Ugh on Elective Hall

Tarquin Fox-Reynolds

July 09, 2022 7:10 PM

Intermediate Study Hall - Goal Setting by Tarquin Fox-Reynolds

Once again, Tarquin found himself standing in front of the study hall group, though this time he wasn't running over familiar library routines or merely supervising their homework. Whilst the academic side of their education happened in class, the development of the students as people fell between the Heads of Houses and the guidance counsellor - the latter of whom he was filling in for today. In this role, it was upon them to help the students be competent human beings who could handle life - a thing the adults around them were pretending to have achieved themselves. In some ways, he was less worried about it than he would have been covering for advanced classes that he either hadn’t taken or had half forgotten by now - he had, after all, raised two children of his own, and one-point-five of them had turned out decently. That was a pretty good success rate.

"Good morning," he greeted the intermediates. "Mr. Row is out today, so you have me. However, what we are doing should be familiar. Today, you will be deciding your personal goal for the year. As a reminder, this can relate to your academic classes, to a class or study program you take independently, or to an extracurricular. However, you can't just pick a subject, or whole area, for example saying 'I want to do better In transfiguration.' What does that mean? Quicker results? Handing in more work on time? Challenging yourself to do higher level tasks? You'll notice I'm not mentioning grades. Grades are only one measure of success. This goal is about finding something important to you.

"I'm sure Mr. Row has talked about SMART goals with you. Who can remember what that stands for?” he checked. He took answers as necessary, and then helped them work through his ‘get better at Transfiguration’ example until they had applied all the factors, turning it into ‘I will push myself in Transfiguration by attempting the harder task on at least 50% of occasions by the end of term,’ along with discussing how they might vary that goal for both third and fifth years, as it definitely read as a fourth year kind of level.

“Once you’ve settled on your goal, I would like you to take one positive action towards it today—if it’s an extra course of study, you can look those up. If it’s a class skill, maybe talk to a classmate who is good at that, or make an agreement with a friend to be your accountability buddy. If it’s something social that relates to a particular club or activity, talk to someone involved.

“Any questions?” he checked. “Okay, please begin.”

OOC: As implied, I feel like this is something students would do on a regular basis and be familiar with. Any questions, ask in chatzy.

Subthreads:

I want to be a better Teppenpaw. by Hansel Hexenmeister with Xavier Lundstrom

Ugh by Billy Cobb with Phil Carson

Goals you say? by Iris Cobb

13 Tarquin Fox-Reynolds Intermediate Study Hall - Goal Setting 1464 1 5

Hansel Hexenmeister

July 11, 2022 6:03 PM

I want to be a better Teppenpaw. by Hansel Hexenmeister

Hansel walked into study hall with the hope of not doing very much. As it was still early in the year, he didn't have a whole lot of homework yet, no tests in his immediate future (other than possibly pop quizzes for review or to see what they knew going into a new unit, which weren't on his syllabi and therefore weren't something he was expected to study for), and no major projects in the works. Apparently, the school staff also realized the students must not have a whole lot going on yet and was making them think about Goals instead.

Hansel didn't honestly feel like he needed a goal. He was scoring good grades on his school work, he was more or less on top of his homework (every now and then he forgot about an assignment and ended up turning it in late, but that was the rare exception). He didn't have an independent study, he was only nominally a member of the dueling club - an artifact of when his sister ran it and he still turned up once in a while because he thought it was probably a good thing to have some extra practice in, and nothing else really jumped out as something he wanted to improve about himself or his activities at Sonora.

The example was not a terrible one, he supposed, as he was a fourth year now, and so pushing himself to try the harder tasks more and more often might be something he could work on, but he felt that was something he'd do anyway and he didn't need a complicated acronym goal to achieve it. He supposed he could maybe work on going to the dueling club more often; that probably wouldn't happen organically without a push, but he wasn't particularly sure he wanted to. If he wanted to go to the club more often, he'd go to the club more often.

As he looked around the hall, trying to glean ideas by looking at other people and thinking about what he admired about them that he might lack, he realized . . . he'd been getting lazy about his friendships. More often than not, he hung out with other Teppenpaws because they were the people he was used to spending time with. His friendships with Alexei and Xavier had sort of dwindled, and while Iris made efforts to spend time with him, he didn't often go out of his way to find her. Even among his Teppenpaw friends, he'd invited Leisl to visit over the summer, and that had stretched their friendship and developed it in new ways, but he hadn't done much to strengthen his friendships with Lydia or Patience at all recently.

