Service CAS Reflection 4 – Dragon’s Sport Leader’s

HS Dance showcase, team member/co-leader             Early September 21 – Late March 22

Experience: Coaching Junior Schoolers Track and field  (21′)                        LO3, LO4, LO6

Experience: Coaching Middle Schoolers Cross Country (22′)

This activity/service emboldened my ability to lead and my leadership skills by allowing me to support, and coach younger children in two of my main sports.

From September to November 21′, I worked with Coach Deeth to help coach, and design drills and activities for the Junior School Track and Field activity.

From February to March 22′, I worked with Coach Hooper to help support and coach the Middle School Cross Country team/activity.

LO3 [Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience] &                                                     LO4 [Show commitment and perseverance in CAS experiences]

Key skills: Planning and leading a session, building confidence by leading warm-ups, drills, and cooldowns. Moreover, making the activity sessions fun & safe

Key skill: Being organised, emailing the coach if you are unable to attend a training session, as well as organising training sessions and drills beforehand

During both of these opportunities, I was able to plan, and execute sessions for younger members of the school. I made sure to work on key skills such as leadership, and form activities that develop the student as an athlete – while simultaneously being fun and safe. This is important as this is not a competitive training session, but an activity for all – and the main aim is to introduce the sport to these students and let them experiment by having fun doing some of the basic drills to teach correct running form.

An example of this, In one of the junior school sessions, I organised an activity where we would run a few different types of relays. These relays were designed to encompass the different muscle groups that are used within running. In this activity, running is the main focus, however, we added an exercise that students had to complete once reaching the far side before coming back and exchanging their batons. We used 5 burpees (chest-to ground), 10 star jumps, and 5 push ups before the final relay. I decided to make the last relay the toughest, and would challenge the kids, I demonstrated the suicide relay – where a runner runs to each of the lines on the field and go back, increasing in distance as fast as possible. 

In order to make this activity fun, as a relay usually is, there must be a sense of competitiveness. For this reason, we attempted to make fair teams, of equal numbers and genders. This made the relays much closer and more fun as the kids were more engaged with the relay itself.

The use of batons here is targeted in familiarizing these junior school students with track and field equipment that they may use in the future, practicing a baton handoff is great practice.

 

LO6 [Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance] 

Key point: Treating everyone fairly and include participants of all abilities and disabilities, ages, genders, and ethnic backgrounds.

Even in a developed international school such as ours here in Singapore, racism and discrimination still occurs from time to time. Whether infrequently or not, this is simply unacceptable. In order to counter this issue, I made sure that when I was coaching I included everyone equally, and did not exclude or give any bias to certain people. For example, in the past I’ve observed various coaches who have focused on and given tips to only the best athletes in the group. This is detrimental to the rest of the group as they will not be able to develop their skills as well as the others and thus will not be able to become competitive! Furthermore, discrimination I have faced in the past is not pleasant, and it takes a toll on your mentality – disincentivising you from continue to try and continue to train.

Thus, in these sessions – I made sure that I was approachable, I accounted for everyone and any difficulties they may have been having during the session – and I made sure that everyone was both challenged, and had fun during the session. Being a friendly role model is a key to inspiring future generations to join the sport in question, whether that be running, track and field, or any other sport. Moreover, it was imperative for me to encourage and praise the students during the session so that they feel happy, and are motivated to continue working. Instead of providing negative feedback, a feedback or criticism should always be preceded by a compliment such as: “You’re doing awesome, keep it up Jack! One thing I want you to focus on is to try increase your stride length by stretching your legs out further during the next sprint – this will limit the amount of ground strikes and help you move faster”

 

I have chosen to not include any media/pictures from these sessions as I do not want to post any pictures of the younger kids without consent for their privacy.

