Karate (final reflection)

Participating in karate has been really fun and also very satisfying because of all my achievements through participating in this activity. In August 2021 I took the black belt grading and after months of vigorous training, I finally obtained my black belt. Another one of my biggest achievements from karate is the fact that I have managed to make lots of friends and I have also become a good leader who the coloured belts listen to and look up to. Additionally, through karate, I have managed to improve and maintain my overall fitness and my mental wellbeing as well.

Me with my black belt!!

Preparing for the black belt grading was a huge challenge for me as I needed to be able to run 7.5km, spar 20 people consecutively, and break 8 tiles along with learning 3 new black belt katas and remembering all the previous katas that I have learnt before. The biggest challenge for me was running and sparring because my stamina is not that good. In order to improve my stamina I went consistently went running for two months before the grading, and once a week I would run around 9km so that I will be able to run 7.5km in the grading. In order to learn all the katas and remember all the coloured belt katas I actually spent lesson time teaching the katas to the coloured belt. By doing so, I managed to learn my katas, and I also managed to teach the katas to the coloured belts for their grading. One thing that I still find challenging, and I thought was really challenging during the grading was the sparring. I put a lot of energy into the first few rounds of sparring, but that really drained me and I got really physically exhausted and I was panting and really tired during all the other rounds of sparring. Nowadays, in order to improve my sparring, my friend and I spar every lesson, which is really fun and also really draining and we have to move around a lot and I keep taking all the blows. However, through the sparring, I can see how much I have improved, which I am really proud of. (LO2)

The main skill that I developed through participating in karate is my perseverance skill. This is because partaking in these physically challenging activities, such as sparring for 3 minutes with my friend after every lesson, doing planks, pushups, situps, and running are all really challenging for me, however, I never give up and instead keep trying hard to improve my physical fitness so that I will be good at karate. As I keep practising sparring with my friend, I can feel myself improving as I am able to throw my punches and kicks faster, I can aim my hits well, and I am less tired when I spar with my friend. Another skill that I developed through karate is leadership and communication. This is because as a black belt I have the opportunity to teach the katas to the coloured belts, hence I have to lead the group of coloured belts and ensure that they fully understand and learn the katas. Additionally, through karate, I have had various opportunities to make a lot of friends and learn more about them, which is something that I am really grateful for. (LO2)

These skills that I have developed through karate are very useful for my future, as there will be many challenges that I will face in the future, hence I will need to be able to persevere through these challenges, therefore allowing myself to grow. Leadership and communication are two important skills in the future, especially when I get my job as I would like to have a high position job, therefore I will need to be a good leader were the things I need to say will be clearly communicated and understood by all. (LO2)

Maintaining my motivation for this physically demanding activity was very easy because of all the friends that I have made during this activity and also because I genuinely enjoy this activity despite it being a challenge for me. Going to karate every week to meet all my friends, catch up with them, while also being able to improve my physical strength is something that I really enjoy, because I get to be mentally and physically healthy. Staying committed to this activity has allowed me to improve and obtain a black belt, and also make a lot of friends, which I am really proud of myself. (LO4)

Overall, I am really proud of myself for persevering through this physically challenging activity and allowing myself to develop my leadership and make new friends. I am looking forward to participating in karate for an even longer time to continually improve my physical and mental health.

IFP (Cas project)

IFP, Initiative for Peace, is an activity where we learn how to be better leaders and peacebuilders, and we put this learning into effect by planning and holding a conference where we teach others the importance of peacebuilding and being inclusive. Pre COVID, these conferences were held overseas in Myanmar, however since we are unable to travel, we instead held this conference in our school for the 11th graders. The theme of our conference was to teach the grade 11s how to be more inclusive, and this is a really important skill that the 11th graders should know because, in 11th grade, approximately 40 new students join our school. This means that the students need to put in an effort to make sure that the new students feel included and welcomed in a completely new environment away from all their friends and the things that they are comfortable with. In order to ensure that our conference had significant outcomes, we made booklets for each of the students so that they could note down the learnings from each of the groups and look back to it later to ensure that they won’t forget it.

