https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRvX6k_AQ_U&feature=youtu.be
Here is my final reflection after participating in project week. I try to reflect on my experience during project week and how it has shaped me as a person.
#lo1
Swimming at the end of grade 11
This year of swimming has been especially challenging for me. Though I may have been focused more on the physical aspects of swimming throughout the year, I wasn’t too focused on my mental aspect towards it. Throughout this year especially, I hadn’t been enjoying the sport as much as before and I felt that it was difficult to go swimming. Not only has my love for the sport been dying out, it was also difficult to maintain a consistent commitment to the sport because of academic stress and pressure. Being at the end of grade 11, where academic pressures are high, I had to ensure that I got the grades I wanted to apply to the schools I wanted to go to. This was an example of the challenges that I had faced throughout grade 11. However, throughout these hardships, I was able to persevere and get through the year not only maintaining my swimming commitment and academics but also with my happiness. This helped me develop by understanding myself and how to balance my happiness with my commitments. I feel that this has shown growth as I had to make adjustments to my schedules for my sake which meant that I cut down on swimming and spent more time relaxing and destressing, because what was once a stress-reducing activity (swimming) had actually started inducing stress as a result of the expectations and performance requirements in swimming. In general, I was quite pleased with my performance at the end of grade 11 and being crowned SEASAC champions as a team again was also quite gratifying as the hard work that had been put in had paid off.
Chinese chat reflection 2
Finishing up Chinese chat in grade 11 has really left some impactful experiences on me. Being able to watch my mentees progress throughout the year in the Chinese abilities with the aid of my teaching and their school learnings has made me feel a sense of accomplishment. It was gratifying to know that my planning towards each lesson was effective yet enjoyable for the students, this ability has also translated into other areas of my life where it was important for me to have a good plan for self-management. This shows learning outcome 3 where I had created a plan for my CAS experience, being Chinese chat, each lesson, I had to carefully plan how I was going to approach the lesson and what subjects and areas I had to cover in order to ensure the learning of the students. Moreover, with each subsequent lesson, I was able to show growth as I had become more accustomed to the teaching role as compared to being a student. Throughout the duration of the activity, I became more aware of what attitude I should be approaching the students with and how I could have the most enjoyable lesson without it getting too boring for the student, seeing as they are kids in middle school, planning out break times or rest times for the to just relax was something important that I found since they couldn’t concentrate for very long. Only after a few sessions of doing this was I able to get the right balance between rest and study which kept the student engaged during our study time but also relaxed enough so that he wasn’t stressed during this lesson. This shows growth because, in the beginning, I was very unsure about how to approach and teach the students, but as time went on and more sessions passed, I become more aware and learned more about the intricacies of teaching and was able to grow into a better mentor for the students.
Swimming in grade 12
This year has been a difficult time for me for swimming. The wrestle between academics and continuing swimming has been hard. Especially in grade 12, when all the internal assessments and extended essay we had to do, being able to organize time was vitally important if I wanted to continue swimming. Something that I did do was to cut down a bit on swimming other I felt that it would have been difficult to maintain a good study schedule. This compromise allowed me to maintain some form of swimming standard and also allowed me to focus on my academics when I needed to. This in a way shows my perseverance to the sport as I could have easily given it up, so actually deciding to continue swimming was a way for me to demonstrate this quality. I feel as if I was somewhat successful in achieving my goals for swimming, I wanted to make the SEASAC team in which I did, however, unfortunately, it was cancelled. More importantly, I made my goals for the times that I wanted to swim in competitions which I was rather proud of. I feel like this time period where I had to compromise has helped me grow as a person. This is because I managed to find a way to balance both swimming and academics where I wouldn’t have to sacrifice one thing. This quality can help me in the future when I am forced to make a hard decision. This year in grade 12 has been really special in terms of swimming, as it is my last year in high school for this sport, so leaving with some great memories has always been a good thing about continuing swimming.
Service reflection 2
This image is showing my confidence levels over time since the start of the service, it has helped to show my perseverance in being able to continue doing the service and help build up my confidence in working with people who have intellectual disabilities. Also working with other people during the activity has helped improve my confidence as it allowed me to express myself better.
After visiting the Minds care centre for the first time, I had a bit of a drop in confidence as the next time we were going to see our service partners, it was going to be the first time we were going to have a session that we planned ourselves. This brings me to learning outcome 3, where we had to initiate and plan a CAS experience. Planning the first session was nerve-wracking as it the first time I had to plan something for people with intellectual disabilities as I didn’t know what activities they would enjoy and engage with and what they wouldn’t. After the first session, my confidence had a bit of a fall as some of the activities that we had planned to do didn’t work out to great, seeing as the clients didn’t engage too well with them, therefore, we were forced to reflect on the session and see what sort of activities they would enjoy. It turned out simple games or activities worked best as they were the ones our clients enjoyed most so after the second session, my confidence had started to rise again because the new activities that we planned were a lot more engaging and the clients were interacting a lot more with the activities.
Piano
This is an example of me demonstrating learning outcomes 1 and 4. I am not a very confident person so performing in front of an audience of people, no matter how big, is always nerve-racking for me and I always get very freaked out, so with this piano recital, I was very nervous to make mistakes, even in front of my own parents. However, I feel after performing, the fear has slightly diminished as I realized, no one was there to judge me and it helped me become more confident. This piano recital has made me more committed because of the amount of practise I needed for certain parts of the songs, even though I messed up a part, I had to put a lot of practise into it. Some parts of the song I struggled with came out quite nicely because, at lunchtime, I had to come in and practice, but I feel in the end, it paid off quite nicely.
Video
https://www.facebook.com/qyyang2004/videos/10217538113468711/?t=7
MINDS Tampines dance and fitness fun
This is my first CAS reflection on my service, MINDS Tampines dance and fitness fun. We had just visited our partners and I wanted to talk about my first experiences. When we went down to the centre, I was a bit nervous as I’m not too comfortable with people who have intellectual disabilities so I had to put on my nicest face and try and figure out what’s the best way to behave around them. I also find making a fool of myself to a bit hard, so for dancing with our clients, I am a bit nervous. Something that may make up for my weaknesses is my collaboration skills as I am comfortable with working with most people. At the centre, we went through some do’s and don’ts, this helped me considered the ethics of my actions because not only were the clients less privileged then we are, they also were different to us. At the centre, we weren’t allowed to take photos of our clients, this was because taking photos of them may give off the wrong image of the type of people they are.
One goal that I have is to be more confident and just not care what other people think, this will help me enjoy myself more during the service which will make my experience and my client’s experience even better.
After the first session, this brought some global awareness of issues with disabilities in the world. Seeing as Singapore, a highly developed country, it still didn’t have sufficient space for people with intellectual disabilities to be free or have access to facilities they require to help facilitate growth and development. This forced me to make responsible decisions about my way to not only interact with my service clients but also to interact with my current surrounding and be more grateful to what I have and what facilities I have access to