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
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Achieved?
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Nature/Location of Evidence
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Increased
awareness of their own strengths and areas of growth
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Yes
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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).
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Undertaken
new challenges
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Yes
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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.
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Planned
and initiated activities
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Yes
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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.
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Worked
collaboratively with others
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Yes
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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.
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Shown
perseverance and commitment in their activities
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Yes
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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.
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Engaged
with issues of global importance
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Yes
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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.
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Considered
the ethical implications of their actions
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Yes
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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.
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Developed
new skills
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Yes
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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.
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