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Final CAS Reflection
Final CAS Reflection
Can you imagine how annoying it may be when you are asked to write a final CAS reflection—in essay form—at the last stage of your DP life? Besides, it particularly sucks when you completed all your CAS activity entries and permanently deleted nearly all the photo evidence because you looked too hideous in them. I apologize for expressing these complaints in a black mood, yet I care that I could have talked with a silver tongue sharing my personal experience and final thoughts on CAS. However, at this moment, I can only sit at my desk and use my computer to type down these seemingly emotionless words. Thanks to the COIVD-19 pandemic, again.
Frankly speaking, I don’t thank CAS, but I also do. I don’t thank CAS because I hate to count the hours, write the reflections, and photoshoot the evidence; when I, in nature, am already a person who hopes to live her life to the fullest. This means, I don’t appreciate binge-watching Netflix or lying on the couch and playing video games for the whole day, but to create, exercise, and serve others in my everyday life—the purpose of CAS. In addition, as a religious person, self-reflection and introspection have been my day-to-day activities. Therefore, a lot of times I believe I was doing CAS only for the sake of getting my IB and high school diplomas.
On the other hand, before thanking CAS itself, I want to first point out what I have learned through doing CAS activities or the so-called extracurricular activities. Because as a Christian, I am grateful for all these opportunities given; I think it had been a privilege to be able to learn outside of the classroom and the textbooks.
Learning outcome 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth.
To a large extent I have achieved this learning outcome.
I would say that over the past years, the most impactful extracurricular learning experiences was gained through being the president of Lighthouse club. Lighthouse has a mission that really caught my eyes at first, which was also the reason why I chose to attend the club. Lighthouse aims to have students exert their God-given talents through serving others and to experience God’s unfailing love. I was a club member of Lighthouse during my freshman year and had hold on to the club torch from my sophomore year until the end of my junior year. In other words, although CAS is only considered as part of the DP requirement, but my participation in the club starts from the very beginning of my high school career. However, because this is a final record of my CAS journey, I will rather be focusing on the challenges that I faced during my second year of presidency; as well as how I identified my own strengths and develop areas for growth.
Christianity had told me the heart of service wasn’t gaining extracurricular credits; it was to bring long-term blessings to others, which could only be achieved through building relationships—with our service recipients and working partners. Therefore, during the first year of my presidency, I had been trying to execute team-building activities meanwhile achieving Lighthouse’s vision. Staying onto the club vision will be my strength I believe, however, I eventually compromised the annual goal of Lighthouse in my junior year, because certain changed school policies had made most non-Christians in the club acting defensively. Stubbornness doesn’t bring success but persistence does, and this is what I learned and grew mentally. Junior year, my second year of presidency is the time when I figured out that the only way to enable the club to continue its operation and to persist in the school was to gain certain achievements through our tasks. It worked effectively then. We had a highly successful fundraising in the following school charity event; consequently, Lighthouse seemed to gain the school’s attention again. Nevertheless, I had never forgotten my mission for Lighthouse. Besides planning weekly meetings, annual promotions, school fairs, and mission trips, I also tried to build the team with love and positivity whenever and wherever I could—making the club a true LIGHTHOUSE.
Learning outcome 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.
To a large extent I have achieved this learning outcome.
As mentioned in the previous section, many challenges were encountered during my presidency, and the largest would be compromising the annual goal of Lighthouse into more task-oriented basis. As a person who really hoped to continue the club vision that I have received from Lighthouse’s first leadership team, it wasn’t a easy decision to make, especially when all the pressure from the club members and the school was all on my shoulders.
Although it ended up a Lighthouse image that wasn’t the one I once pictured, I still learned a priceless lesson: to collaborate with whom I shared different values. Also, as a person who has always been entitled to any kinds of leaders ever since I entered kindergarten, I also learned to become a better leader. I believe a leader isn’t a person who knows everything; a leader is a motivator, a mediator, and a bonder of everyone in the team. Sometimes, I still question my stubbornness in the first year of my presidency. Did I positively influence any? The lit torch of Lighthouse was successfully passed down, and that’s the only thing I know.