 

Creativity CAS Reflection 4 – Dance Showcase

HS Dance showcase, team member/co-leader        17th November 21 – 16th February 22

Performance – Dance Showcase, Latin-American dance                                     LO2, LO5, LO7

It is now mid -January and we are fast approaching the dance showcase performance, on the 16th of February. I am nervous for this however I am definitely looking forward to having a good time and performing alongside my team of dancers.

“For us “momentum” is the present, our way of living and seeing life, but above all the importance of always leaving a positive mark wherever we go. This is where our stimulus comes from, which is Latin American culture and history. Latin America has been rising in recognition for the last few years, and this is because of that sense of joy, that vibrant culture that makes us feel proud and happy of our Latin roots. The Latin community is being seen more than ever around the world, and especially the Latin family at UWCSEA, that is why we want to continue leaving our footprints, showing our essence here in Singapore and in our next destinations where life will take us, but overall teach people to have fun and enjoy every moment in life, because we are the only ones in charge of writing our own story.”

LO2 [Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process] – The whole process so far has been completely new to me, as someone who has never danced before. It is now mid-January and I have been practicing the dance along with my group rigorously, and  I am continuing to get more and more comfortable with dancing in front of others and more comfortable with my own body and how I move my body. Furthermore, I have been going to practice sessions during the winter holidays and making sure I know every move in every dance. It was difficult but asking the choreographers for clarifications helped me eliminate any doubts and removed improvisations. This allows my dancing to match everyone else and correctly portray the choreography and songs. The performance itself was so much fun, by the day of the show – I was feeling confident and knew all of the dances/dance moves. I believed that our team could execute a spectacular dance piece, and that it would link well with the other dance pieces in the show. During the show I enjoyed it and moved to the rhythm, and followed the moves from practice with a lot more energy.

LO5 [Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively] – During this time, I have been getting to know the people in our dance better, and making new friends. This allowed me to expand my social network, and let me meet new people – a lot of them are boarders and scholars who come from South America. Interacting with and watching these people dance have opened my eyes as to how nice these boarders are. Furthermore, a lot of them have been able to help me develop my dancing skills by teaching and showing me the dance moves better and correcting and letting me know if I make any errors during the dance. This also works vice versa where I made sure to let anyone know if I spot any errors they made during the dance. Moreover, working collaboratively in practice sessions improved my communication as during these sessions I made sure to ask questions if I had any doubts, as well as generally being able to communicate effectively online (during organisation of rehearsals, information, and the performance details themselves.

LO6 [Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance] – As the world currently has a limited resource problem due to scarcity, as well as increasing waste from many developed countries – this year we decided not to order uniform costumes for everyone that would only be used once before being thrown away. Instead, we decided to wear clothes that we already had at home, with a white shirt, black joggers, and a Hawaiian shirt with white shoes. This allowed us to be more environmentally friendly, and sustainable in our performance. Waste of clothes (textile waste) is a big issue of global significance as it contributes to a large portion of landfills. Upon research, on average consumers throw away 60% of textile purchases within the first year which is shocking. Another striking point is that at the current rate, there will be over 150 million tonnes of clothing in landfills, and in 2020 alone there were reported over 19 million tonnes of clothes in landfills.

Performance video linked here

A group photo of the team:

I would definitely like to try out another dance event in the future, possibly in university as this new experience has opened my eyes to the field of dance and how much fun it can be.

Creativity CAS Reflection 3 – Dance Showcase

HS Dance showcase, team member/co-leader        17th November 21 – 16th February 22

Performance – Dance Showcase, Latin-American dance                                     LO2, LO4, LO5

In November, I took initiative to audition for a Dance showcase, called Momentum. I learnt and auditioned for a Latin-American dance piece choreographed by 2 student leaders.

“For us “momentum” is the present, our way of living and seeing life, but above all the importance of always leaving a positive mark wherever we go. This is where our stimulus comes from, which is Latin American culture and history. Latin America has been rising in recognition for the last few years, and this is because of that sense of joy, that vibrant culture that makes us feel proud and happy of our Latin roots. The Latin community is being seen more than ever around the world, and especially the Latin family at UWCSEA, that is why we want to continue leaving our footprints, showing our essence here in Singapore and in our next destinations where life will take us, but overall teach people to have fun and enjoy every moment in life, because we are the only ones in charge of writing our own story.”

