Category: CAS

Following my truly incredible experience with Culturama 2019, Kahaani seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to expand my newly found passion in this area and learn even more about the performing arts. Kahaani is a student-led annual performance involving Indian dance and storytelling, and ultimately works to raise funds for Kolkatta GC through ticket sales. It proved to be a completely different dynamic to my traditional German dance in Culturama, in that there were more performers and new choreographies using very different sequences. At first, the large number of dancers in each group made the organization of practices and communication very difficult, there were misunderstandings and inconsistencies within our group and group leaders, and it felt like we weren’t going to be able to pull through in time for the performance night. However, as we closed in on final rehearsals and light plots, we realized that it would need the commitment of each and every one of us if the dance was going to be even close to bearable. Looking back, it was this pressure and time constraint that finally motivated us to practice more, communicate clearly, which ultimately led to a pretty successful performance that night. This experience led me to the Learning Objective:

LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively

As a group performance, we all needed to learn what it meant to work collaboratively even if we had never met or talked to one another before. We needed to realize that all of us played an equally important role, and that we all needed to contribute in equal amounts. I feel that there needed to be more guidance from the dance leaders, but they also experienced a learning curve when it came to the sheer amount of students we had engaged in that one performance. Once we started to come together nearing our performance date, I found that working collaboratively is difficult when you have 30 voices in one room, but that it is also essential to making any group performance a success.

One of the first CAS activities I set my mind on this year was Culturama. Having been too nervous to participate last year, which had also been my first year at the school, I bought myself a ticket to watch the performances of my friends and peers instead. It had such a big impression on me, with everyone in their traditional costumes and enjoying the choreographies, that I decided I wanted to be a part of it this year. Along with a couple of friends, I auditioned for the German dance, and was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to be a part of the team. Looking back, it was one of the many highlights of the year of 2019, and I learned so many things about this school and myself. It was a learning experience that led me to focus on several Learning Objectives, but most predominantly:

LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

In terms of time commitment, Culturama is only one season long, and for the most part requires a single meeting each week with the group to learn and practice. However, I knew that our 6 week’s worth of work and progress needed to be fully represented on the night of Culturama, and so there was also a need for me to practice on my own time and show that I was committed to the project outside of our weekly meet ups. This, above all, was a team effort and I wanted to make sure that I played my part perfectly, and on my journey to achieve this, I learned that commitment isn’t doing what is required, but going beyond that to ensure your role is fulfilled.

Following my first taekwondo experience at the end of junior year, I decided to continue this activity for Seasons 1 and 2 of my last year here. I find that it not only gives me an opportunity to retain my stamina and flexibility at a point where sitting at a desk constitutes most of my day, but that it also allows me to engage with students across the grades. I have met students as young as 1st graders, and shared my experience with some of the older high school students. Every week, this activity also lets me keep in touch with my own culture, as Taekwondo is a Korean traditional martial arts. I have really appreciated being able to talk with other Korean students and even get to know our teachers a little better through sharing a common tongue.

While I do not currently have plans to continue this activity into Seasons 3 and 4 given the exam periods closing in, I still feel that I have achieved many of the CAS Learning Objectives throughout my experience here:

LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

Trying to figure out a new form of sports/martial arts has always been a challenging area, being a naturally not so physically active person, and I knew going in that it wasn’t going to be any different with Taekwondo. I learned that it’s not enough to be flexible and strong, but that it was also about accuracy, speed, and agility. At first, it was hard to keep up with all these different skills that were required from me, especially on top of trying to learn the patterns quickly. But going every week for almost a year definitely brought up changes in my mindset and body. Trying to accumulate all the skills when trying to perform a single move is probably unrealistic for most people starting out, but keeping these in mind while practicing both at school and at home will most likely lead your body to pick up these skills unconsciously, which is especially important in high-stress situations like testings.

After our group’s extensive planning with the assistance of our supervisors and Ms. Toth, we got on the plane to Cambodia on the 25th of May. I find that our preparations before we left really began to pay off when we finally landed, as we felt safer and more comfortable knowing measures had been taken to ensure we got back to Singapore in one piece. On the first day after coming back from Phnom Penh International Airport, we made ourselves comfortable in our hotel and then took a walk around our area to see meal options and various supermarkets in case we needed anything. I feel that this first day simply getting to know our surrounding area was a good opportunity for our group to get to know each other and our travel habits in more depth, as we had never spent so much time together. After this, we went to bed pretty early on so that we would be ready for our first day at Free the Bears the following morning.

