Service!

I am now part of a service called Motor and gross skills development with christian outreach where students play games with adults that have down syndrome.

In my first day at this service, I did not know what to expect as I had never done it before. Nevertheless, in grade 9, I did a service that was very similar to that one which meant I could reuse my skills. There are many activities available such as drawing, musical instruments, ring toss and balloons. Sometimes, it can be challenging to play with them as they do not particularly want to or they do not understand the game. It takes persistence and commitment to speak to them to try and make them understand what the games consist in. An example of that was when I asked one of them to play with the ball with me but she did not particularly understand she had to throw the ball back at me. So, instead of using a foam ball I decided to try a ballon as it goes slower and she had more time to react.

As a whole, i find this service very fun as I love to play with them and they are very entertaining. I also learned that simple is better. As long as you smile and you’re having fun they will sense the good vibe and will follow your footsteps.

IFP conference 11/11/17

On saturday, we had a conference at dover with IFP students from both campuses. The fact that we were all doing the conference together really reminded me that we are one school and emphasised on the fact that IFP brings people together.

I believe that this conference was one of the most important events in IFP so far in terms of the learning outcomes. Walking out from this conference, I had strong knowledge on all the possible ways to promote piece that can be used not only on the trip but also in everyday life.

Firstly, we had a whole team meeting where teachers created some ice breakers. One of the best ice breakers for me was the one where there was a map of the world projected on the wall and each individual had to go where their favourite food was. It was interesting to see what you had in common with others as food is a very important topic for students. (we love food). This not only made us learn a bit about each other, but also made us realise that we had things in common with everyone. After this, the teachers separated us into teams which had different topics to work on. My team had the subject on STATUES. The rules were that we had to create a fifteen minute conference on our subject to the other IFP students. It was interesting as the whole morning, we did icebreakers but they told us that we really had to think hard if we wanted to do one as we only had fifteen minutes. This taught us that ice breakers are not compulsory for a conference to work well.

In the rooms, we all talked about our research on statues and everyone had different stories about them as we all come from very different backgrounds. Yet, we had a very rich conversation where I learned a lot on the history of some statues.

As a whole, we wanted our conference to raise awareness on the different meanings behind statues. Most of them think that statues are to honour someone even though that might no be the story at all. We wanted the students to start researching or understanding the different perspectives that might exist when looking at a statue. An example was this one:

Image result for robert edward lee sculpture conflictsThis is Robert Edward Lee who assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia, which he would lead for the rest of the war. He fought to preserve slavery and political liberty for whites. Nevertheless, when you see this statue, you are under the impression that he is being honoured. People might get wrong information from it. There has been a lot of conflict behind this statue as many people want to take it down. It is now covered by a black cloth.

As a group, we decided not to have an icebreaker as we already had some this morning and felt like for the short time we had, we did not have enough time to do one. Nevertheless, we started by making the students discuss within small group what they think the function of a statue has and to what extent doe is honour and individual. This helped them understand each other’s perspective and know where they stand on before being informed on the different perspective. So that they can compare their opinions before and after, we made them write on a post it note and put it up on the board.

One challenging aspect of this conference was to be able to speak to such a large group and make sure they all feel included. At the end, the main comment that we had is that we should have showed more individual help to the group. Some of us should have walked within the small groups and ask if they needed anything or had any questions. Perhaps this would have helped in including everyone. 

IFP activity

On Monday, we did a very interesting activity that gave me insights on one of the reasons why conflict happens and that is MISCOMMUNICATION.

Description of the activity:

The class was separated into two groups: the Jahs who were more privileged and the Pons who were a developing country. I was part of the Jahs. As a differentiation to the others, we were given purple ribbons and oreos, these were the two object the Pons did not have access to. We sat down in a separate room and the instructions that were given to us were very clear: you are a privileged country that want to help out the neighbours who are underdeveloped by giving them tips on how to run a society such as: prioritise on education, increase imports or have more labours. As a group, we were very keen and motivated to help them. After the 20 minutes, we went to the other room where the Pons were sitting is a circle. When we first came in, one of the pons started saying not to talk to us and they were doing their own thing inside the circle. We could imagine she was the leader of the group. It was interesting as we were not told they didn’t want our help so the fact that they were not respectful toward our propositions surprised us. They’re excuse was that they were building a monument to celebrate their independency.