He decided this should be his goal. He should be more intentional about being a good friend.

And that was a totally vague idea that met none of the requirements of being a SMART goal. Okay. So how was he going to do that?

Specific: He would have meaningful conversations with each of his friends.

Measurable: It counted as meaningful if he learned something new about them or told them something he'd never told them about himself before. In other words, it couldn't just be about the current classwork or their current activity, but needed to help them grow closer and learn more about who they were and what they liked, even if it was something as simple as learning their favorite food.

Achievable: Talking with the people he claimed as friends seemed like something he should be able to achieve, and adding to their knowledge base of each other should be something they should be trying to do anyway so it shouldn't come across as weird.

Relevant: Talking was a good way to share feelings and learn more about people and get closer. Communication was key to a good relationship, after all.

Time bound: One meaningful conversation per friend every week should be doable, and was nicely quantified. They had plenty of meals and class periods that there should be plenty of opportunities for a handful of conversations every week.

Define friends: Leisl, Lydia, Iris, Patience, Xavier, and Alexei.

Secondary definition: Anybody in the Intermediate year group (which conveniently included everyone within year of Hansel's age this year) who seemed worth getting to know better.

Developing secondary friendships probably did not fall under his primary objective of strengthening his existing friend group, and so he did not need to keep up one conversation every week with anyone he started getting to know unless and until he added them to the primary friend group, but 'meaningful conversation' was a good practice to keep in mind when talking to those outside his friend group as well. And if he did have a meaningful conversation with someone else, that probably counted as extra credit to the primary goal.

Okay, so start working on this now. Well, all of his friends were in this study hall. That should make it easy to check off one of his meaningful conversations for this week right now.

He moved toward one of his friends and smiled encouragingly. "Hey. What kind of goal are you thinking of trying to reach this year?" There. That would be learning something new about them, even if it was related to the assignment this time. Today's lesson was pretty much the definition of meaningful personal development and everything about it played right into what he wanted to learn and share with his friends.

1 Hansel Hexenmeister I want to be a better Teppenpaw. 1524 0 5

Billy Cobb

July 13, 2022 5:36 PM

Ugh by Billy Cobb

Billy did not like study hall sessions. They were like classes, but worse. You were stuck inside, in theory doing school things, but there never seemed to be much of a point behind it. It was like mandatory 'sit in the library and work' time, which was the absolute worst thing ever. On top of that today, apparently the librarian was even in charge! Great, wonderful. Billy sighed as he sank low into his seat and waited for the end to come.

Then the librarian started talking about goals again. He already had a goal, it wasn't a complicated one. It wasn't a SMART one. Billy rolled his eyes at the unnecessarily complicated acroywhatever it was. His goal was the same as it always had been, graduate from school and then go and explore every corner of the world that he could poke his nose into. If there was more stuff out there like he'd found over the summer, he definitely wanted to go out and find it.

Well, there was one other thing he'd like to achieve. He'd really like it if Ray came along with him on his global wanderings. That would be dope. Another thought struck him, ugh, he was a fifth year now. Next year he'd move into the advanced classes and she'd still be stuck in intermediates. That was bad enough when he jumped up to the intermediate class and left her back in beginners, now they were more 'together'. At least he was pretty sure they were.

Hmm.... could he set a goal to fail this year and then he'd be in Ray's class next year as well? There were two downsides to that plan though, for one he'd then also be in Iris' class. Also, Iris would never let him hear the end of it. Also, he'd have to stay in school for an entire extra year when he could be free of the place. Now that he thought about it for a bit, maybe this didn't sound like such a great goal after all. Maybe instead... he could tutor Ray so amazingly that she'd jump up to the advanced classes with him! That sounded better! Well... except the whole extra studying thing, that sounded awful.

He sighed. What were they supposed to be doing anyway? He turned to his neighbor, "How's your stuff going?" He asked trying to figure out what they were supposed to be doing again.

2 Billy Cobb Ugh 1519 0 5

Phil Carson

July 13, 2022 5:50 PM

Time to be an Intermediate! by Phil Carson

Phil walked into study hall, checking his schedule again to make sure he was in the right place, because he hadn't quite memorized the Intermediate timetable yet, and his feet sometimes had other ideas of where to go after two years of following the Beginner class schedule. His paper said this was the right place, though, and walking into it, he could see other people who were definitely Intermediates, so he had collaborative evidence that, yes, he was actually where he was supposed to be! Satisfied that he wasn't going to get in trouble for not being somewhere else, he picked a seat and settled into it.