The first day at Free the Bears sanctuary gave us an opportunity to do a bit of ‘tourism’, in that we not only got to see the moon and sun bears we would be working with but all the other animals the sanctuary lent home to. We also met Pesei, the organization representative we had been in contact with prior to arriving at Cambodia. She was extremely welcoming and helpful, giving us detailed information about each of the animals and the sanctuary itself. We also got a glimpse of what we would be doing in terms of service during the course of the next 3 days when we prepared the enrichment foods and then distributed them where the bears would later find and hopefully enjoy. After experiencing this first day, we felt pretty comfortable with the sanctuary and the bears but didn’t really expect the degree of physical work that we would later endure. Over the course of the next days, we cleaned up the sanctuary and prepared enrichments in the morning, followed by a short lunch break, then more food weighing and distribution. Though these seem like relatively simple tasks, all of these combined with the heat and our inexperience with many of the activities we were expected to perform, we returned home each day feeling totally drained and exhausted. We began to feel like going to the service didn’t really hold a lot of meaning to us anymore, as the tasks seemed repetitive, as we couldn’t really interact with any of the animals as much as we’d hoped to. When we realized that this feeling of demotivation was mutual, we began to reevaluate our purpose in going to Free the Bears for our project week, and what we wanted to be able to do further. It gave us an opportunity to come back together as a group and think of ways we could overcome our problems.

By acknowledging each of our troubles and our mutual demotivation, we came up with an action plan; a list of things we wanted the service partners to know about us so that we could be more effective when helping with the keepers’ work, and how we would overcome situations where we genuinely felt uncomfortable performing a certain task. By doing this, we worked on LO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process. I am really proud of how our group really put our full effort and energy into each task to avoid disappointment from our service partners. We really wanted to demonstrate that we were capable of performing our given tasks, and did not want to let them down in any aspect. Consequently, we may have pushed ourselves too far, to the point of being too exhausted to even walk out of our hotel room to have dinner.  Once we realized this was not what we wanted our project week to be remembered as, we began to come up with ways to problem solve, developing new skills in the process of doing so. Although we always knew about the importance of communication between two parties, I think our position as helpers to the bear keepers made it hard for us to speak up or let them know we weren’t comfortable, in an attempt to portray ourselves in the best light. But in the end, we learned that staying quiet and ultimately burning ourselves out wouldn’t be beneficial for both us and our service partners, as we would not be able to complete tasks in the most effective way. I think this ‘problem’ actually made our project week more meaningful than perhaps one where we felt completely comfortable and relaxed. It helped us think on our feet, and problem solve in a realistic situation. We learned so much from this trip whether intentional or not, and we all agree that we would love to do it again given the chance.

As we near the end of the 2019 academic year, Tabitha has also closed in on its final evaluation of our performance this year. Throughout the year, we have engaged with numerous school-related activities and art performances and tried our very best to raise funds for Project Week. Though ultimately we were unable to go to Tabitha in Cambodia for our Project Week, we have been able to create a head-start for the upcoming group next year, who will hopefully be able to raise the remaining funds and leave for their trip. I have learned a lot about Tabitha as an organization, as well as the Cambodian community in general; what hardships they face and what support they need. This year, our group engaged in a lot of bake sales over the course of the year to fund our project and support Tabitha. At times, we baked together at school, which allowed us to become more familiar with each other and have fun fundraising.

One thing that I feel we did well this year was attempting our best to fundraise and continue supporting Tabitha despite the fact that we ourselves would not be able to visit Cambodia this year. All of us engaged in baking and selling for many events including school plays and fairs, and maintained a relatively organised group throughout. At the end of this year, we managed to raise a total of $2853, which will contribute to the funds next year. Though we will not be able to experience Tabitha first-hand, we hope that our efforts this year will be founded through a very meaningful and significant trip for the upcoming group next year.

One Learning Objective that I focused on this year was LO 5: Demonstrating the skills and recognizing the benefits of working collaboratively. Primarily due to the cancellation of the Tabitha project week, I think a lot of our group members lost motivation to continue to put in their full effort into Tabitha and its fundraising. However, this also gave me an opportunity to see why engaging in a GC together as a group is so important because we began to motivate each other and brought ourselves to help and support at our full potential. When we saw each other helping out at events and baking goods to sell, we saw it as more of a group effort and contributed our individual responsibilities and commitments so as to be of help to our group. I see our teamwork and collaboration skills as a key part of why Tabitha was able to work this year despite some major setbacks, and hope that the skills we learned this year will reflect on the performance and attitude of the next year’s group.

