Shakespeare Club

In this activity, I, along with the group, went to Precious Blood Primary School to teach secondary school students English and Drama over a six week period. Every week, I was not assigned to the same group, and this prevented me from forming a connection with one set of students, however, it did help me figure out ways to help students of different abilities and requirements. This was the first time I had done a purely teaching role, and it also gave me the chance to figure out my teaching style.

It was not an easy task because every group had students who would rather do as they pleased while I tried to teach them the pronunciation of words or how to stage a scene. I had to remember not to lose my cool at them and do something interesting to get their attention back to what I was teaching them. Probably the biggest hurdle I faced in this experience was language. Their first language was Chinese while mine was English, and I did not know how to speak in Chinese. Sometimes, my partner would be someone who knew how to speak in Chinese so it became easier to converse, but other times I had to try and simplify my words, and think of synonyms to words that I thought were simple enough, to help them understand what I was saying.

I also had to be professional but connect with the students on their level to let them tell me what they were thinking and help them follow my instructions to the best of their abilities.

This experience helped me figure out the challenges of teaching and how hard the job really is and the last minute changes you might have to do to a plan because of unforeseen problems. 

A Play in a Week - The Faust Way Student Leader

For CAS Week this year, I participated in being a Student Leader for the Year 8 Create series, specifically for creating a play in a week in collaboration with Faust. I was excited to share the little drama knowledge I had acquired over the years with the Year 8 students, probably rehearsing for their first ever play, and having only a week to create it.

It wasn't an easy experience. There were stressful times and times when I felt frustrated by the lack of focus by the students, but I learnt to deal with that and focus on the positive thoughts and the constructive feedback that I thought would help in making them better actors and the play better. My co-student leader and I decided to take voice workshops to help the students speak louder with clear diction when they were not in the auditorium rehearsing. This helped them on stage and saved the Director and Assistant Director time from teaching them the same things again.

This was a learning curve for me too, because I was part of the production team for the first time where I had to take care of sound and watch out for cues to see to it that the actors got their cues for sound. It was as nerve-racking as acting and very stressful too, but it gave me an opportunity to experience a different side of theatre, one that I was very interested in, and helped me also build on skills that I had learnt during the leader in Improv Club and test it over a one week, more strenuous period. 

Research Gurus

Research Gurus was a very helpful activity to me, as a student of the IB Diploma. It focused on learning the Academic Honesty process and the administration work when it came to writing academic essays for the Diploma and also later in our educational careers, and sometimes for our careers, if we're going into research.

My aspiration is to go into research, so this not only introduced me to academic honesty and citations four months before my fellow students, it helped me understand the importance of citing work that is not my own, giving credit where it is due, and referencing. The administrative work that I learnt here made it so much more easier for me to write my various portfolios, internal assessments, the core essays in the IB Diploma.

It also gave me a small feel on how to teach something like this to my fellow students doing a science extended essay because of its importance and the amount of body of work in the sciences on the internet and the most efficient way to use it.

It was truly a learning experience. 

Improv Club

Improv Club was my creative CAS Project, and I probably learned the most about leadership and teaching through this endeavour of mine.

I've learnt improv for seven years, and starting a club to spread the word about improv seemed like the most viable and meaningful option for me. However, I don't think I was prepared to handle the responsibilities and the ethical actions that came with this leadership role. I ran this club for a year, and this was a completely new and challenging learning curve for me, as a person, a leader, and an improv artist.

The first term was mostly focused on me trying to figure out the best way to teach the vast amount of information improv had to offer during lunch breaks once a week and prep my students for a feasible performance. Besides this, I had to deal with students who did not commit to the activity where it required commitment and did not show up. Because of the group nature of improv, this erratic behaviour affected the other students who were dedicated and obviously there to learn something. Thus, the first term, I learned how to impart my knowledge and I consciously fell back upon my experiences as a learner and what stood out for me about my mentors and I learnt how to deal with students who did not have the amount of commitment required. I didn't think teaching improv would be as difficult as it turned out to be.

Through the lessons I learnt in the first term, I was better equipped to lead the new batch of students in the second term. I made the lessons more activity based than theoretical. Instead of telling them what they will learn, I let them do the exercises so that they would imbibe the skills in them and help them realize the skills on their own.

I also made them realize the importance of being committed to the activity by being much more stricter about attendance and playing in the production we would set up.

Improv Club was my first true leading experience where I got to experience the intricacies of leading an activity while also looking at the bigger picture to help me lead my students better.  

Hong Kong Rock and Sea Challenge

As part of CAS Week in my school last year, I decided to try something adventurous and something that would push me out of my physical comfort zone. The Hong Kong Rock and Sea Challenge seemed like the right choice as not only would it let me have fun and get the adrenaline going but it would also push me and make me do things I'd otherwise fear doing.