LO2 [Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process] – This experience so far has been something completely new to me, I have never danced to a standard such as this. The main challenge for me was going down and learning the dance alongside a squad of people. Although it was a bit embarrassing for me initially, after the first 2 sessions, I let go and enjoyed dancing and moving my body. Dance is an art form, although challenging, can reveal so much about a person’s character, and dance pieces overall express messages, ideas, and convey stories. At the present moment, I am enjoying dance so much more and truly appreciate the art form, as well as dancing with other people.

LO4 [Show commitment and perseverance in CAS experiences]  – Commitment and perseverance have been demonstrated by continuing this novel activity for me, something slightly out of my previous comfort zone. I have been going weekly as well as during certain holiday periods for a few hours at a time for rehearsals. Although this dance is quite short, at around 5 minutes in total, the dance is very fast paced and the number of moves makes it increasingly difficult to memorise. However, the number of rehearsals have allowed me to practice and wring out any doubts I have had in the dance choreography.

Between now and the performance I must continue practicing the dance moves both with the group and myself in order to have a sufficient muscle memory of the dance moves.

LO5 [Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively] – Being able to work effectively with other people is the key to a successful (group) dance. As time has progressed, I have become more comfortable with, and got to know the rest of the dancers in my group. Furthermore, working collaboratively in practice sessions has allowed me to both develop and refine my skills as a dancer. Observing and working off of other people’s movements gives me better ideas on how to improve my own. Moreover, in experiences like this, working together reduces the pressure and workload and makes the experience overall more fun. This group of people are diverse, and fun, all coming on board with different talents. Some of them are dancers, and have danced in the past- while people like me have not. Therefore, working together helps both develop my dancing as well as improve the dance as a whole.

My next steps are to continue rehearsing and refining my dance skills, as well as stay resilient during this process. I am looking forward to the performance, however, as time dwindles, I need to make sure I am prepared for the spectacle.

A small sample from a practice session below (file size restrictions):

 

IO question practice

How does the narrative voice/perspective/speaker affect your reading of the text and what it says about the global issue?

1 min on extract, rest can be on the body of work – IO tips

 

The text I will be exploring is The Help by Kathryn Stockett. The help is written in 3 first person narrators, Aibeleen Clark, Minny Jackson, and Skeeter Phelan.

The text is written in a shaky command of African American Vernacular English, a dialect in which a large chunk of the book is written. Though the author’s intent may have been to accurately represent the black community, in the 1960’s, this shaky command may have had the opposite effect. Furthermore,

 

How does global issue/end of the text?

 

Authors life

Service CAS Reflection 5 – Surfaid

Global concern: Surfaid, Role: Chair/Leader 2020-2021  August 17th – November 2nd 21

Official events that occurred during this time:                                                            LO3, LO2, LO6

  1. Advertisement of the Surfaid global concern through 3 pitches and question and answer sessions with the different grades in high school. This was done at the beginning of the school year, in August 2021.
  2. Approval for sales was obtained and booked for the 16th – 19th November, where we will sell our face masks in the canteen to the wider school community.
  3. Welcome session and presentation to the new members, with several interactive activities in order to demonstrate the purpose of Surfaid and the work we do here at our school

The start of the school has been tough for all activities, with only service groups such as ours being allowed to run due to the 2 people group restriction set in place. Though we had to face challenges and obstacles such as these, I worked hard with our teacher supervisor in order to find and create interactive activities that would engage new members. Alongside this, I created a welcome presentation to present to the new member of our group, this included a summary of the previous years at school, information about Surfaid and the projects we are funding, the goals and objectives for this year, and more. During this time, our GC obtained approval for sales, and we received our face masks that were ordered in the previous school year. These face masks will be sold to the wider school community, and the profits will go directly to the new Surfaid project, Nusatani (which focuses on agricultural nutrition of a target estimate 20,000 rural Indonesian villagers).

