Core Competency Reflection

Brendan Tang

Personal Awareness & Responsibility:

Strengths:

1. I can express my needs and seek help when needed.

I’ve never been embarrassed about having a problem with something and I often feel comfortable asking
for assistance when I need to. I tend to ask for help a lot when I’m on job sites with my dad. Since I’m
new to the electrician business, I’m unsure in how a lot of things work and I depend on my dad and
coworkers to teach me how to use most tools. This is a skill I’ll be able to use throughout my life without
even noticing and will probably help me through a lot of problems.

2. I can set goals, regulate my emotions and persevere in difficult situations.

Last year, my family planned a 3-week trip to japan in the middle of the school year, and I planned to do
all the schoolwork I would miss during spring break. I set a goal to finish everything I needed to before
leaving on the trip and it was difficult since while my friends were enjoying their spring break, I had to do
a bunch of schoolwork. However, I was able to persevere and work hard which led me to achieve my goal
of finishing everything, and the trip never ended up affecting my grades.

Weaknesses

1. I understand learning takes patience and time.

Throughout my life I was always able to pick up newly learned topics very easily and quickly, because of
that, I am not used to being patient and learning a topic slowly. I often get very anxious and annoyed if I
don’t understand a topic immediately as its being taught. Recently, in my Physics 12 class, I expected
everything to be easy since I found physics 11 very simple. However, when the teacher began to
introduce a topic that I found confusing, I became very frustrated and thought I was going to fail the
course. But I realized I was overreacting since as I spent more time reviewing the lesson, the more I came
to understand it. Despite this realization, I still think this is still an area in my life that I need to pay more
attention to and grow out of in the future.

Social Responsibility

Strengths

1. I can identify and appreciate different perspectives on issues and use and evaluate strategies to
resolve problems.

I’ve always done quite well in understanding different perspectives and opinions of different people and
using that to figure out why the problem happened and how it can be resolved. I am usually the person
in my family and friend groups that resolves conflict when I can.
 2. I have positive peer and intergenerational relationships.

Making and maintaining positive relationships with peers is something that comes easy to me, and I’m
also on very good terms with my close family. I often make time to see my grandparents as much as I
can, and I show a lot of respect to them as well as other family members in older generations. As for my
peers, I’m able to work well and have a good relationship with most of my peers in my classes.

Weaknesses

1. I value diversity, defend human rights, advocate for others, and act ethically in all my
interactions, including online.

I’m not really the type of person to step in and actively defend others who I have no relations to,
especially online. I just never really regard it as my issue, and I don’t see myself as some social justice
superhero. In addition to this, I’m someone who wants to avoid conflict and arguing altogether, and I
would rather walk away from it and not get involved whenever possible. Thankfully, I’ve never witnessed
a situation of conflict that would need another person to advocate for them.

Critical Thinking

Strengths

1. I can analyze and make defensive judgements, draw conclusions and consider a variety of
perspectives.

I consider this one of my strengths since I’m quite experienced in topics I know about and I’m able to
stand my defence when I’m confident in my judgement. I also know and talk to a lot of people of
different cultures and generations, so I can consider their opinions and perspectives when thinking
critically. I often use the perspectives I learn from them when thinking about long term decisions as well
as future careers.

2. I can ask good quality questions, gather information, and come up with well-developed
conclusions.

Having this skill is directly linked to how well I’m able to analyze and report a chemistry lab. Asking
quality questions, gathering information and coming up with conclusions ties in with doing a hypothesis,
collecting research data, and writing up a lab report conclusion. I’ve shown this strength many times
with the amount of good marks I have gotten on multiple chemistry labs, and I could probably apply the
skill I learned from doing that to other activities.

Weaknesses

1. I can assess my progress.

This isn’t a very big weakness of mine, but I put it as a weakness because I do pretty good in all the other
competencies compared to this one. I’m still able to do well in this area, I just find assessment of my
progress to be a little tedious and difficult to reflect on. I don’t really like to reflect back on a topic when
I’m finished with it and I think of it as quite draining. I also sometimes forget elements in my progress
when I go back to assess them, and this shows when I have to do a write up on a book in english class
and end up missing some points that would improve my mark on the write.