As a third year in the same classes as fifth years, he had already discovered that it was basically his lot to always feel like he was behind everyone else, so he pulled out his Charms text to start reading ahead to at least narrow that gap a little bit. He hadn't gotten very far, though, when he was interrupted by the librarian talking to them about Goals^TM.

Alright. Fine. Beginning of the year. Start it off right. Get some plans and goals set up. He could see the logic in that.

He didn't have one class that was worse than any of others, so he didn't feel a strong need to focus on, say Transfiguration, as was used in the example. Even the suggestions offered to make it more applicable to third years didn't really make it applicable to him specifically, so he sat back in his chair and chewed on his pen cap, and tried to think of a goal with a good quantitative plan behind it for reaching that goal.

Well, he'd already decided he should be reading ahead, so maybe he could work that into it and then do what he'd planned to do in today's study hall anyway. With the syllabi most teachers handed out, he basically already had a plan worked out for him. He just needed to follow through and do the readings a day or two before each class. That settled, he opened his textbook again.

And then the kid (well, older student, Phil wasn't sure he was allowed to call fifth years 'kids' when he was barely thirteen himself) next to him started asking him how his goal was going. He closed the book again and turned to the redheaded Pecari. "I've decided that my goal is to read ahead according to the syllabi for each of our subjects so I don't feel like I am so far behind all the older people in Intermediates." He tapped the cover of his charms book. "So I was starting to read." It was polite to show interest in the efforts of others, so he added, "What's your goal?"

1 Phil Carson Time to be an Intermediate! 1536 0 5

Xavier Lundstrom

July 14, 2022 6:23 AM

I'm already being a model Pecari by Xavier Lundstrom

It was only the start of term, and Xavier already had so much to do. Okay, he basically had a dream journal, which aside from a little daily scribbling, wasn’t much of a chore, seeing as the main thing it required him to do was actually get a decent night’s rest. But there were thick books full of potential answers to his endless stream of questions. There was magic, a type that was all his own that he could feel burning in his veins, and he almost wished for more extra lessons. Still, even when he wasn’t with Professor Duell, he could explore his talents. She had made some vaguely cautionary remarks about not over-exerting himself, but she had not outright forbade him from practising without her. He just had talk to her about it during their lessons. He knew that she would be a very difficult woman to lie to. He didn’t plan on doing so. He just thought they might have different definitions of going too hard, but there was only one way to find that out… Anyway, could she fault him for enthusiasm? Wouldn’t she be pleased if he got results? He could reign it in later if she felt he was overdoing it, and it wasn’t like she could cut him off completely. The supplies of their trade were too readily available. Alexei took divination. There was a deck of tarot cards in their room. There was tea easily available, if he got desperate enough (why couldn’t they divine from a beverage that actually tasted good? Though he guessed he just needed to find subjects willing to drink it, he didn’t have to drink it himself…). There were his hands, and other people’s, and the contents of his own mind which were all doorways asking to be explored, and which she couldn’t take away from him.

He was looking forward to study hall, as it wasn’t a real class, and he could do whatever he wanted. He probably didn’t want to zone out the way he had done in Professor Duell’s private lesson. Professor Skies had warned him that people had mixed opinions on Seers. That was nothing new to him, because people had mixed opinions on gay people too. He wasn’t convinced this was something he wanted to hide, especially when it was the one part of magic he was good at—the thing that elevated him above the level of class failure. But he was wary. He wasn’t exactly popular, and the thought of alienating the few people on his side gave him pause. Oz already knew, but Oz was like him—he was Muggleborn, and hadn’t been taught to be afraid of this. Even if Xavier decided to trust his peers with his secret, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be going into weird trances around them. Firstly, those who were on the fence about Seer stuff might easily be swayed to the ‘enormous freaky weirdo’ side by a display like that. Secondly, drawing on someone’s face whilst they were out of it was probably a prank that transcended cultures.

Still, he could read his divination books. Or he could have, if the librarian hadn’t had other plans for them. Urgh. Goal setting. What was the point? He already had a bunch of extra classes on his plate because the school made plans for him. He didn’t get a say in what he learnt, and pretending he did was pointless. He was tempted not to bother. This wasn’t even a real class when Mr. Row was taking it, and the point was compounded by the librarian being on cover duty. Except this was a task with physical, documented proof that they had to hand in. The librarian wasn’t some sub who was going to vanish into the ether—they all lived here, and could follow up. He probably couldn’t get away with shirking it. Urgh.