Through this week, we explored kayaking, gorging and hiking, camping, and we ended the week in Aberdeen Country Park, applying the skills we had learnt during the week.

We started out with kayaking, and although I did not enjoy that too much because of my inability to grasp the method quickly and the amount we had to kayak to get to this small island nearby, I came to accept it and like it later on, with hindsight. We learnt survival skills this day, and the lessons I learnt there will stay with me throughout. I came to appreciate this experience later because of the lessons it taught me. Because I couldn't grasp the method to kayak quickly, one of the most important lessons I learnt that day was to take learning at my own pace. I didn't have to rush it or be as good as the others as quickly as they became. It taught me to work at a pace that I feel is right for me.

Gorging was a completely different experience for me. This was also something I had never done before, and I was really looking forward to gorging because it sounded like a lot of fun. When we did start hiking, climbing, and made sure we didn't bang our heads on rocks, I found myself panicking a lot. This wasn't anything new to me. I panicked at every situation gone wrong or not delightful, but, I think panicking 200 times in a span of one hour because of one slipped foot on loose rock or a huge jump I thought I couldn't do, but ended up landing just fine, and looking back and seeing that the gap wasn't that big anyway, the amount I was panicking started decreasing slowly. Gradually, I started moving away from thinking "OH MY GOD, I AM GOING TO DIE" when slipping on rock to "oh, just some loose rock under my feet." In more serious situations than that, I started looking for ways out of it than clouding my brain with irrational fear. This significantly transferred into my daily life because it allowed my brain to look at solutions rather than overthinking about the problem and not getting anywhere, as a result. I have grown as a person because of this and know that the change in my thinking process happened because of this experience.

When camping and trying my hand at different adventure sports, it made me value my life even more, and made me realize the importance of moving away from looking at money as the sole purpose in life. One experience that really stood out for me was rock climbing. I wasn't really good at it, and did not end up making to the top of the mountain and ended up falling into the sea, I tried multiple times to get up there. This, again, helped me understand the importance of not giving up on something that I really want to achieve. This CAS Week really helped me redefine my life.

Drums

I started learning the drums when I came to know they were offered in school as a private teaching. I had never played the drums before and this was a completely new experience for me, which was why I signed up to play them. In the past, I had tried to learn other instruments, like the keyboard, but it didn't give me the thrill drums did.

I did not find drums hard to learn probably because it wasn't too hard. I learnt how to read the notes and I practiced for two hours every week in school to get my coordination right. But, when I had to start playing with already established songs, I found it very difficult to keep time with the songs. Through the help of my teacher I realized that the reason I go off tune is because I try and analyse the song because of my under-confidence, in turn losing the beat. This helped me figure out where I was going wrong, and correcting my mistakes.

Through the time I played the drums, I tried very hard to correct my mistakes, and I was improving, but I never reached the mark before I had to stop playing because of other commitments. I had also just started on learning solo pieces.

Drums was a learning curve, and something that I loved doing. I would love to continue playing, and learning them. They made me connect with music in a completely different way. 

Caucasian Chalk Circle Drama Production

The Caucasian Chalk Circle is a production that was written by Bertolt Brecht. My school adapted it and performed it as its yearly production. There were about 50 people part of this production, and that included me. We had to play more than one role sometimes as we were short of people, but even then, we had a wonderful time filled with learning and understanding.

The rehearsals took us four months and this was the first time I had ever done a play with a script. Particularly for me, it was a very important experience because it helped me explore a completely different form of theatre. I was very uncomfortable with learning lines and repeating them as I had always done improvisational theatre where I devised my work with a group of people. I pushed myself outside my comfort zone, and learnt to understand how to recognize when I need to start speaking and how to make it as real as possible while repeating lines I learnt a hundred times. I found it very difficult to match exact actions to the lines and make it believable. I found this to be completely different to improvisational theatre. In improvisational theatre, I would first imagine myself as the character and make lines and actions based on that. Here, I was given the lines, and I had to get into character to make it believable. It wasn't possible for me to divert from the lines given because my fellow actors took their cues from my lines.

I actually learnt that the delivery is never to the character next to you but to audience and this was a difficult concept for me to grasp because, surely, we need to be delivering to the character to make it look real? I realized that this obstructs the volume of our voice and alienates the audience to what is happening on stage.

There was a time in the performance where one of my fellow actors missed their cue and everyone in the scene had to improvise around this, and this, again, was a learning curve for me as this was my first time.

While this drama production helped me learn a lot, it also required huge amounts of time commitment which is when I learnt to let go next year and decided to focus on studies.