VOW was a really incredible experience for me I had some experience working with disabled people through RDA however I had mainly worked with children with physical disabilities and at VOW I interacted more with children with physical disabilities. We were taken on tours to see where the children live and where the money the school was sending was going and it was incredible to see the work we had heard about and have been supporting through our beloved Kahaani, at each of these locations we talked with the children and learnt more about their pasts etc which was very difficult at first due tot he language barrier but we soon discovered that I could speak to them in Hindi and they would understand the general gist of the sentence and reply in a broken Hindi and English combination. We visited the school where the children were taught and sat in their classes alongside them learning how to read and write in braille or how to make the small crafts (jewellery, bags) they sell at their stalls. It was really interesting as even with my eyes open looking at a key I struggled to make the holes the correct depth for braille yet a 5 yr old girl who too was a beginner and fully blind easily could, the same scenario happened when weaving or braiding for the arts and crafts. I had heard a lot about how capable the children were but it was another thing entirely to see it in action.

It is the week before my final dance show here at school… We have just finished our light plot and had our first glimpse at what our dance is going to look like on the final day and I am beyond thrilled! This has been such an amazing journey from being terrified of dancing in rehearsals forget on stage in G9 to signing up for every single dance show in the school after my first taste. My only regret is that I never tried for dance showcase as I always felt like that was more for the ‘good dancers’ if I could repeat this year I would definitely audition.

I just can’t believe that this is my last Kahaani as this dance is the one that jumpstarted my dance show career and because of it I have found various societies in my university that have dance shows too that I am definitely joining such as Bhangra the traditional dance from the region of India I am from. Currently, I am drowning in academic work with 2 tests a Spanish oral and final Math IA submissions this week, and I have to be at school everyday till 9 pm for rehearsals and this has really forced me to become more efficient in my work as now I have hardly any time to complete it. Surprisingly enough not once though has the thought of sitting out this dance show crossed my mind as one incredibly busy week is definitely worth the whole dance show atmosphere. Let us just hope my grades dont suffer!

We have just completed our first show for Culturama 2019!!! Last year I was terrified of performing in Kahaani and now I’m in Culturama which is a far more high profile show and this whole experience has been amazing I am definitely auditioning for next year’s Culturama too! Kahaani is a purely Indian dance show showcasing various styles of dance from around India (my home country) but this year I was accepted into the Culturama China dance so it has been a real challenge learning the steps as the way of moving is entirely new to me and the music styles is very traditional so it is difficult to remember the music cues as the entire dance is very unfamiliar to me. However I pushed through and learn the dance and if I can say so myself I think I did pretty well in the final show 🙂 It has just been so much fun experiencing a whole new culture through dance, music and costumes. I am so thankful to my dance leader and other dancers as without them being the only non-Chinese person in my dance I would have struggled far more than I did in the end as I had to relearn so much of what I thought I knew about dancing that just applied to Indian dances. We all kept helping each other up and of course, without the team, I would never have been able to experience Chinese culture in this way!

 

I have juts complicated my time at RDA so I thought it would be the perfect moment to reflect on the entire experience. There is a lot of stigma around disability here in Singapore and globally so this was a really novel experience for me as I interacted with people with severe mental disabilities whereas in the past I’ve only known people who are physically disabled. This forced me to entirely reevaluate the way I interact with them and relearn cues that mean the person was enjoying/afraid/ wanted to stop or start, as they often couldn’t tell me. A lot of the diseases these people are suffering from I had never encountered before such as cerebral palsy which stunts growth so someone in their late 20s can look like an early teen so at first, there was quite a shock, However, after the initial sessions I quickly learnt how to communicate non-verbally and understand non-verbal cues more efficiently and some of the parents taught me the odd sign language sign.

A lot of the service opportunities in our school involving people who are mentally challenged in some way involve social inclusion through playing games or sports with the students. I really enjoyed my service because I could see a tangible difference in the riders flexibility and movement after spending the term with them which was very rewarding as we are not only providing them with an incredibly unique experience but we are in some small way improving their abilities.

The IFP conference in Timor Leste is less than a week away now! I thought this would be the perfect time to reflect on the whole process so far. I am really proud of the day my group and I have planned together we have perfectly tuned the day to everyone’s strengths, for example, I have a ‘teaching’ segment because I am very extroverted and am able to hold people’s attention for that period of time whereas other team members are focusing more on guiding small groups through activities.

Going forward I am going to make sure I work on compromising on elements of the days itinerary because I have noticed I am usually reluctant to allow other people their turn in the spotlight. I also want to work on my organisation skills as there was a lot of work that should have been completed earlier in the process that my group and I are completing now.

I joined IFP with very little idea of what it was because it had been recommended by a friend of mine and it has been a really eyeopening experience. IFP is a global organisation spreading peacebuilding skills through conferences all around the world and if I stand out as a good facilitator I could be selected to run one of these conferences which would be incredible. My school has a clear peacebuilding narrative that forms an undertone in all of our classes however IFP became a class that explored this narrative and how and why it was so important which was really interesting as although it seems very clear cut, peace is good and violence is bad we learnt about exceptions and various scenarios and above all how to use empathy to patch up the conflict. All in all, even if I don’t get into a conference IFP has taught me some very valuable skills about resolving conflict which is sure to come in handy in the future!

Paradigms act as axioms for our perception and interpretation of everything surrounding us.