Learning outcome 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
To a large extent I have achieved this learning outcome.
Obviously, as the president of Lighthouse, I have many opportunities to initiate and plan for any club-related events and activities. Other experiences like Beyond Horizon volunteered online English tutoring enabled me to have the chance to do so as well. Below is a screenshot of the google sheet that illustrates the planned agendas for Lighthouse events over the two years.
Learning outcome 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
To a large extent I have achieved this learning outcome.
I want to specifically mention my experience of volunteering as a Beyond Horizon tutor in this section. During this experience I have taught two students non-simultaneously. The first student wasn’t fully engaged in the overall learning process and didn’t show much respond to it, however, I still tried different methods every lesson, hoping to stir up her passion in learning English. To speak candidly, I sometimes felt a little upset particularly when I found out the student wasn’t paying attention to the lesson because she was using her phone. Even so, I still tried my best to make the lesson more interesting than what was on her phone. I don’t know how effective it was to her but I just thought I should still do my job. At the end, I learned not only to show commitment and perseverance to a task, but also the challenges that a teacher may have to confront. I thought the hardest thing of being a teacher may not always be knowledge teaching. Sometimes, the hardest thing is to encourage the students and help them find back their enthusiasm for learning.
Learning outcome 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
To a large extent I have achieved this learning outcome.
TISSA volleyball was when I strongly experienced being on a team with a strong team spirit while working collaboratively to achieve the same goal—to win the golden medal. Although we didn’t get a medal at the end, there was a thing that we were still proud of was that we were the Kuei Shan’s first high school girl’s volleyball team to be qualified into the varsity tournament. All the achievements we accomplished wasn’t the result of a person’s effort, but everyone’s contribution. I was very thankful that we could enjoy in the competition process and making pleasant memories with each other, which I believe it would be more precious than just winning a medal. Particularly, it is worth mentioning that because of the team spirit, we, upperclassmen and underclassmen still have good relationships until now.
Learning outcome 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.
To a large extent I have achieved this learning outcome.
Beyond Horizon is an organization that gathers international students in Taiwan and conduct voluntary one-on-one online English tutor lessons with students in the rural areas. Besides this experience I want to specifically mention Lighthouse. I would say that the reason why really liked Lighthouse’s vision and hoped to practice so was not only because I am a Christian, but also because that I really do think the world and especially the Kuei Shan environment is lacking positivity and hope. People say that spirituality is the highest pursuit in life, and I totally agree with that. Especially as a Christian, I urged to spread the gospel with my classmates and schoolmates, so that people could be more optimistic about life during this digital era with the bombardment of information from everywhere.
Learning outcome 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.
To a large extent I have achieved this learning outcome.
Starting from the first Lighthouse club time, I had kept instilling a mindset for the club members. This mindset is that when we serve others, we should be empathic towards them, we should really think of what their needs are in their perspectives rather than in ours. Therefore, we should try to fully understand the backgrounds of our service recipients before we conduct actual services. An example to demonstrate this mindset is that the vice president and I went on site investigation during our mission trip preparation and planning, we also played with the children there at the elementary school to first start on building the relationship. For your information we were accompanied by our upperclassmen, also known as the first leadership team of Lighthouse and the mission trip that we went to during our freshman year.
After listing out my learning outcomes, I want to go back to the reason why I thank CAS. I thank CAS not because of its concept of letting us to have a balanced life—for my personal lifestyle is already achieving so—but because I was “forced” to record down my experiences and reflections. Perhaps five years from now, I won’t be able to remember each extracurricular experience vividly, yet my memories may still be recalled through these recordings. I might not appreciate it now, but maybe I will in the future. I believe one can maximize the impact of a learning opportunity if he or she focuses on the every little thing. Doing activities that one may enjoy is certainly encouraged, nevertheless, I also think that being open-minded and step out the comfort zone is also crucial. I guess this will be the only thing that I want to say to my underclassmen. (Oh and one more thing, good luck in DP:))))))
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