LO3 [Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience]                                                          LO2 [Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process] – Planning sessions along with my teacher supervisor has been a challenge that I have benefited greatly from. Not only did I have to plan outlines, and resources beforehand – but I also had to implement them within sessions. This has greatly improved my ability to speak in front of a larger group, as well as to direct a group. Being a leader in this service has allowed me to improve effectiveness within our service group, as well as learn how to delegate specific members certain tasks in order to maximize the quality and minimize the time taken. Not only this, but this activity has also opened my eyes to the amount of effort that has to be put in before a session, it is most certainly much more effort than it appears, and I am more grateful to my teachers for their efforts. For LO3, I joined an environmental pitch and question and answer session, and presented Surfaid and our Surfaid group at school to grades 9, 10, and 11 (high school). These events required me to plan and execute a speech, as well as firm up my knowledge of Surfaid beforehand in order to answer difficult questions that could and were presented by audience members.

Furthermore, our face masks have arrived in school and are of fantastic quality. During this period of time, I set up a meeting with our supervisor, the head of the service department, and the finance department in order to obtain approval to make sales. This was successful, and during a separate session with the head of service, we booked in the dates 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th November to sell our face masks in the canteen to school students. Along with this, I have plans to print and laminate several posters which will have information on Surfaid, where the profits are going towards, and the sustainability of the mask itself.

LO6 {Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance} – Surfaid GC at UWC has raised over $100,000 over the past 11 years, which funded the mother and child program in the Nias islands. In March of this year (2021), the mother and child program came to an end, with multitudes of success. During a video meeting in the latter part of the last school year, the founder of Surfaid, and a program coordinator agreed to meet with our group over a video conference. The program coordinator went through some of the success with the mother and child program and showed us visual evidence of what our money went towards. Something truly extraordinary, we could see itself all the work that the deployed Surfaid volunteers have done to implement better facilities and teach villager on birth, hygiene, medicine, and pregnancy. During this meeting, the program coordinator also introduced a new Surfaid project, called NusaTani.

For this year, and upcoming years, our service group at UWC will be funding a new project. This project is called NusaTani, and will have a predominant focus on agricultural nutrition, where Surfaid volunteers will educate villagers on nutrition, a balanced diet and teach them several methods of farming/farming new and healthier crops. This project is estimated to have a profound impact on 20,000 rural villagers in Indonesia. Our service group’s money raised will go towards the resources, volunteers, and the teaching of villagers. Thus, it is imperative that our service group attempts to ideate and raise as many funds as we can ethically raise.

Nutrition is something that people take quite lightly in the modern world, a balanced diet is extremely important in maximizing the betterment of our body, as well as ourselves in our daily life. For example, a rural villager may be deficient in iron due to not consuming enough proteins or iron-filled substances. This could leave them feeling tired or out of breath (reference- Mayo Clinic). Simple knowledge of basic nutrition will go a long way towards these villagers, and improving their life. Their happiness and work rate may simultaneously go up, as they are able to feel better during the day and thus, support themselves and their family/village better.

Above is a picture from the NusaTani project that will be effective in the Sumba and Sumbawa regions of Indonesia.

 

References:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/iron-deficiency-anemia/symptoms-causes/syc-20355034#:~:text=As%20the%20name%20implies%2C%20iron,tired%20and%20short%20of%20breath.

