Elvis Lai's CAS Journey

Introduction:

It's been coming to the end of the high school life, which times seem to be flying past quickly, but in these years, I have had many good and bad memories, despite these memories, the balancing of school work and lifestyle are super. As Roy T. Bennett once said, “Do Not Lie to Yourself. We have to be honest about what we want and take risks rather than lie to ourselves and make excuses to stay in our comfort zone.” in The Light in the Heart, we should step out of our comfort zone. Under the high pressure given by the IB curriculum, I have forgotten the exist of CAS and making it the last priority. CAS is an opportunity for us to highlight the activity that we have done in regard to three main categories: Creativity, Activity, Service. But once I realized it is quite important for us, I think that it's time to deal with it and step out of my comfort zone to try something that I have never had before. As this CAS reflection is an important index for activities that I have done, the learning outcome will be shown with details and all the personal skills and contribution.

1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

Before being a ref in both MYP sports event and also the Sports Day ref, I have never been so depth interested into different kind of sports and also about their rule. I always thought if I am on the court, I would be doing good and carry my teammate, but somehow when I was watching and judging their game, I feel totally different on how the rules and the scariness of being in the court will really hinder the performance. This outcome stand out for me because I will really try to rewind some games and the rules that are related to that kind of sports event. Moreover, after the in depth study of those sports, it can expand an interest for me to get more experience with different sports.

2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

As being a ref, it is not as easy as we might think while we are watching world-ranked sports event such as the NBA games. We always revile the ref as using the perspective of a bystander. But after I experience it by myself, it is not that easy as we thought. The instantaneous response and the control of emotion is important for being a good ref. Sometimes when I was judging for the game, I always faced controversial arguing for whether the ball is out of bound by which side. Since I do not have professional equipment for both side and there’s only me judging the game, so I could not really find anyone to instantly help me. For this, I have to make the call, for being more precise, I will usually talk to the team's representative why I make that call. Moreover, when we are on the last day before Sports Day to prepare our equipment, we have to make sure everything would function on tomorrow’s event because there might be various unexpected variables can happen such as raining or the malfunction of equipments, so at that point, we have to immediately discuss with my teammate on how we can fix these issues to minimize the chance of the day of the event.

3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

To achieve success in CAS, it is important to always mentally and physically encourage yourself to push forward but not look back. Besides that, the reflection part of the CAS experience can really help us to organize all the prep we need, and we have to have plannings in order to make it a more clear goal for yourself. As being an assistant teacher, I planned to spend a little time before the day I am going to participate in their reading class to adjust some of my pronunciation and the words that I might not be familiar with. This help me to be more engaged to the whole atmosphere and can help the kids to be more focus on the class which looking at their growth is meaningful for me.

4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

I would rather say that commitment and perseverance are quite important in CAS experiences, because most of the CAS experiences are long term project which we have to really be motivated to involve more. Such as when we are picking up trash in Yangmingshan, we have to think of what this experience could we really linked to our future, and we thought that is actually quite important because it is one small step for arising the attention for people to protect our planet and try not to throw their trash on either on the street on even in the sea, and taught people about the importance of the categorizing of trash.

5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

Undoubtedly, working collaboratively will increase the working pace and the stability of the final outcome. Although collaborate might not be positively, but why people getting mad? Because they really like that issues, and they wanted to make further discussions and wanted to solve the problems. I remember one time my teammate are arguing about the different method should be used in sports day, and then I go and stop them and told them the aim is good, but not in the way of arguing it, we should sit down and take some time to talk about it. The benefit of collaboration didn’t only shorten the time but also increase the relationship with one another which is important nowadays because people nowadays are a phubber.

6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

As there are more and more problems raising, we have to find the root of these problems and try to fix them with the smallest power of what we can do. In GIN club, we focus on issues such as poverty in Taiwan, we try to connect with different association in Taiwan to try to raise fund and organize and event that we provide food and essentials for those who are really in need. Although at last we only raised fund but not able to go out and sever those people in need based on the pandemic, but we used another method to donate those moneys to association to help those who are in need, the feelings of helping people is incredibly special, besides that, sometimes when I see elderly who are walking across street but are not really walking in ease, I will try to help me to slower the traffic and try as much as I can to help them, although I didn’t put this as my CAS experience, but I think this could be something special to be talked about.

7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

Through different CAS experience, I could really recognize the ethical issues that might occur and how should I handle with it. Such as in GIN, we talked about that although people who are in depth need might need money to buy essentials, but we have to consider whether we should directly give them money, because we don’t know what they will take those moneys for. Buying drugs? No one knows, so it is important to think every time before you actually action!

8: Conclusion

In conclusion, I am really thankful about the existence of CAS, it didn’t help me to fulfill my life to participate in more sports. But it also helps me to enhance my civic consciousness. Despite the time management for the CAS activities being squished to short period of time, CAS really helps me a lot by accompanying by me, although CAS might be affect but the pandemic, but the meaning behind will never change, and it will keep accompanying as being a good person.