What did he want this year? Either relating to class or social… He wanted Oz to stop pretending he didn’t have feelings for him. That probably wasn’t the kind of thing they were looking for, even if he wrote it up into a nice, neat SMART goal… By December of this year, Oz Spellman will be my boyfriend, as evidenced by not asking out any poxy girls and making out with me at least twice week. It was almost tempting to turn it in just to be done with the stupid assingment and to get to look them in the eyes every time they had to try and have a serious follow up conversation with him about how he was progressing.

Really though, it should relate to divination. Except he didn’t know enough about what he didn’t know to know what he should work towards. Seeing the future? Using a crystal ball? Which of those was reaosnable for a year long goal? He had no idea.

Maybe his book would help him figure it out…

That was his intent when he started thumbing through it, though he quickly became aware he was just getting side-tracked by reading it. Still, he had a valid excuse if he was called out on it, and no real desire to return to the assignment.

It was Hans, rather than the librarian, who brought his reading to a stop a little while later.

“Still figuring it out,” he admitted, when Hans asked about his goal. “Academic, I guess? And related to divination?” He was openly reading a divination book at the table, and regular people took that too (even if he hadn’t last year) so that wasn’t like spilling his secret. “It’s hard to know what I don’t know though, so I was looking for ideas. Well… kinda…” he admitted. “How about you?”

OOC: Parts about Prof Duell foretold by her author

13 Xavier Lundstrom I'm already being a model Pecari 1529 0 5

Iris Cobb

July 15, 2022 7:49 PM

Goals you say? by Iris Cobb

Iris only spent a few moments of class glaring at Xavier. She'd gotten to class a bit later than she would have liked and the seat next to Hansel had already been taken. By Xavier. She found a seat elsewhere in the room. She would have been fine with Hansel sitting with one of the other boys, or maybe a few select girls. Xavier however was not one of her favorite people in the world. Ever since they'd all been stuck at school over the holidays the other year and he had been downright rude and unpleasant to her for no good reason whatsoever. Now he was getting all friendly with Hansel.

The librarian started class before she could get much farther. They were working on goal setting again today. Alright, she could think of a goal that she wanted to achieve. Pulling out a piece of paper Iris wrote at the top of it, 'Goal'. Then under that she deftly wrote 'Get Hansel to ask me out by the end of the year.' That seemed pretty well defined, she just wasn't quite sure how to go about achieving it yet. Her current tactic of hanging out around him and occasionally talking to him a bit didn't seem to be working. She also needed to take a positive action towards that goal today.

Step one, might be research, she thought to herself. She could take positive action today by figuring out how some of the other girls that were dating managed the feat. Unfortunately the first one that leap to mind was Ray and the last thing she wanted to talk about with her was how she got to dating her brother. Who else did she know that could give her some good advice? She could write to Ma... but somehow that thought didn't appeal to her either. Plus with things the way they were Pa said to only send owls in an emergency.

Iris sighed to herself, this goal might be harder than she though.

2 Iris Cobb Goals you say? 1526 0 5

Billy Cobb

July 17, 2022 12:34 PM

I'm almost done with that. by Billy Cobb

Right. Goals. That's what they were doing. And this kid's goal was to read. While it certainly wasn't the most exciting thing that Billy could think of to do, he supposed the boy's reasoning behind it wasn't terrible. He could vaguely remember transferring from beginners into advanced, at first he thought it was nice 'cause Iris wasn't in his classes anymore, but then neither was Ray which had been a disappointment at the time. The classwork had gotten harder, but.. eh. It was more classwork. The struggle to make the teachers happy was not a new one. From the sounds of it, this boy was more concerned with it than he was.

Billy nodded at Phil's goal before making a reply. "I dunno yet. Plus they've," he gestured toward the Librarian which was naturally meant to also include Mr. Row, "got weird rules about how the goals are supposed to work. 'My goal is to become a world explorer' just isn't quite good enough apparently." He did remember this from the last time they'd talked about goals. It was a goal, it'd always been his goal. Well, after he'd gotten off the mountain and actually saw there was more to the world than the mountain itself. Now they tell him that wasn't right. Pfft. It was his goal, and it was right if he wanted it to be.

A slow smile spread across his face as he glanced towards the doorway. "We gotta find some way of making progress towards our goal, right?" He indicated Phil's book. "So, maybe I should work towards becoming a world explorer by exploring someplace that isn't this classroom right now?" That sounded like an awesome idea to him. The librarian told him to do it after all.

2 Billy Cobb I'm almost done with that. 1519 0 5