As we near the end of this academic year, my project week group has been busy planning out our trip to Cambodia. I think we knew pretty early on that we wanted to do a service-oriented trip relating to animal welfare. Initially, we had applied to go to Chiang Mai, but this proposal was unfortunately denied. This was one of the first milestones we had to overcome, as we had to decide a completely new country and service to engage with, but looking back, I feel that it actually worked to strengthen our teamwork and communication skills. After deciding to work in Cambodia, we began by regularly contacting our service partners and organizing all due payments, itineraries, contracts, and activities. We are so lucky to be working with Pesei, who has been contacting us from Free the Bears (the service we are working with in Cambodia), as she was so prompt with her responses and constantly offered us help when needed. As a direct consequence of her cooperation and our team’s hard work, our planning has gone by very smoothly, and we are looking forward to the trip next week.

Through this process of planning a trip by ourselves and learning to trust each other, I feel that I have focused on LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience. For our trip to go smoothly, each individual in our group was given a role to commit to. And while the planning as a whole was a group effort, it was so much easier knowing that each of us was responsible for a specific aspect of the trip. I took the role of Media Coordinator, and am responsible for recording our progress and learning experience so that we can look back and reflect on what went well and what we could have done better. I feel that it is a good way to consolidate what each of us has felt and learned, and gives us an opportunity to think objectively about our work and efforts. I have never personally planned a CAS experience prior to Project Week, and though the deadlines at times were overwhelming combined with the school work and exams, I feel that I have learned and gained so many valuable skills through this experience, and I hope that when I get back from the trip, I will feel that the planning stage had really paid off for the enjoyment of our trip.

HS Beyond Snapshots was one of the shorter CAS activities for me, lasting only a season long, but I still feel that I have learned a lot about photography and proper camera usage during this time. Not only was this season extremely engaging and interesting, it also enabled me to be able to capture moments and events accurately both in and out of school.

After learning about portrait photography, we progressed to learning more about the features of a DSLR camera, and how to manipulate some of these to obtain the desired aesthetic. I found this to be both exciting and confusing at times, as changing one feature would then affect the other, and it required me to see the bigger picture. I tested each of the techniques I learned through a short practice shot, taking photos of random objects while changing certain elements to see how lighting and movement influenced the object and the background. I feel that skills based on photography may sometimes last longer than others, as it does not necessarily require consistent practice or revisiting. However, I have developed a strong interest in both photography and the usage of cameras, and hope to continue learning and experimenting in my own time.

Through this season, I have focused on LO 1: Identifying own strengths and develop areas for growth. I feel that after the initial conveyance of content, it is really up to me to test out these skills and experience photography in a real-life context. I found that the photography of a setting or distant object was easier for me compared to portrait photos or capturing action shots. And because I was aware of these strengths and weaknesses, I was able to focus my learning on practicing close-ups, as well as asking friends and classmates to pose while I practiced manipulating the features to achieve the desired effect. In the end, I still feel that getting my desired portrait photo takes significantly longer than other shots, but feel pride in the work I have been able to obtain, and hope to continue to develop the skills I have learned.

As I finish both my second season of CAS and IFP, I find that engaging in this activity has brought permanent changes to myself and my outlook on others. Although I could have extended my IFP journey through the additional external conferences, I was unable to signup due to the uncertainty of future schedules and personal commitments. However, I still feel that I have gained so much during my time there, and learned lessons that will continue to influence my thoughts and decisions in the future.

In our last few sessions, we focused on the concept of taboo words and discrimination. As a group, we watched Jane Elliott’s experiment on how easily young children embodied certain characteristics based on their perceived superiority over others, and how that triggered discrimination. This was decided based on eye color, as the teacher stated that on one day, blue-eyed children would be superior to brown-eyed children, and on another day, vice versa. The results showed that when certain children were told that they were inferior to the other classmates, they performed worse in various tasks than when they were told they were superior. The children themselves seemed to believe at the end of each day that they were placed higher/lower than those of the opposite eye color, suggesting that discrimination is surprisingly easy to trigger, even based on irrelevant or insignificant traits such as eye color. This study, combined with the discussion following the video, helped me understand and evaluate the causes behind sources of conflict and controversy, which seems especially relevant to discuss today. Moreover, this lesson also had impacts on my other academic classes, such as Psychology, where we were learning a similar topic.

These last few sessions helped me focus on LO6: Demonstrating engagement with issues of global significance. I feel that IFP is very much focused on learning and evaluating events or situations in a global context, especially in showcasing each of our opinions and perspectives as members of a society, and how these differences change the world we live in. By working and learning in IFP, I have been given opportunities to meet and speak to classmates with completely different standpoints, as well as people whose thoughts very much aligned with my own. Overall, I really enjoyed being able to engage with IFP this year, and am thankful for all that it has taught me about myself and others around me.