmuel and wants him to feel good and not hungry. This quote is from when Shmuel is in the house polishing glasses and Bruno stumbles across him in the kitchen. Interestingly, in this scene we see the pressure the relationship is under when Lieutenant Kotler catches Shmuel eating and Bruno denies knowing Shmuel at all. I think this is because Bruno is scared of being told off by the Lieutenant. To me this is an interesting part of the story because it shows their relationship is getting stronger and they are starting to care about each other a lot more, however there are still some fissures in their relationship that need filling. For example there is a point in the middle of the book where Herr Lizst's lessons change Bruno's point of view and he leaves early during one of their fenceline conversations when Shmuel says he is a Jew. Bruno later realises that he doesn't care that Shmuel is Jewish and changes his mind again.

At the end of the novel, we see that they now fully trust each other and they see each other as best friends. Unfortunately, this very trust led to their tragic demise. John Boyne shows us this with, "Of course, I wouldn't let you down." This shows that Bruno is fully committed to finding Shmuel's Papa. They are unaware however, that his Papa was probably a pile of ash. Because of Bruno and Shmuel's blindness and trusting friendship, they do nothing to stop themselves from being rounded up and thrown into a gas chamber. Although of course there is nothing they could have done to stop it. I thought of two reasons for this. Firstly, they didn't have any idea that they were being led to their deaths. However, if they had realised and Bruno said that he wasn't Jewish and that his father was the manager of the camp I don't think the soldiers would have believed him and they would have put them into the chamber anyway; Secondly, if they had believed him even for a second they might have been too scared about wasting a superior officer's time and would have thrown them in anyway. To me this is a sad moment in the story because it truly means that there is nothing the boys could have done to prevent their deaths.

Throughout the novel, the relationship between Bruno and Shmuel develops from being normal and innocent to being the best of friends due to being together so often and getting along from day one (with some exceptions for their arguments). This relationship helped me understand a key message in the novel, that friends can come from the most unlikely of places. In my opinion, the novel is a great way of educating people on how the war might have unfolded from a different perspective to what they might be used to and showing how a friendship can come from nothing, if you like that person and get along well with them. It doesn't matter what is going on around them with the war and politics because they are just interested in each other as human beings.