Creative Thinking

Strengths

1. I can create new and unique ideas that may provide new perspectives that influence how people
think about new topics.

I love thinking about fresh ideas and topics, especially ones that carve paths to success. Even though
most of the ideas I come up with are crude and aren’t very impactful, it sometimes gives others new
topics think about and branch off of. Earlier this year I took place in a business case competition where
competitors had to come up with ways to advertise and grow certain companies. While my teammates
had a little trouble coming up with methods, I was able to generate some creative ideas that we were
able to brainstorm about as a team and use in the competition.

2. I can use the environment around me, including others, and my unconscious mind to generate
new ideas.

I’m often good at storing random topics I learn about deep in my memory so that I’m able to put them to
use later in life. I’m able to remember information given to me by past experiences, family, friends and
even strangers to creatively generate new ideas. I’ve shown this skill a lot in school projects that involved
creative thinking, since I was able to use the advice and ideas from others and implement them into my
own project.

Weaknesses

1. I can persevere and understand that failure can be productive.

Failure is something that negatively impacts me a lot mentally and emotionally. I’ve never been able to
accept failure especially in the classroom. I often even get disheartened at grades lower than an A, and I
let it affect my mood quite a bit. In grade 8, I was pushed by my teacher to write a “challenge” math test
instead of a regular one, and I ended up failing it because it had topics that I hadn’t learned yet. It was
the only school test that I’ve ever failed, and I still blame the teacher for it to this day. Most people
would think they should get used to failure so that they can get used to it and turn it into something
productive, however instead of that, I want to work hard so that I won't ever fail in the first place.

Communication

Strengths

1. I can listen, learn to contribute meaningfully to discussions and debate, consider different
perspectives, and build consensus.
I’m generally someone who’s quite understanding and lenient in discussions, and I try to understand the
opinions and perspectives of everyone included. I also tend to offer some of my knowledge and
experience to the conversation as well to help everyone to come to an agreement. I’ve shown this
strength when I was working in a group to solve math problems. I would always step up and give my
solution to the problem when nobody else could, and I would also teach others how I got my solution if
they didn’t get it. I also would listen and learn from others if they said and proved my answer was wrong.

2. I can work with other students to plan, inquire, and solve problems.

I’ve always been someone who has been able to work with others. I’ve shown this strength even just
recently this year when I had to work with my table group to come up with research questions for
capstones. I was able to come up with a lot of research questions and would also help my group mates
turn the ideas they had into research questions as well.

Weakness

1. I can reflect on the processes of learning and share what I have learned.

I often have trouble finding the right words to share my learning progress with others and most of the
time I just don’t know how to explain what I learned. This is most likely because of my tendency to
quickly pick up topics without spending much time trying to learn them.

Personal & Cultural Identity

Strengths

1. I understand what is important to me.

I value my religion, my family and my friends the most in my life. I’ve been very confident in what my top
values were for most of my time alive, and they will probably remain the same for most, if not all my life.

2. I understand how what I value has and will shape my choices.

My values have influenced a lot of choices in my life and will continue to affect them in the future. I also
understand that I should be prepared to sacrifice some things to keep my values a top priority. I value my
family a ton and spending bonding moments together is very meaningful to me. Recently I showed this
by sacrificing my spring break to work on the schoolwork I would miss instead of relaxing like I wanted
to, so that I would be able to spend time with my family in Japan.

Weaknesses

1. I know what my strengths are and what makes me unique.

I’ve always been a little lost on what I excel on more than others, since being “good” at something is
subjective to everybody and there is always someone who will be better than me at the subject I think
I’m strong in. Being a little unsure of my strengths has caused me a little bit of trouble deciding for my
future careers, making decisions in school, and even on this reflection. Later on in life, learning more
about what I excel in should be something that comes naturally, and I’ll be able to make decisions that
cater more to my strengths.