Category: Music and Movement with Lighthouse school

Second reflection

ganes39839@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sgCAS

I’ve been able to be a part of this service for a few weeks now, and I’m slowly seeing my role and skills within the service develop. I’ve begun participating more in activities rather than just contributing during brainstorming conversations. In one of the sessions, I acted as the main character in ‘The Gruffalo”, which was really fun and I enjoyed entertaining the kids online very much.

One of the learning objectives that I’ve seen relate to my experience in this service is planning and initiating (LO3). Every session we end with a plan of what to do next week, and I’ve been contributing to these planning sessions more with each week. After about 3 weeks of trial and error with different activities and feedback from the teachers at Lighthouse school, we’ve come up with several things that the students enjoy the most :

  • dancing
  • singing 1-2 songs with sign language
  • reading books out loud and then again but with acting out (for both the hearing impaired and visually impaired students)

I’ve been able to use my planning skills that I learned in my other services, such as creating an outline/framework for a period of time, or beginning the planning with a set of objectives to help direct suggestions, to contribute to ideas in the group when we decide what songs/stories we should do. It’s been really helpful building on the planning skills I’ve had before with the new aspects from this service.

Collaboration is always a big part of this local service, especially since we’re a group that has goals to meet on a weekly basis. Compared to my other services, we don’t have specific roles to play as members. This can be quite helpful since we can choose our responsibilities based on the situation, and what we are better at. This service has helped me appreciate the value of collaboration, especially when it is between a group of people who have no particular roles but a common interest (LO5)

Initial reflection

ganes39839@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sgCAS

I recently joined the local service Music and Movement with Lighthouse school. This service aims to create fun, interactive, engaging sessions with students aged 7-18 who are visually and hearing impaired. Lighthouse is a special needs school that provides students with the education, and our service collaborates with them on a weekly basis to read/act out stories, dance and sing. After the first 2 sessions, I can already see how my understanding of the Persons With Disability (PWDs) community in Singapore face tremendous challenges pertaining to access to vocational training, which then hinders their opportunity to develop their collaborative and communicative skills.

I initially chose to join this service because I wanted to experience a direct service, where we could interact with the vulnerable community either in person or virtually, but still make a contribution in some direct manner. So far, this service has not only given me that, but also, the taught me the ability to plan and initiate sessions for the following weeks. At the end of every call, we all sit together as a group to decide what went well/bad and what to do for the next session. I’ve also noticed that at the end of every call, we ask for the teachers in Lighthouse school to give any feedback/suggestions, to which they respond with really useful advice (what the kids liked/didn’t like). This is something that I would consider applying to not just my other services, but other areas of reflection, where I can ask myself what went well/wrong and how I can improve it (LO1).

Another recurring theme I’m seeing is the collaboration between us members. Sometimes, things don’t always go to plan, for example a video may not be working or the teachers prefer a different song/story, in which case we all adapt and collaborate accordingly. I had the chance to do this when we were reading a story book, and in the last minute we decided to act out the parts to make it interesting and engaging for the hearing-impaired students.  (LO5) Although I was still new to this service, I decided to partake and play a role, depending on my peers for guidance while relying on my own observations from other people’s enthusiasm. I ended up enjoying it very much, and I was very grateful to have a supportive group of peers to work with.

I was also very lucky to be introduced to singaporean sign language, a method of communication I was encouraged to learn just like the other members so that I could introduce myself for every call. It was a challenge at first, especially since the group had already been practicing and became somewhat familiar. But I overcame this lack of confidence once I saw how sweet and welcoming the students were, and how engaging they were with the activities we planned. Now I can introduce my name, and speak a few words such as sister, brother, family, thank you. (LO2)