Freshman Seminar: Me as a Learner
A/N: This was based off an assignment I had to do for school. 13, Cameron, and Kutner are in high school as freshmen. There are very OOC moments, but they're hopefully still enjoyable. Slightly AU: 13 has a good relationship with her dad and there is no mention of her mother. Notice that even though they are all freshman, they tend to act a lot younger. Enjoy :)
Remy liked to walk to school. Today, she decided to drive because of the heaviness of her backpack. She was really excited because today was the day she has freshman seminar. That was her favorite class. She walked into school with a smile on her face as always.
"Hey Ally," Remy said excitedly to her best friend as she walked in the door.
"Hi, Remy. How was the homework load last night."
"Surprisingly, not that bad. All I had was history. Anyways, aren't you excited for freshman seminar today?"
"Definitely. I heard we're starting a new unit today."
"That's awesome. I wonder what it will be."
As they were discussing possible units, they got called into morning meeting. They sat next to each other just like any other day. They heard hardly any announcements. They were too excited for fourth period.
As morning meeting ended, they walked out to go to their first class.
"I just realized that we have to get through geometry, history, and bio before freshman seminar." Stated Remy.
"Yeah, that is kind of annoying. Oh well, that's better than having double English."
"So true. Even though they loved those classes, although not as much as freshman seminar, they seemed endless.
By the time bio was over, the girls were very excited.
"Ally, it's finally here. We have freshman seminar now!" Both of their faces lit up as they ran up the stairs to the second floor. They rushed into the room and quickly sat down and waited for class to start.
"Don't you just love our teacher? He's amazing."
"Yes definitely. He can always brighten up my day"
"Same here. Too bad we never have freshman seminar on the same day we have English."
"Now that would be awesome!"
Two minutes later, the teacher walked in.
"Ok, guys. Who's ready for this?" All the students smiled and bounced excitedly in their seats.
"For the next month or so, we will be talking about personalities." After this was said, half the class slumped down in their seat and they were no longer excited. However, Remy and Ally still smiled excitedly. They loved personalities. It was one of their favorite topics. The teacher handed each student a huge packet. It looked very confusing. The girls understood it perfectly. They waited for their teacher's instructions. They filled out the packet and when the teacher asked each student to go to their corner based on their result, the girls went to the same corner. They loved that they were the same personality.
"Ok, you people in that corner are called concrete sequential. Talk to each other and see what you have in common." The girls did not have the slightest idea what that meant, but they liked it. The teacher said the same thing to the rest of the groups except with a different name. The concrete sequentials, including Ally and Remy, talked for a while trying to figure out what they had in common. They got off topic a lot and discovered that there was not one subject in school that they preferred to others. It was pretty evenly split between math and English. Ally and Remy preferred math. They also discovered that they were all somewhat organized, have very specific routines, want specifics not generals, and surprisingly, get off topic a lot.
"What you came up with is a pretty accurate description of the characteristics, except for the off topic thing. That's not a usual characteristic of your type," said the teacher. For the rest of class, they went through the packet looking at the specifics and tips for improvement. Remy and Ally found it quite enjoyable.
"Ok, guys. Between now and Friday, I want you to review your results and have fun. See you on Friday!" exclaimed the teacher as he left the room followed by a mob of students. Remy and Ally exited the class last full of happiness that they had the same personality. They saw Kutner walk out of his freshman seminar class looking very sad.
"What's up, Kutner?" asked Remy.
"I don't think I got the right personality on the test. All the people in my group are so different from me. "
"Maybe you took it wrong?" Ally suggested comfortingly.
"You can't take this kind of a test wrong. That's impossible."
"What do you mean? All tests and questions have a right and wrong answer. If they don't, then I refuse to answer," Remy stated as she realized that was another characteristic. The three traveled up to lunch.
When they got there, they realized that chicken nuggets and grilled cheese were for lunch…Remy's favorite. "Yum!" she yelled. She ran onto the lunch line, which was shorter than expected. Kutner stood on line with her wanting the same while Ally went off to the salad bar.
"See you guys at the table?" asked Ally. Remy and Kutner nodded in reply too entranced by the smell of grilled cheese and chicken nuggets.
"So, what was your result?" asked Kutner.
"I'm concrete sequential. How about you?" answered Remy.
"Well, apparently I'm concrete random, but I don' t think that's true. I think I'm more of an abstract sequential."
"Kutner, what were the characteristics of your result?"
"I don't know. Something about being loud, off topic, and full of curiosity, but I don't think it's true."
"Kutner! That's exactly what you are!"
"Really?" Remy nodded in response.
"Huh, that's cool. Hey, I'm concrete random. Awesome! No wonder I'm so disorganized." Wow, that really explains a lot!"
"Hey!" replied an annoyed Kutner. Remy smiled. They made it to the front of the line, grabbed their food and went to the table.