One mistake my group may have made was say that instead of allocating their resources to this monument, they should use it for more useful things. As a group, we should have understood that this is an important topic for them and we should have been more understanding on their perspectives.  This created a lot of tension within the groups as this idea of mindsets from the beginning created the overall relationship between both countries. As a Jah, it took a lot of commitment and perseverance as being ignored when you are trying to say something is not easy.

Some challenges: It was difficult for us to feel included in their conversation. We were trying to speak to give our propositions but they kept shutting our ideas down. The greatest challenge was for us not to raise our voice as it would result in a conflict and we would not be able to understand and listen to each other.

If one day, we redo this activity, I would right away ask for their opinion and what were the instructions given to them to avoid conflict and miscommunication.

 

 

Culturama Mexico

Last year I got into Culturama Latin America and it was a very fun experience. This is why I have decided to try again this year and I auditioned for four dances: India, Egypt, U.S.A and Mexico to put all the chances on my side and participate again in this year’s Culturama. I did not get into the first three I auditioned for which kind of discouraged me because the only one that was left was Mexico and I thought the dance was very similar to last year’s (I was very wrong!). Yet, when I received the email of acceptance it made me even more thankful and happy to be in it as I did not expect to get in.

The first rehearsals were very interesting as there was another small audition as the performance consisted of four different dances. This was out of the blue but I did really well and I got to choose the dance I wanted. My goal for this year’s culturama was to gain in confidence as we are performing in front of an audience and to meet new people that are in my dance. I did achieve those goals as it helped me a lot in my confidence that I also used for drama.

In addition, I hoped to learn more about the culture in Mexico. Doing their traditional dance, it helped me realise how vivid their culture is . The four dances of this whole performance were very different from one another but they were all cute and joyful. It is interesting as each dance was performed by people with different social status back in the days. You could see it from the difference in movements: the one that was more elegant was for women with high social status and the one with more west side movements was for the working class. Yet, this did not create any separation between the performers as we were all supporting each other on and off the stage. One challenging aspect of this dance was the fact that I was supposed to be a woman from a higher class and therefore had to dance with confidence on stage. This was the complete opposite of what I was actually feeling inside but as my father told me “fake it until you make it”. This means that when you act confident, you will actually feel more confident inside. This theory proved to be true in this dance! Some of the best comments we have had from the audience was “it really made it seem like we were in Mexico!”.

Overall, being part of this dance was a very fun experience and has been the highlight of my beginning in the school year. Spending time and collaborating with the dance leaders and performers helped me build new relationships that I will surely keep!

Pre season touch

For the first season, I decided to sign up for pre season touch. It was interesting because I have played touch at school before and I was in the C team. I was a little discouraged at first as in the french school, I was in B. The fact that I got into a lower team made me rethink if touch was really for me as I did not have the right mindset.

Today, I am in a Woman’s A team outside of school called Legiste and we play tournaments every saturday. They are all very good and some of them are even touch coaches which gave me another challenge: learn how to be the worst in your team and how to improve to get to their level.  This is why I decided to join pre season: even though I feel I am not playing at my level, I can still improve and learn from my and other’s mistake. I was sometimes asked to teach the new girls some skills which helped me develop in that particular movement as they were all asking interesting questions.

Joining pre season helped me improve not only on my touch skills but also on my collaboration skills. Being able to play in different teams takes some practice as each teammate are different and the moves don’t have the same names. It then helped me to fit and change my game in different environments.

To be perfectly honest, I am still not 100% committed to play in a school team as it bothers me not to be in A. I think I need to lower my ego as my level is not as good as I think.

