As another splendid school year draws to a close, we took the opportunity to revisit and check in with several members of our community who had shared their goals at the beginning of the year. Some found success, while others did not, but each and every one of them learned something through the process.

Maria Park, Grade 11:

I do think I did pretty well on achieving most of the goals. I joined more lunch clubs that I wasn’t familiar with before. And during the break, I also tried going to the gym to work out more. The process of achieving my goal was not easy, but I am really satisfied with what I did this year. 

Alex Lee, Grade 12:

From the results of the colleges and the responses from my parents, it seems fair that I don’t have to go to any of the coal mines that I imagined. I just did what I normally did, and it wasn’t challenging to achieve my goals. I’ll tend to seek the future and try to make more accomplishments that are challenging for me.

Jason Kim, Grade 8:  

My goal was to get taller and to be the first one to win SKAC futsal and basketball. Compared to last year, I grew ten centimeters, which was actually very surprising. So, I think I reached my goal of getting taller. The second goal was winning the SKAC basketball championships, which we did, luckily. Sadly, we failed on a repeat because we lost by a single point against HIS in futsal.

Ms. Spaeth, Social-Emotional Counselor:

I think I’m still working towards accomplishing the goal because the goal was just to grow the social-emotional counseling program at DIS. I know I wanted students to feel comfortable coming to me and talking openly about how they’re feeling or if they’re having a hard time. I think that comes with just being here and building relationships with students. So, I think I’m doing good with making progress on my goal. I don’t think it’s ever going to be perfect. I’ll always have ways that I want to improve. I think I accomplished what I wanted to at least for this year.

Mr. Jang, Cafeteria Cook:

I’ve made a big regular deposit. Recently, my regular deposit matured, so I am starting a new deposit. My cooking ability has improved since last year as well. So, I’d say most things are still in process. I feel like I’m at around 20~30% to fully accomplish all my goals. The process was definitely hard, but I’ve learned a lot by working at this school. Some goals have changed throughout the year, and I’ve experienced positive changes.

Lia Kim, Grade 3:

Since I was not very satisfied with my grades, my mom said I had to go to a math academy. I’m still going there. It’s called YR. Many DIS students go there. My mom said YR helps a lot. She said I’m getting better and better. I didn’t improve in art. I felt proud of becoming better at math. I felt like I got one step closer to my little brother.

Emily Shin, Grade 3:

I started going to a violin academy last year. And then, I practiced very hard to get the whole thing right because there are four strings on the violin, and you have to know all the notes in the violin. I am improving my English writing, but it’s not really about story writing. But still, I think my English improved about 50%.

Philip Hinkle, HS English teacher:

As I stated, I did not accomplish the goal of weight loss. I mean, I did a minor amount, but nothing that is enough to be arguably proud of. But definitely, in terms of food consumption, I have improved. I’m not a vegetarian. But during lunch, I do my best to avoid meat. AI-wise, I was hoping to get more student involvement with the use of AI. What happened is, I did a lot more usage of it. I have various ideas for lessons that I would come up with, and I would pump it into the chat and it would give me back ideas that I could then take in some cases. I prefer to look at the positive. I don’t think you should beat yourself up for not accomplishing your goals. I think that the best I can do in order to accomplish these other goals is to stop having goals and embrace processes. Because if you do a certain process all the time and embrace what motivates you, you’ll get to goals anyways.

Logan Nam, Grade 4:

I’m almost there. Last time, my goal was to be better at music. I mean, really, yeah, I’m like overall 85% there. I’m feeling good because I got really better at music. I worked on recorders, instruments, and songs. I definitely tried my best, and I made it through.

Elena Kim, Kindergarten:

Now, my mommy let me play piano and let me swim with my grandparents and my aunt. I already passed the Celebrated Chop Waltz. It was really easy, and it was not hard. My sister and I tried our best, and my mommy helped me, so I passed that on my piano.

Mr. Mayo, Former student-teacher intern: 

I feel my goals were both achieved and missed. I’m not teaching internationally right now, but I’m working towards it. You know what they say though: Real g’s move in silence like lasagna. I do feel teaching at DIS showed where I was lacking, but also aided in refining my current skills. Recently, I have been doing well. I have been pursuing new hobbies such as woodworking. Also, I’m training to possibly do strongman competitions in the future. I have spent most of my time doing big projects around my parent’s house, helping them out. I just recently graduated, so I drove a 2800 miles round trip from Florida to Maine in order to do that. I do miss everyone at DIS, and I think about everyone often.

It appears that everyone navigated their own path to success in various ways. Have you achieved your goal this year? Share your own triumphs and accomplishments in the comments below!