Friday, April 5, 2013

FINAL CAS REFLECTION - FINAL GOODBYE!

My two years in the IB DP CAS programme have been phenomenal. I have participated in a wide variety of activities on the CAS spectrum and have performed up to the best of my ability in each one of them. Through my primary activities in the three aspects of the CAS programme, i.e. Creativity – Learning how to play the guitar and becoming a fluent guitarist, Action – regularly participating in badminton and swimming in order to improve stamina and physical fitness, and Service – being involved in ‘Library Service’ and ‘OSC Recycling and Sustainability’ and learning special life skills such as leadership. All the activities I participated in challenged me at times. I faced these challenges and my work done towards these tasks helped me acquire a set of skills which related to at least one of the CAS learning outcomes. Out of all the great memories and experiences, these challenges and other forms of works done by me primarily shaped my learning. Thus, I can now reflect upon my achievements in the challenging and rigorous, yet fun and experiential CAS filled years.

Learning Outcomes
Achieved?
Nature/Location of Evidence
Increased awareness of their own strengths and areas of growth
Yes
I believe that I was able to reflect upon my experiences in all activities at least once. While learning to play the guitar, I knew that my strengths were pick-style plucking and strumming and always felt that my music note reading skills are an area of growth. As playing the guitar is now a hobby, I am sure that I will gain more knowledge as I complete my school life. Similarly, during my badminton and swimming sessions. During badminton, I reflected upon my tactics and fitness. Overall my skills developed, but my main strength remained my ability to quickly cover the court, to improvise and to communicate/collaborate in doubles matches. My areas of growth right now are increasing strength in shots by hitting jumping shots and using more trick shots in order to make my game play more unpredictable. Lastly, I felt that I was a good planner and organizer in both my leadership roles in ‘Library Service’ as well as in ‘OSC Recycling and Sustainability’. However, I developed a large number of other skills such as clear communication, ad-lib (improvisation) in real life, and team management (encouraging and uplifting all team members while acting as a role model leader).
Undertaken new challenges
Yes
Throughout the two years there have been many instances when I have undertaken challenges. However, the highlights, i.e. the new challenges, amongst them were taking leadership responsibility in CAS activities and organizing some of the weekly badminton sessions for my whole group. Leading my team on a weekly basis required good organization, planning, collaboration, communication and time management. I feel that my experiences in the two CAS activities helped to instill and enhance these skills within me. Similarly, organizing weekly badminton sessions was a task that required me to communicate with my group members. Also, I had to communicate with concerned officials in the D.S. Senanayake Sports Complex which at times was a challenge due to the language barrier. Thus, improvisation and adjusting to new situations are also great life skills that I enhanced in this process. Similarly, my experiences from the Grade 11 Week Without Walls trip involved construction works. Hence, I got involved in digging, painting, and other ‘heavy work tasks’. These were new tasks for me and they were challenges to me initially. However, with practice, I feel that I became more skilled at those tasks and surely developed a new asset of useful construction related skills. Also, taking risks, communicating openly, being balanced in regards to planning and initiating service tasks, and open-minded to others ideas are skills close to the IB learner profile that I have accomplished in the past two years.
Planned and initiated activities
Yes
The main new challenges I undertook were also coincidentally the primary activities in which I actively took part in planning and organizing/implementing. Planning of weekly service sessions required planning ahead of time and thus, I dedicated time outside service hours for this task. Similarly, booking badminton courts in D.S. Senanayake and Royal College Sports Complexes, and organizing and communicating on a daily basis with my guitar teacher with regards to class timings, notations, extra help, etc. required planning on my behalf.
Worked collaboratively with others
Yes
I worked in collaboration with my peers, group members, team mates and supervisors/mentors/teachers in all my activities. Collaboration was the key to both playing and organizing badminton and, planning and organizing weekly service sessions. In order to avoid repetition of the same activities, I shall highlight my collaboration experiences from ‘Week Without Walls’ that took place in Grade 11. While working on helping renovate the field area, I collaborated with my peers at the planning and working stages. I diligently got involved in activities ranging from digging holes and removing large rocks, to painting swings, slides and other play equipment. I believe that all those experiences were special and experiential partially due to the collaborative nature of the tasks.
Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities
Yes
I believe that I showed perseverance and commitment in all my activities. This can be seen through my regular attendance of badminton sessions, swimming sessions, and guitar classes. Similarly, participating in ‘Library Service’ and ‘OSC Recycling and Sustainability’ for one continuous year each exemplify my perseverance and commitment towards these activities.
Engaged with issues of global importance
Yes
In many of my activities, especially in service related activities, i.e. ‘Library Service’, ‘OSC Recycling and Sustainability’ and Week Without Walls – school renovation work. I feel that my contribution, being a part of the two service groups, towards the school community was directly related to issues of global importance. Donation of books and funds to the Jaffna Public Library, a symbol of spread of education by providing resources, was a significant event when I was participating in Library Service. Also, by maintaining the books in the library on a weekly basis, we were able to provide the OSC community an organized and user-friendly resource base. Hence, I feel that our task as a team, despite being small on the global scale, was that of ‘Guardians of the Library’. However, even though the task was relatively small, it was of great importance in the OSC community. Similarly, in ‘OSC Recycling and Sustainability’, our group spread the message of environmental sustainability within the OSC community. While we worked only within the campus, our message of ‘Reducing, Reusing and Recycling’ was global. I, as a leader, worked towards always maximizing our work efficiency in order to succeed in the broad goal of decreasing the school’s ecological footprint by increasing recycling of as many resources as possible. Thus, the implementation of new strategies, planning of every new task, and even the simplest assignment of collecting recycling material from an area or providing a new box for collection to a class – all were of great global significance.
Considered the ethical implications of their actions
Yes
While ethical implications were present less in Creativity and Action, Service was the main aspect of the CAS programme where I reflected upon ethical implications of actions. Similar to the tasks where I was engaged with issues of global importance, reflecting upon the importance of resources for education such as in the case of the Jaffna Public Library and even in the OSC Secondary Learning Resource Center (or Secondary School Library), I felt that the service group’s contribution had positive ethical implications. It had kind purpose and was helpful to the Jaffna community, however, it also taught all of us (the ‘Library Service’ team) the great value of the resources we have for education. For me, this was an eye-opening experience. Similarly, while working with the ‘OSC Recycling and Sustainability’ group, I worked as a part of a team to help reduce the school’s ecological footprint. Despite this being seen as the service group’s main goal and one of the OSC School Board’s fundamental targets, it is globally important action. Those actions have a relatively small effect on the global anthropogenic ecological footprint; however, the positive ethical implications are infinitesimally greater. By spreading information within a multi-national school community, and by also providing information on the internet through a well-maintained blog, the service group serves as an exemplar to all those who are uninformed, misinformed, or wish to contribute in their own ways. In a similar fashion, the nature of aid we provided to the school’s undergoing renovation in Hambantota was much better than just financial help. This was because donation of time and hard-work alongside with financial aid can provide utilitarian happiness and create unforgettable experiences for all participants. Thus, overall, I feel that there have been great positive ethical implications from some of my actions, and I will always continue to work towards helping others.
Developed new skills
Yes
I feel that I developed new skills in all the activities I undertook. Other than the new skills mentioned previously such as those related to leadership, commitment and perseverance, etc., I believe that I developed one special skill that I will cherish for my life. This is the skill of being a fluent guitarist of a moderate level. I will surely continue to build on my current ability and hopefully improve even further.

The past two years have been enthralling and enriching for me. I will always cherish the experiences and am sure that the learnings from the CAS process will always help me in my future.

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