Aiden's Sagonaska Year End Reflection

  Sagonaska Year End Reflection

 By: Aiden Richard

My name is Aiden I'm in grade 8 and in my second, and last year at Sagonaska. In my years at Sagonaska I learned a lot. I learned how to read at grade level, how to skateboard and how to use the Mac's. But the most important thing I have learned is to self advocate.

This is the most important because you need to be able to stick up for yourself, you also need to know the difference between self advocacy and arguing and that self advocating can make you a leader.

Self advocacy is important because you need to be able to stick up for yourself and for what you need. A lot of times In life there is not going to be someone there to advocate for you. Self advocacy is a skill that is very important for success in school and at work and just life in general.

Self advocacy is not the same as arguing. I use my self advocacy skills every day, if I think something  is not right or that we should do something differently I self advocate by speaking up. It's also important to know when self advocacy is not necessary. For example if the teacher says to "Stay after school to work on a project because you didn’t get it done." then self advocacy is not necessary. If you start self advocating at this point it would be arguing. I have learned the difference between self advocacy and arguing.

Self advocating can help others to see how they can self advocate too. If they see you self advocating they will realize they can advocate for themselves. You become a leader and the other students learn how to advocate and that just makes your school environment a better place. Then everyone gets what they need!

So that's the most important thing I've learned in my time at sagonaska. For all of those reasons self advocacy is the most important. Now the year has come to an end and I can take what I have learned with me to high school and to other places in life.