"Hey, so didn't you guys just love freshman seminar today? I thought it was so much fun!" asked Ally.
"Yeah, I can't wait 'til next week when we find out what learner we are," replied Kutner.
The next week, Ally, Remy, and Kutner found themselves taking a test to see what kind of learner they are. Ally turned out to be a sequential learner. Remy turned out to be an indirect learner. Kutner was a kinesthetic learner. As soon as Remy saw her results, she thought they were wrong. She almost felt like crying. She thought to herself, 'How could this be so wrong?'
Three periods later, Remy came home kind of disappointed.
"Hey, Remy. How was school?"
"Eh, it was ok."
"What went wrong?"
"Well, we did a test in freshman seminar today to figure out what type of learner we were."
"What was your result?"
"Apparently, I'm an indirect learner."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that I learn by watching demonstrations and reading biographies. I hate biographies."
"Remy, you know that's totally true?"
"Really?"
"Yes, when you were little all you would do is watch the people go by and learn by your friends' experiences."
"Huh. Wow. That's awesome! These tests are so accurate!" Remy started jumping around the room.
"Ooo! I should call Ally now!" She ran to her room and immediately dialed Ally's number. Ally to tell her about her new excitement.
"Hello?" answered Ally.
"Ally, guess what?"
"What, Remy?"
"The results were right! They're so accurate!"
"That's great Remy!" Ally replied.
"Well, anyways, what did you think of the geometry homework?"
"Oh my god! It was so annoying!" Ally and Remy talked for a while longer about pretty much anything that came to mind.
"Hey, Ally?"
"Yeah?"
"It's eight-o-clock."
"Oh we should probably go to bed now."
"Yeah. Well, see you on Monday."
Yeah, see you then." Remy hung up the phone and went to sleep. She couldn't wait until Monday for another awesome day.
For the next week, Remy was experimenting with her newfound learning type and personality along with Ally and Kutner. She watched the people around her. In dance, she mimicked the teacher and other students finding she picked up choreography faster by watching people. Both Ally and Kutner also had much success with their learning types and personalities. Remy's however, did not work well in most classes, especially in English. What was there to watch in English class? People talking and discussing points? No way was that going to work with her teacher! She had to try something else…but what? She did not like participating in discussions that made little or no sense to her and taking notes as required did not seem to get any result.
"Hey, Remy, what's up?" asked Ally after double English class.
"Well, besides just going through a torture chamber called English, I'm having a mighty fine day!"
"Come on, Rem, English can't be that bad."
"Yes, it can. It's torture. I never know what to say and half the time I have no idea what the teacher is talking about."
"Well, what can you do to improve?"
"I don't know. I can't watch any people except maybe watching their mouths move. But what is that gonna teach me?"
"Ah. I see your point. Well, maybe you'll figure something out."
"I hope so. And I hope so very soon."
"We'll figure it out together." Remy and Ally smiled at each other and walked to lunch.
When it came to Friday, Remy was so happy the week was almost over and she did not have English class! She went to freshman seminar class very happy.
"I'm kind of excited for today. I heard we were doing a motivational type test today," stated Ally.
"Ooh! That sounds interesting," Remy replied. They walked into the classroom and began the motivational type test. Both Ally and Remy turned out to be motivated by recognition. They thought this result was accurate except for being publicly recognized. That just embarrasses them greatly, especially Ally.
Both Remy and Ally used the entire personality unit to their advantage during practice that day. However, Remy's attempt was much more successful. First, she used her learning type by watching the demonstrations of drills before doing them. Then, she tried to keep her motivational type in her mind so she could motivate herself as well as her team and coach. However, as always, Ally also used her personality, learning, and motivational type to her advantage with much more success than Remy because hers were more common then Remy's among the team.
A few weeks later, Ally and Remy showed up early to practice. The only people there were Lisa, Amber, and Martha.
"Hey guys, " Amber said as she walked onto the field, " I heard you just finished the unit on personalities in freshman seminar."
"Yeah. We have. It was really fun!" replied Ally.
"So, what were your personality types?"
"We are both concrete sequential."
"Oh really? Me, too!"
"That's awesome!"
"Yeah, I remember taking the test as a freshman and then retaking it in junior year. Both times I was concrete sequential." Amber, Remy, and Ally continued discussing personalities until the coach showed up and they started practice. They had a lot of fun talking to Amber about concrete sequential-ness. That was one of their favorite practices. Both Ally and Remy were now on good terms with Amber. They even sat with her the next day at lunch. They never thought that could happen.
Overall, Remy had learned a lot from this personality experience. For one thing, she could talk to more people now and could slightly manipulate teachers and her parents, which is a skill anyone would want. She even got to sit at a table with Amber. She got to teach Kutner how to be more organized. Now that was an experience. But, most of all, she was happy as to how much closer she was to Ally and their friendship that kept growing stronger and stronger.