IO tips

Introduction:

  • Introduce both text types as a literary and non-literary text
  • Give the date of production/writing for each
  • “The global issue I have chosen is..”
  • “in particular,  Singapore’s self-representation and multi-cultural community

Main body:

  • It is a long section, so attempt to make it less mundane
  • You can do this by not droning on about one single point, and making your analysis connect/interesting
  • For example, the analysis should not be too far out of the realm of possibility.
  • Organize points

Conclusion:

  • Restate thesis in conclusion
  • Make sure to restate the main points and summarize in conclusion (as examiner will not remember every detail in the first 8.5 minutes
  • Connect back to global issue

 

 

Georgette Chen Brochure

Georgette Chen national gallery brochure notes

Chen lived through many historic events, such as world war 1 and world war 2, and settled in Singapore after traveling the world, she underwent professional art training in Paris, France.

What is the purpose of this brochure? Is it Promotional/orientational/informational? Could be classified under all of them as it brings together aspects of each purpose.

Who is it for? General public? limits? Singaporean locals are free while foreigners have to pay. Museums sometimes people usually only go when they first come to country, however, national gallery always changes.

->Want locals to be exposed about multiculturalism, selling a diverse identity and a diverse culture.

Colour scheme of brochure, brown associated with history, and blue is associated with togetherness, vitality, calmness. [Vitality, full of light, fruit, abundance. (Singapore view in paintings).]

Bringing change to Singapore’s initial priorities of economic development and growth (inclusivity, vitality, and togetherness). This also is creating a new light/perspective of Singapore

Georgette Chen’s brochure and Gordon Parks’s painting would go nicely together for the IO.

Except, brochure may be non-literary text as well as Gordon Parks.

– Antiparallel, You don’t see paintings of starving children, but you do see photographs

-Both were revolutionaries trying to capture the world as they saw it. Park’s captured struggle, Chen captured peace.

 

By creating this brochure, the gallery intended to both persuade people to enter the exhibition, but also educate the reader on Georgette Chen, her paintings, and the history of Singapore. This gallery housed 106 of her paintings, of which some have never been seen before.

Georgette Chen

Georgette Chen –  A global painter who came to Singapore and painted the ‘Singaporean’ culture.

A famous painting, of a family making a satay by the beachfront.

 

She was recognized by Singapore post-humous, and well-known artists for her painting style and symbolism, I believe that her painting are considered to have long-lasting significance on equality and races in Singapore. The reason why her paintings were picked up after she died may have been the preservation and the way people looked at her paintings. Her paintings are currently in the national gallery of Singapore.

She portrayed the Singaporean idealistic view, incorporating different cultures into her paintings. She was also modernistic, and used bright colors in her paintings as you can see above. The painting is very colorful, and calm- where it shows a family of mixed race cooking a satay (traditional malay dish)

Grade 12 IO planning

If I had to do IO next week, what texts would you choose and what global issue would you explore? What is the weak spot you need to think deeply about before we do this?

I would likely compare the Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye’s representation of Singapore history along with a modern love’s episodal representation of the essay. (no. scratch that completely. Unfocused if looking at three text types)

In this, I could show how each text type demonstrated the ability of expressing elements. For example, the dumbed-down explanation of the race riots in CCHC and in modern loves episode where they extended the tv show past the point the essay even finished. (no. scratch that completely. Unfocused if looking at three text types)

 

Help and Gordon parks photograph

I would choose this pair as, there is a very strong link between the two text types of trying to convey a very similar message, portraying societal system racism before the 2000’s. Not only is this the main link, but there are many other connections. The first off the top of my head would be about the author’s background. Stockett being a white female from the modern-day writing about a black maid’s experiences in the olden days is a complete antithesis to Gordon Parks, who was a black photographer during the olden times, and photographed (mostly) baffling pictures that showed system racism during the olden times, from a little (black) girl looking up at a closed clothing store’s white models to a black family distraught in a very serious meeting.

 

A possible weak spot here:

Rambling about racism, or the common link of the both of them conveying racism. Even the antithesis point is not deep enough analysis. So after mentioning these, I have to go further, sub text level analysis and work on a strong thesis.

 

Other possibilities:

Duffy and Help

Duffy and Chuck Close

Close and Gordon Parks