Investigation

We started planning this IFP conference on the 2nd of March 2021, and the final conference was on 16th August 2021. We met every week on Tuesday until the 15th of July 2021, which gave us 23 hours and 30 minutes overall to plan this conference and ensure that it is engaging for the 11th graders. Our first step of the planning was to choose what theme we wanted our group workshop to be on. My group members – Teia, Trisha, Riachany, and Menglin – and I knew from the start of the planning that we wanted to do a conference on inclusion and conflict resolution. This is because as grade 11s we understood how important it is to be inclusive because, in addition to the 40+ new students joining the grade, there are also more than 50 FIB students who will also be a part of our grade. This means that almost half of the grade will be comprised of new students, therefore it is important that we are inclusive as a grade, not only to make the new students feel welcome but also for us to be able to make new friends and connections. The reason why we chose conflict resolution is because it is a good skill to have in life, especially in managing friendships and any sort of relationship.

In order to make our presentation different from the other groups, we chose our main activity to be a scenario where the students will be able to think about and reflect on what steps they can take to resolve the conflict. This activity is beneficial for the students as it allows them to think about all the stakeholders involved in a conflict and how various choices will affect different stakeholders. therefore through this activity, they will be able to stop and think about the best solution for a conflict, which benefits all the stakeholders and ensures that none of them gets hurt. Additionally, through this activity, the students will learn the importance of being objective when resolving a conflict.

My group and I planning the conference

One thing that I find challenging about the planning is how to plan a session that will keep all the students engaged and ensure that they will actually understand the importance of conflict resolution and inclusion. One way in which we have made our activity more engaging is by having icebreakers such as hotseat at the start of our session so that the students will start the session with a lot of energy, which will persist throughout the session.

Development

The next stage of the planning process was presenting our ideas to the rest of the IFP group and obtaining their feedback on what we should improve on and what we did well. Our initial idea for the activity was a debate in which one group was for vaccinations and the other group were against vaccinations. After talking with the rest of the group we realised a few challenges that would come with this activity. The first challenge is the fact that we will not actually be guiding them on how to resolve conflicts, but instead, we are asking them to get into a conflict with each other. Another challenge with this activity is that it will be hard to put the students into groups due to covid restrictions. One of the biggest challenges with this idea is the fact that it will be hard to make it inclusive because usually one member would do all the talking and the other members would just sit and listen, there would be no form of inclusivity present. However, a good thing about this idea was the fact that we would be able to make the students reflect that the end of the debate on how they might have resolved this conflict if they were a facilitator.

After choosing our idea, our next step was to create a slideshow for our group and to delegate tasks to the members to ensure that all the required tasks will be completed on time. We also wanted to make a padlet with articles and real-world examples showing how people are being inclusive and how conflicts are being resolved worldwide. Our final presentation is linked here, and we put time and effort to ensure that the presentation looked engaging so that the students would actively listen to our presentation.

The biggest challenge that we faced during this stage of our planning was the fact that we had to go online for the last couple of weeks of school, which prevented us from running through the activity as a group. However, during the online sessions, we managed to come up with the introduction and ending for the entire IFP conference. During this time we also came up with the idea to make a booklet so that the students would be able to track down all the things that they learnt and look back at it later. Another good thing about these online sessions is the fact that, despite not being together and using a different medium than we intended to, our group ran through our session and got valuable feedback from the rest of the IFP group.

Overall, the development phase went smoothly, and we managed to finalise our entire session before the run through, hence we got useful feedback which we implemented into our session.

Action

As mentioned above, the final IFP conference was held on 16th August to the grade 11s. This was actually the first day back from summer break, so it was pretty nerve wracking to hold a conference and present in front of all the grade 11s. During our presentation, we first held an ice breaker, then we introduced what conflict resolution is and why it is important. Then we went on to discuss the two scenarios and gave the students time to discuss a solution to the conflict that was presented. After this we asked the students to present their ideas then reflect on the whole session and what they learned. We also provided them with some websites for them to learn more about conflict resolution.

The biggest challenge associated with the presentation of our conference was the fact that there were many students that were stuck overseas and had to participate in the conference online. This made it really hard for us facilitators to properly do the session as we needed to adapt the icebreakers and had to put more effort into making the session enthusiastic. Another challenge that we faced was that the conference was held on the first day back from the 2 month-long summer break, therefore all the students were still tired from summer break and they didn’t have as much energy we expected. This caused the conference to be a bit dull, however as facilitators, we put in extra effort to ensure that the students got some energy from us and enjoyed the conference.

