"Barnsong"

I missed class this past monday and as a result missed watching the film “Barnsong” a  project done by a former WISE student. I felt that viewing a film documented process of a past student may be quite beneficial, so I went in earlier this week to watch it in Ms. Lord’s room along with a few other students.

“Barnsong” was a documentary made as a part of the WISE program that documented another students project which was to construct a barn. The film was quite brief, likely around twenty minutes, yet I felt there was a lot to take away from it. First and foremost, I found it comforting to know that these projects are not always fully polished and achieving of all goals that were initially set. Both the barn construction project and the documentary itself were slightly rough and unfinished, this is not to say they were lacking in quality they just clearly had things left the student would have hoped to achieve. This helped me in seeing that maybe it’s not entirely about completeing as much of the project as possible, there may be some importance in just making sure what part you do end up producing is quality work that you put a full effort into completing.

Another key thing I drew from the viewing is that my project pales in comparison to the hard gritty work done in barn construction. My workload may be substantial but at no time will I need to drag trees from the woods and feed them into powerful machinery. In short there’s much more I could be doing, but luckily am not. Making me even more determined to produce something of quality.

Lastly, even in the short span of the film, progress is seen in the skills of the student raising a barn. There’s a scene where he is speaking about how much time was initially required to complete a task was greatly undercut as he completed the task for a third time. This is to say that things will get easier and that as my project and many others projects continue on, they will grow more efficient, and development will occur which is much of what the WISE program is about.