To me personally, CAS in my DP life was a torture to some extent. CAS does impacts me throughout the two years of DP life in both positive and negative way. When we look at the positive side, CAS activities actually pushing me to enrich life outside of academic performances. On the other hands, the negative side is the combination of CAS activities with tough DP courses, when I look back now, I have been struggle a lot between CAS and DP classes in past two years. However, I do believe that it was my problem for not taking good time management. Procastination has been a great obstacle on my way towards academic achievements in the past two years, I do not blame everyone for this becuase this is a personal issue that I need to face, and I have put a lot of effort on against the influence of procrastination on me. CAS activities somehow plays the role of blocking the behavior of procrastination on me, it was quite effective when I start to being lazy on study and review DP coures, the imcomplete of CAS makes me more stressed when I'm stuck with exams, EE and IA. Therefore, CAS will makes me aware of my laziness and started to work to prevent further stress. This is how CAS plays a role in my DP life, a type of 'motivation'.
Learning outcome 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth.
I believe that I have achieve this learning outcome to a large extent. I would say the most impactful extracurricular experiences in being the vise president of Thailand Mission Club. The original goal of 11th grade are going to mission trip in ChingRai, Thailand for my third time. I have joining Thailand Mission Club for my third year when I'm 11th grade. It was such an honor to participate in a wonderful team in Thailand Mission Club. The two missions trips to ChingRai, Thailand helped me develop variety of skills and leadership skills, I also played different role in two mission trips, it process of mission trips makes me reflect my self and make further improvements in each activities. However, due to the impact of Covid-19 pandemic, the original planned mission trip has been canceled. School told us to hold a two days service event with the elementary students in Kuei Shan School. I was responsible for the design of a small sports day for grade 1 and 2, my team members and I are forced the prepared a small sports days in 2 days. Considering the influence of pandemic, social distancing and some regulation to prevent infection of Covid-19 pandemic requires to involved in the design of the events. It helps me develop the skills of leadership and detail consideration on holding sports day event under such difficult conditions.
Learning outcome 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.
I believe that I have achieve this learning outcome to a large extent. The challenges that I want to discuss is the challenges of willpower during the process of Pilates learning. Personally, I'm quite capable with challenges on acedemic, even though it takes time to process and make improvements, and sports and exercise could be a easier way to develop new skills and the challenges sometimes are also considered much easier than academics. However, as a person who does not consider exercise as a crtical things in my life, challenges on the Pilates learning could be difficult to me. The process of learning Pilates has been quite exhausting, Pilates is an sports that aims to strengthen our core muscle and form the knowledge of using right power and muscle. There are many details to learning a typical and standard pose, sometimes I may not be able to discover the problem when I'm performing a certain pose, therefore the trainer is essential in learning Pilates. The process of correcting the pose, making improvements of a pose and eventually performing a standard pose could be extraordinary exhausting. It has been a challenges on my willpower when it is exhausting, the time went much slower than usual, and it has been painful during the training. However, the capabilities of doing a certain pose will be extend by training and learning, the key is willpower and insisting to finished it well. Pilates learning has assisted me to face challenges on both physically and mentally, it also helps me gain the knowledge and skills of Pilates.
Learning outcome 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
I believe that I have achieve this learning outcome to a large extent.As I mentioned above, I have holding an small sports day for elementary students. The planning of the two days events has been critical for the success of the events. The picture below is how we initiate and plan a CAS experience. We have listed the objectives that we need to be complete in different time period to make sure the success of the CAS experience.
Learning outcome 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
I believe that I have achieve this learning outcome to a large extent. In the Thai Mission Club, we also have another activities to show commitment to the children we met in ChingRai, Thailand before the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to this year's inability to serve in northern Thailand as the prevalence of the epidemic, our club decided to shoot a series of life education videos to continue our service team's local commitment to northern Thailand. After discussions in our group, we decided to shoot a five-episode short film. The core concept of the life education film is to know yourself (personality, family, background, culture), although you don't have much, but it is very valuable and you Not poor, what you have is priceless. We used this idea as the main axis of the conception of the film, and came up with four themes of family, personality, gender, and time to conceive the film and script. However, after unanimous discussions among our club members, we decided to suspend this project. Due to the inability of many members to cooperate and the lack of effective communication with each other, in order not to cobble together and give bad video quality, we decided to rethink Ways to complete the continuation and commitment to northern Thailand. For us, the result of Wuyi is success or failure. Our community has a deeper understanding and understanding of each other through this experience. I believe that in future activities, we can have more effective communication and mutual trust. In this way, we can produce better results to continue the commitment between us and the local area in northern Thailand.
Learning outcome 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
I believe that I have achieve this learning outcome to a large extent. For the experiences of being a part of Seussical CAS Crew, the process of preparing the crops and painting background requires many crew members to work collaboratively in order to complete the preparation of the muscial performances. I remember that we have lots of discussion when we need to paint the background. As it is a huge paints that requires crews to make decisions and putting effort to complete the entire paint. I remember specifically few days before the official performances and we are having some discussion. After discussion, I firstly mixed the white and red into pink. I’ve spend some time to calibrate the light pink, which is able to fit with other color. Sometimes, I was quite afraid of making decision on the paints, worrying about the my decision does not present the best way it could be. Anyway, during the painting, I always being very careful while painting the board, I choose different brushed with various thickness for not draw out of the limits. However, I still come over the afraid of the decision making, I started to have my own idea and method to demonstrate the best paints for the audience and sixth grades student. Another thing I’ve done that day was cutting the cloth into leaves shape. It was the props preparation, I’ve many different way to cut the cloth into a well-shaped leave, I use the one that I cut well and fold on the cloth for later to cut, keep repeating the work until the amount of leaves was enough for the performance. It was such a great experience for me to enjoying the process and working collaboratively with the seussical crew.
Learning outcome 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.
I believe that I have achieve this learning outcome to some extent. As I mentioned above, our original for Thai Mission Club in 2021 was to go the Thailand Mission Trip. However, due to the influence of epidemic, we have changed our planned multiple times. Ultimately, we decides to shoot life education videos for the children in Thailand, not just to show commitment, we also demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance. By shooting and editing of life education video, we hope that learning and studying should be continue without any obstacle, education should be valued worldwidely. Even though we did not sucessfully complete shooting video, but we have found out that education has been a serious issues to the children in lower classes in ChingRai, Thailand. There is lacking of educational resources and atmosphere of education, which could be a issue that needs everyone of us to be aware and valued, most importantly, we should attempt to involve and solve.
Learning outcome 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.
I believe that I have achieve this learning outcome to a large extent. Recalling back to the start of being a part of Thai Mission club, the mindset of service has changed a lot. The process of serving others makes me realize many things. As a servant, it is important that we stand at their perspective to see the world rather than in ours. Experiences varies from one to another, it may be difficult for servant to fully understand their feelings, but we need to stand at their side, and substitute ourselves in their conditions. It helps us to recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions. Sometimes our promises could be hurting to the children in Thailand and we may not notice that, therefore avoiding promising to the child to hurt their heart again could be a consider of ethics choices and actions. Additionally, the actions of community trash cleaning is also a recognition of the trash damage and harm the environment, therefore, I take the ethics of choices and actions to serve the commnuity.
When I'm looking back to all of my CAS learning outcomes, actually I'm quite confident with all my experiences. The confident was from the ability of being able to complete the CAS under a tough DP life. I have to admit that CAS experiences has impacted me a lot on many aspects. These experiences strengthen my skills and mindsets which pushing me to become a better learner. Overall thanks to the CAS and DP life.