LO1: – identifying your areas of strength – things that you are good at, and identifying your areas for growth – what you want to improve on, what you find challenging. You have to be self-aware and able to reflect on this
LO2: – participating in activities or skills that are challenging. Trying something new or difficult and learning from it
For Theatre and Dance with 4PM I can recognise that it combines my passion with service. Theatre has been a long time passion of mine which has led to me gaining a deeper understanding of the art than most. Throughout my time in the Drama and Theatre lesson, I have learnt many exercises that I can apply to help the kids bring their ideas to life. This proved very useful especially when we had to try and get the kids to act out the compost cycle. At first, many of them were shy and nervous to try things in front of others but after we did some games together that was suggested we all saw a massive increase in confidence.
However, a challenge I have with the kids is often that I have very little to relate to with them. I try to make conversation with them but it is often very surface level and I find they feel more comfortable with the others in the service that are from the same culture as them. This has made me think about how I can bond with the kids better to make sure that everyone gets the maximum enjoyment and benefits from the session. I thought that sometimes I did just let it sit rather than try and understand their situation better, over the more recent weeks I have to try to hold the conversation more and tried to talk about topics that would interest children from that age group and culture and I have seen results almost immediately. They seemed to be comfortable when I am around and will share with me when they want to try something or if something is making them uncomfortable and it makes me very happy to see that they trust me to be there for them.
A big learning that I have taken away from this service so far is that if you put everything into something often times others will too. Whereas I am used to being on stage and performing somehow being open with ideas and trying to do lead groups of kids in small performance can often be more daunting. The kids often are very reluctant to start performing and often it takes making myself look a little silly to get them to join. However, this has helped with my self-confidence in situations with people I don’t know and it has proved to me how if you want to throw yourself into anything and have fun no one will judge you.