To conclude, pre season touch helped me fit into new environments and learn how to play with differently skilled teams.It also helped me overcome the fact that you do not always have o be the best in every sport. You just have to play at YOUR best! #deep

Soap box activity

Tuesday 26 of October 2017, we had a soap box activity. This means that we had 10 minutes to write about any subject we cared about and then, if we wanted, we had one minute to talk about it in front of the class. 

The first subject that came into my mind was gender inequality. Nevertheless, I did not want to talk about the facts such as “62 million girls are denied an education all over the world, 4 out of 5 victims of human trafficking are girls and women with full-time jobs still earn only about 77 percent of their male counterparts’ earnings”. The reason for that is because I feel everyone knows about that as we are exposed to all this information at school (we are generally very open about it).

So, here is my speech:

“I am not here to talk about the fact that women and men are not equal, that men should back up and women should step forward, but I am here to ask you to change your mindset. As a 16 year old girl, I have never experienced any limitations due to my gender but I know this problem exists. I hear and read every week about this subject: whether it’s a comment on youtube, a meme on Facebook or in mentor time. This can effect our mindset as we may not set our goals as high as we could if we weren’t exposed to this information as much. For example, if a girl might want to become the leader of a company, she might back off from her hopes and dreams because of this inequality without even trying. So I hope this little speech will change what you think about your future: aim high, and you will get there! At least try your best to get what you want so you won’t have any regrets in the future! Don’t let the “idea” of this inequality stop you from trying. It may be harder for you to get there than men, but it will make you even prouder! In my opinion, this could help improve the inequality problem.”

At first, when one of the teachers explained the activity to us I felt a little stressed out as I am not confident in front of an audience (ironic because I do drama). Nevertheless, I regret not saying this in front of the class even though I did not feel confident enough to share it. I was too shy. This taught me a lesson as I now know that I should put myself forward more and not think about it too much. If I had to do it again, I would definitely do it.

Lastly, I was also very impressed with the number of people who shared their personal experience. There was this girl who was very scared but she still went and did an amazing speech. As she is very timid, I admired her as she did something that I couldn’t do even though it looked like she was more frightened than me.

IFP conference 10/10/17

What were the facts from Sunday? What did you do?

On Sunday, I did an IFP conference that was student lead. We talked about various different peace perspectives such as: media, violence, identity and discrimination. We were all put in 4 different groups and throughout the day, we would change classrooms and learn about a different perspectives every time. The process of learning included many games that were linked to the subject. For example, for violence, we played a game where there was three bystanders, seven obstacles, seven people who had they’re eyes closed and seven other people who would help their partner who couldn’t see get to the other side of the room. This helped us understand better about what can be done about violence and what it is.

How did you feel about what happened?

I found this experience very interesting and I learned a lot from it. When I first arrived, I thought it was going to be students sitting down and listening to teachers talking to us about peace but it was actually very different than what I expected. I really like the fact that it was student lead and therefore, they knew what we liked and what would capture our attention since they were all approximately the same age as us. Some of the perspectives we learned about really opened my eyes. For example, the one about discrimination made me realise how much of a gap existed between men and women. We played a game where we all had to close our eyes and hold hands and the student leader would ask a question and if we agreed, we had to step forward but if we didn’t, we had to step backwards. It was very impressive the huge gaps that were present between men and women in that game (we almost let the hand go) especially for the question “my gender never stopped me from being in a position of power in a project/ work place”

How will your learning from the weekend shape what you do next in IFP…and beyond?

This conference helped me know more about IFP and what I will be able to do after the learning process is done. This is why I found it interesting the fact that it was lead by students that used to do IFP last year as we could realise what the learning process will lead us to. Furthermore, some of the new information I learned will really help me throughout my life especially my learnings about fake media where a newspaper used an image in the wrong context. This will teach me to be more aware about what I read. Another interesting point that I will keep with me is the fact that bystanders also have a role in violence if they do not do anything about it.