Photos of the students during the conference

Reflection

Personally, I really enjoyed taking part in this activity and I feel like we made a positive impact on the students and guided them on how to resolve conflicts and be more inclusive as a grade. However, with COVID, and all the restrictions in place, it was really hard to create and energetic environment, therefore the advice I would like to give to next years group is that they will need to be very energetic as facilitators to ensure that the students will feel energetic and they will enjoy the conference. I also feel like we could have done a few more icebreakers and energetic activities with the students so that they would have gotten more energy. Another challenge about this was the fact that it was the first day back from summer break, hence the students did not know who was in their new mentor classes and they didn’t have any time to get to know their classes better, therefore it would have been much more effective if the conference was held at the end or grade 10, or further into grade 11 when the students knew one another a bit more.

Overall, I think that our group did a good job in promoting inclusivity and guiding the students on how to resolve conflicts because as I look at the grade 11s now, there seem to be no internal conflicts within the students, and all the students, even the new kids and the FIB get along really well. Additionally, I asked my grade 11 friend about how useful our conference was and she said that it really helped her understand the importance of inclusion especially during grade 11, and she even took the first step and talked to a lot of the new kids and became friends with them.

NYAA Outdoor Appreciation

My family and I always loved to go for morning walks in all different parks in Singapore, however after Covid hit we couldn’t go out that frequently anymore. Around December of 2020, we got back into exploring different parks in Singapore and spending more time in nature which I am really happy about. For my NYAA outdoor appreciation, my goal is to spend the month of July surrounded by nature and exploring different parts of Singapore that I have never explored before.

During the month of July in 2021, I went to various different places in Singapore, most of which I have never been to before, which was a really great experience for me. I spent the entire month surrounded by nature and looking at various different species of plants and animals which I have never really seen before in Singapore. I also did various activities such as cycling, trekking, running, walking, and even stargazing which was really fun.

I started out the month by going cycling with my friends, which was something that I was really looking forward to since we had online school and I haven’t seen my friends in a long time. We met up at around 11 am in ECP and decided to cycle all the way to Marina Bay and cycle around there then cycle back to my friend’s home for a late lunch. Around 80% of our cycle was in ECP which was just such a beautiful experience as it wasn’t sunny and on one side we were covered by huge trees and on the other side, we could see the ocean and the sea breeze made the entire ride so much better. After we cycled through ECP, we went through the park connector that brings us to Marina Bay, and to my surprise, we saw a family of otters sunbathing there! This was actually my first time seeing otters in a place that is not the zoo, so I was really happy.

Lazarus Island
Lower Pierce Reservoir

The next activity that I did was with my family. During summer break, I went to Saint John’s Island and Lazarus Island with my family and it was a magical experience because it was my first time visiting these islands, and they are so full of nature that I started questioning if we were really in Singapore. We put away all our devices for the whole day and spent the entire day exploring the island by walking around and cycling, which was a really beautiful experience. It was really wonderful to be surrounded by nature and have the ocean right beside. This trip really made me feel like I am a part of nature, and I am so grateful for that.

Wild Boar at Windsor Park
Otters at ECP to Marina Bay
Monkey at Upper Pierce Reservoir

During this month, I also spent a lot of time walking with my family and running in various different parks, such as Pasir Ris Park, Bedok Reservoir Park, Upper Seletar Reservoir Park, and Botanic Gardens. Pasir Ris Park, Bedok Reservoir Park and Botanical Gardens are all familiar places for me as I go there pretty often. However, no matter how many times I go there, I never fail to be amazed by the beauty of those places and all the nature that I am surrounded by. When I went to Pasir Ris Park with my parents in July, I actually saw so many animals that I have never seen before, such as wild boars, roosters and chickens. Seeing all these animals in the same area as humans, and not in captivity really made me appreciate the beauty of animals and how they make nature and our earth so much more beautiful. It was my first time in Upper Seletar Reservoir Park, and I think that this is my favourite place in the whole of Singapore because of how secluded it is from the city and any form of civilisation, it really feels like an unknown get away from everything, which is something that I am really grateful for. The view from that park is also really beautiful because all you can see is the huge reservoir, and all the other islands, which are other parks.

Windsor Park

I also went on a lot of treks with my family and I feel like participating in these treks is what really made me very connected to nature. We went to a lot of different parks which were actually in the forest, such as the rail corridor, Windsor Park, Clementi forest, And Lower Pierce and Upper Pierce Reservoir. It was actually my first time trekking in any of these places, so it was a huge eye-opening experience for me. I got to see so many different kinds of plants, trees, and all kinds of animals as well. When I went to Windsor Park, I actually saw a lot of snakes, wild boars, chipmunks and even some monkeys. As I already mentioned, it was actually really nice to see all these wild animals, not in captivity but actually in their natural habitat. In Lower Pierce Reservoir I saw a lot of monkeys, wild boars, and a lot of turtles as well. Another thing that I truly loved about all these treks, especially the trek through the Clementi forest and Lower Pierce Reservoir is how isolated we are from all the busy city life that is all over Singapore.

