My CAS experience was very important to balance the demanding academic experience during the two years of IB.
As a result I increased my awareness of my own strengths and areas for growth mainly in situations when it was required for me to do something, which was out of my comfort zone, because others in the group were doing other tasks. So I found that through the effort of trying to achieve something which I thought I was not skilled at, that in fact it was a potential area for growth. I see that this happened perhaps mostly when I was doing service hours at an after school center for children which were much less privileged than me teaching them English together with a few other colleagues. The lives these children is what defined their attitudes, the way they carried themselves, the way they thought, which unfortunately is much more filled with suffering and pain that confuses and complicates their learning. It was very challenging to teach these children, but it developed the way we communicate, because it was necessary to simplify everything, to go back to the very beginning and start all over again slowly, also forcing us to remember things we had learnt years ago and trying to translate our thoughts into an understandable language. It was absolutely fantastic to be in contact with those kids, because on the other hand, that attitude and the way they thought and behaved was so different and exciting to be around with. They may not have the greatest minds but there were times when hints of genius ideas came up so spontaneously. That experience showed me how I can actually change my language to adapt to a much more basic but spontaneous one.
To complete the Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award my school took our group to help build a house in the north of Portugal for a family living in an incredibly small house, with a daughter in a wheel chair. A very fulfilling service but on the other hand very challenging too. It made us appreciate the work done by builders, day after day, in unbearable conditions to make our lives infinitely better. But now just that it made us realise just how many little things which are really important in our daily lives that we take for granted.
As for the physical activities, I sailed the Laser 4.7 every weekend and trained to do regattas which then took me to the National Championship. Training for this sport wasn’t particularly easy as the club which I trained with was hours away by public transport. Nevertheless, I guess these small sacrifices don’t really matter when it’s for something which we are completely committed to. I wasn’t there just to get a prize, but because the team work and the actual sport itself was like another school of life. When we race, we make choices which can be corrected but not taken back and sometimes there isn't time or we don’t have the skills yet to correct it. but we learn from it; we have to be patient by going with the wind not against it as when we have a motor, we have to feel the nature around us and trim our vehicle as best possible to the different conditions that we face; we have to be attentive to the other sailors around us, we want to be better than them but if we’re not we learn from them and we make each other work more, we have to respect them too; we have to respect the sea as well as if it was a huge living being that can be dangerous and not, so that when it’s not, it’s alright for us to go in it and play enjoy challenging ourselves; we want to make ourselves better and win, but the one and only way to achieve that is by working for it.
I think I developed a new skill by translating a play from Portuguese to English as a service for a teacher. I thought that being fluent in both languages the task would be relatively easy. Turned out I couldn’t have underestimated a work more. I learnt a lot of vocabulary in both languages but I also learnt how to do something with my brain which switches the words like on Google translate. Also it made me think in both languages as if both were my mother tongue. That experience also taught me a lot about the actual way in which a play is written and especially for someone like me who wants to go into theatre, the fact that I looked into each word so carefully and the order in which they were put, showed me a lot about the structure of a play at a deeper, more detailed level.
The expedition for the Gold Award was one of the most fantastic experiences I’ve had of adventure. It was so much fun being in a group of people, which I hadn’t known for that long, as I had just changed schools, and to put all our different qualities together to make us overcome the hardest moments when there was very little joy or hope (it wasn’t that dramatic, but there were times when it seemed like the world could end). Each one of us was different and knew different things or were better at different things that when put together made the perfect team because we had everything! We all helped each other through beautiful mountainous regions in Spain, singing, eating chocolates, moaning about our backs, just looking completely lost or laughing at the ridiculous-seemingly-never-ending slopes.
Creatively, singing in the choir or acting in the school plays taught me a lot about the importance of harmony in a group. The way in which we all have to prepare ourselves as individuals the best possible so that then we can all support each other when put together to perform for another group of people.
As a whole at the beginning of CAS, I already did many of the activities as a routine which balanced by education. But what I think was the most valuable to me were the service activities, because unfortunately I had never done much to help communities by volunteering or anything. But then actually going there and seeing how much I can learn from it, how rewarding it is, served as an incentive to carry on doing it despite not “needing hours”. But I think CAS itself hasn’t changed me much as a person. The IB changed me, in which CAS played a role. But as I said, many of the lessons learnt were rather just re-enforced because I had the habit of doing them already. The great thing about it was Service.