A paradigm is essentially a model that dictates the way we interpret our surroundings, like a foundation for our experiences, values and beliefs to grow from. Much like how in maths there are initial axioms such as 1*a=a and from these we can build rules and formulae that allow us to tackle far more complex problems yet the foundation is always in the simple typically well-known axioms. In psychology paradigms are studied under a different name, they are referred to as schema and are defined as mental maps some of which are inherited with our culture and religion and others that are developed over time due to our upbringing, education and personal experiences. A key discovery is that when we have witnessed something that aligns with one of our many schema we tend to give it undue importance and view it as far more solid and irrefutable evidence that our paradigms/schema are correct than it truly is, through this process we strengthen our resolve in our paradigm and are more certain of its accuracy leading to more well-established stereotypes and viewpoints. However we also tended to ignore or disregard evidence that wasn’t in accordance with our paradigms and didn’t align with our schema, this led to what in many cases was a fact or an occurrence being disregarded as fake or unfounded when in truth there was nothing inaccurate about it. The former discovery was present in the film we watched during the first day of school 12 Angry Men, there was a man who clearly had racist views but he saw the fact that the boy was coloured as evidence that proved he had definitely committed patricide as it aligned with his paradigm that coloured people were wild and violent although it was unfounded and his skin colour did not prove or disprove his involvement in the crime.

An example in my life where there has been an argument based off of a paradigm which I didn’t see initially is my mother and I arguing about whether or not I should take a gap year. I believed I should and that there is no harm in it as it allows me more time to figure out what exactly I want to study and gain some work experience as well as reobtain my British passport so I don’t have to pay international fees. However, my mother has a paradigm where taking a gap year will cause people to fall out of the studying rhythm and that they will never go to university causing them to be disadvantaged. My mother’s paradigm was based on negative experiences her friends and her sister had after taking a gap year or long break in their studies, however, this wasn’t known to me during the argument and if it had been the conversation may have gone differently. The conflicting element was that both of our paradigms were formed on the experiences people have had on gap years yet the ones I had encountered were largely positive and the ones my mother had encountered were largely negative.

Reasoning allows us to draw conclusions via a process of deduction but, often falls victim to hidden premises in the form of our experiences and assumptions of the world.

A simple example of the use of deduction to draw conclusions from two premises would be:

If A is Green,

And I am A,

Therefore I am Green.

In this scenario, our premises are “if A is green” and “I am A” and our conclusion would be “I am green”. In such a simple example it is easy to see how we have been able to deduce that I am green as there are two very clear cut premises and very little room for any alternative interpretations of the statements or any hidden meanings of any sort. This would be an example of pure deductive reasoning as there is simply no space for any personal experiences, stereotypes or biases to affect the conclusion. If you are colour blind you can draw this conclusion, if you don’t know the meaning of the word green you will draw this conclusion, and even if you are morally opposed to the concept of green or colour in general, you will draw this conclusion.

However, in the real world it is rarely so clear cut if the premises were (as we saw in class):

A bachelor is an unmarried adult male,

James is 18 years old single, still in high school and living with his parents,

There may be conflicting opinions on whether or not James is a bachelor if we simply follow pure deductive reasoning we will arrive at the conclusion that James is a bachelor as he is an adult, male and unmarried. Here is where our assumptions of the world and personal experiences play a role, we tend to still view him as a minor although he is 18 and a legal adult because he hasn’t yet graduated from high school and because we see him as a minor it is quite ridiculous to expect him to be married. Then on top of this from watching TV and media and reading books the commonly held definition of a bachelor is a playboy type usually in their 20s/30s or an older man who is unmarried, very few people when they hear the term bachelor think of boys in their late teens. This stereotype we hold plays a role in the conclusion we would draw as James doesn’t fit what we would define a bachelor as although he may fit the definition the premises give because he doesn’t fit with our stereotypes and assumptions we conclude that he is not a bachelor.

A line of reasoning being valid does not mean the conclusions drawn are true, as there may be many cognitive biases and personal paradigms or misinformation (gaps or errors in personal knowledge) playing a role throughout the process of drawing conclusions.

There are two forms of reasoning; valid and invalid. An example of valid reasoning would be.

If A is B,

I am A,

Therefore I am B.

This conclusion is clear cut and indisputable with clear links between each statement and an obvious, traceable line of thinking followed. In an instance of invalid reasoning there are usually either no links between the statements (as seen in Example A) or all external factors such as general knowledge, not the assumptions/paradigms we hold, have been ignored (as seen in Example B).

Example A:

Dogs have fur

Cars are blue

Therefore, I like cheese.

Example B:

Australia is in the southern hemisphere.

Australia is a country

Therefore all countries are in the southern hemisphere

In Example A there is clearly no links between any of the statements and no clear line of thinking so the conclusion is invalid but this is, of course, an extreme example, in Example B is that yes there are clear links between the statements and conclusion and a clear line of reasoning to be followed but that doesn’t mean that we have arrived at a true conclusion. This case although it is far fetched does illustrate how gaps in knowledge can play a role in reasoning as any person reading this with basic knowledge of the layout of countries would know that that conclusion is irrefutably false, in this instance your own personal knowledge aids with the process and truth of the conclusion wherein the earlier example people’s personal knowledge was hindering the process of deductive reasoning.

Reason doesn’t create or establish truth but rather leaves a clear, traceable line of thinking that can be used as evidence to strengthen the validity and certainty of the conclusion.

In many instances, perfectly valid reasoning doesn’t result in true conclusions, even if the premises are true (take examples C and D for example). This proves that reasoning does not create truth as if it did false premises with valid reasoning would always result in true conclusions which as we can see in Example C it does not.

Example C:

Cows are Green

The President of the US is a cow

The President of the US is green

Example D:

The Sun is round,

This object is round,     —–> (In this example ‘object’ refers to something such as a ball or vase, not a planet or star)

This object is the Sun

Reasoning does serve a very important purpose in the certainty of the conclusion, however, as in many cases we might show our reasoning to try and convince someone that we are correct and in that case valid reasoning (provided they don’t check the truth of our premises) would help in convincing them that our conclusions are true