I really found this entire month spent in nature with minimised screen usage very healing and peaceful for me. It also allowed me to grow closer with my family as I got to spend a lot of time with them every day as we participated in all these challenging activities surrounded by nature. Additionally, through this month spent in nature, I felt really connected to nature, and felt as if I am truly a part of nature.

Gordon Parks – ‘The Restraints: Open and Hidden’

Gordon Parks was an African American photographer who was best known for raising awareness about race, gender and socioeconomic inequality by capturing the lives of many people through his photographs. ‘The Restraints: Open and Hidden’ is a photo essay published by Gordon Parks in 1956 which documents the everyday life of an extended African American family living in Alabama under the Jim Crow laws, which legalised racial segregation. Parks’ photo essay offers a different perspective on American culture, the side which is hidden from the rest of society – the daily lives of African Americans who live under racial segregation laws. Through his photography, Parks suggests that the various forms of inequality present on African Americans cause their lives to have great discrepancies compared to the lives of the rest of America, and it also causes African Americans to be stereotyped in such a way that doesn’t reflect their true selves. However, Parks suggests that despite this prejudice imposed upon them, African Americans continue to show love and care for their families, and protect them from all the inequalities bestowed upon them.

(link to the annotated photographs)

Parks uses the juxtaposing mise en scene of the boy holding the gun in the foreground and the three children reading a book in the background to convey the effects of the segregation laws on African American children. The children, who are reading a book in the background, are framed by the doorway of the room that they are in, hidden away from the rest of society, while the boy holding the gun is placed outside the room, exposed to the real world. By framing the kids with the door, Parks suggests that the world the kids are in is different from the world that the boy holding the gun is in. The children are in a place where they are free to pursue education and be curious, they are oblivious to the segregation laws and the other inequalities prevalent in society, such as gender inequality because the girl is reading the same book as the other two boys. They all are equal and balanced in the world they are in, which contrasts with the imbalance associated with the boy holding the gun since his chair is tilted back. Furthermore, the boy with the gun is exposed to the outside world and to the segregation laws and inequalities that are bestowed upon African Americans. The gun he is holding, which symbolises the violence and danger that African Americans are associated with, is in the centre of the frame. The juxtaposition between the gun on the outside and the book on the inside suggests that although African Americans are seen as violent and dangerous people, in reality, they are peaceful and innocent children full of curiosity and a passion for learning. It could also imply that once African American children are taken out of their perfect little world and exposed to racial inequality, since they are prevented from obtaining the same opportunities as the rest of society and developing their curiosities, their passion for learning turns into spite and violence. This is reinforced through the dull colour scheme of this photograph, which illustrates the lack of any brightness or luxuries in African Americans’ lives hence highlighting how different their lives are compared to the rest of America, therefore causing the children to develop feelings of spite and anger. However, by placing the boy in the foreground and in front of the door, Parks suggests that he has more power than the children and is preventing them from leaving the room, hence conveying that the boy is protecting the children from prejudice and segregation faced by African Americans. This could also emphasise the measures that African Americans take to ensure that the younger generations maintain their innocence and face minimal prejudice.

PSE final reflection!

Diversity is all around us, and it is near impossible to avoid it. In our school community itself, we can see so many people from different parts of the world with all different types of beliefs and values. I think it is important to acknowledge the diversity present in all communities. Instead of being scared or thinking of it as a bad thing, we should all celebrate this diversity. This is because we can learn so much from people who are so different from us, we can learn about their culture, heritage, their beliefs and I’m sure we will be able to see parallels between our beliefs and values and others, even if we are from different places and have a completely different upbringing. I think this is really important to keep in mind for the future because it fosters an inclusive and peaceful community with little violence and honestly, I think that would be my ideal community.

PSE Tolerance, Inclusion and Respect

If I could save the world I would start with educating people about how to move from being a bystander of any form of assault to someone who safely intervenes and prevents that assault. Many people are assaulted daily, and many people are witnesses of these forms of assault, but instead of stopping the assault from taking place, they choose to keep quiet and just watch it happen instead. Educating people on how they can safely intervene and prevent assault will reduce the number of assaults that happen, and it will also make people feel much safer in this world.