CAS Reflection No.9: Tabla Lessons

For almost four months now, I've been attending lessons to learn how to play the tabla, an Indian percussion instrument as well as helping to teach the more junior students.

Learning this skill showed me a whole new side of music which I had not encountered before, although I had previously played Western instruments this was the first time that I experienced music from the Eastern perspective. It really helped to reveal the difference in approach when comparing the styles of music, and I found Eastern music to be more organic, and intuitive while Western music is more organised and strict. Both schools of music have their masterpieces and it is not my place to argue for concertos against ghazals or vice versa. Learning something from both sides of the wall helps to widen your perspective and to broaden your vision to include everything. This was a great experience and I have really learned how to appreciate everything that I come across without being biased or prejudiced where before I used to openly reject Indian music now I have come to appreciate the effort that goes into it, and I think appreciation is the first step to tolerance. Below is a video of me playing tabla in a practice session:

CAS Journal Entry No.8: Yearbook Committee

Every year our school publishes a yearbook, a summary of everything that took place in school that year. From the student exchange programs to the class trips, every single activity gets a mention in some fashion or other in the yearbook. This is all well and good for the students, but for those of us who have to co-ordinate and organize such a massive undertaking, it’s truly a logistical nightmare. From heckling students to turn in their articles to planning and putting together the pages for the final edition, all the hours that went into this yearbook were truly worth it however.

From writing the editorial at the beginning of the yearbook to submitting a few creative writing pieces of my own, I tried to participate as much as possible in this yearbook process. It also helped me understand the responsibility involved in putting together a magazine of this scale and importance. This committee along with the planning for Spectra is what truly imbibed me with a sense of responsibility. I hope the end product is looked at as something our entire school can be proud of, and even though nothing is perfect, I think we did a fantastic job putting together the yearbook with all the challenges we faced.

CAS Journal Entry No.7: Sports Day

            Sports have always been a big part of our school’s curriculum, and I think we are one of the few school that actually offer physical education classes to even the senior-most classes. That being said, sports day, I think is a wonderful way to just enjoy and participate in whatever event you think you’re good at. Me (I’m not much of a runner) being me, I decided to take part in the field throw events, which this year consist of both shot put and discus. For a few weeks, we were given coaching by the P.E. staff prior to the event, but because I was attending DSMUN I was unable to help setup the track and field as we did last year.

            Typical of Kerala weather, without rain for three days, I could almost smell my face burning as we took the field that day. But, it was a great day to celebrate the beauty of sport and it helped the entire school have a sense of loyalty because the house that scores the most points at the end of the day, earns a trophy. Being part of Vayu house (Go Vayu!), I tried my best to win, but only ended up with a single silver medal in shot put.

            Regardless of victory or defeat, sport has always been all about the spirit in which you participate and the same holds true for individual sports as well. I can honestly say, I was not this loyal or caring about anything before I began participating in sports and I’m sure that every other student in the school feels the same way. Brought together by a sense of unity and loyalty, sports day is about more than just which house wins the trophy, its about learning to accept winning or losing with equal happiness and going home with your head held high.

            

CAS Journal Entry No. 6: Founder's Day Choir

The curtain rises, the shine on the bleacher at the back of the stage. A band of students in white and black begin to sing, and their voices ring through the auditorium. As part of the school choir that performed on Founder’s Day, I had the opportunity to take part in this event and I am very happy I did so. Initially, I was very apprehensive about joining the choir because it is not a very popular club in my school. Unlike other schools, my school does not have a permanent choir where students who are interested are invited to join; instead a rather chaotic method is used where choirs are put together as necessary.

When I was younger, I used to be part of the school choir but it was after a break of around 5 years that I took part in this one. Practicing with Mr. Denzel and the rest of the group helped me get better and more confident, and as one of the only bass voices in the ensemble, it was quite a good experience. Was our choir perfect? Of  course not, but we did the best we could in the time that we had, and because I had to juggle responsibilities and change really quickly because I was also one of the hosts of the event, it was an even more energetic performance. Although we certainly didn’t blow the crowd away with our amazing vocal styling, I’m sure that with some practice and time to develop we could become much better. 

CAS Journal Entry No.5- Spectra

A grand spectacle, the heady rush of adrenaline and stage fright, mixed with the nervousness of facing the end result of months of planning, the third of August was a very stressful day for our entire class. Spectra, a labour of love that was the culmination of nearly two months of hectic running back and forth,  our school has a yearly tradition of organizing this event to give students a chance to showcase their abilities and talents, and to that effect we even invite students of other schools to make the competition even more lively. The particularity of this event is that is completely student-organised. Every detail from the construction to the posting of venue locations had to be handled by us, the students of the senior class. I've never seen this type of student involvement in any other school, and I'm very proud that we were able to pull off such an immense undertaking with what little time we had.

                When school re-opened on June 5th, the first thought that I had was, "Oh my god, how are we going to be able to plan for Spectra in such a short time?"  From the first meeting where we sat down to try and decide which events we wanted, it was all a big rush. Such a long process of scheduling and organising cannot truly be expressed on paper, but it's safe to say we were challenged to the ends of our wits to put together each and every facet of the program. The events consisted of a quiz, a gaming competition (held in the IT lab), a group dance competition, a comedy act, a solo dance performance, and a personality contest.

               

Being part of the core committee involved in organising the event, I was involved in raising money from sponsors to finance the event, conceptualising and organising the events themselves (with respect to location, time, and content), putting together the promotional videos, assigning students to take charge of the students from the visiting school, as well as distributing invitations to participating schools, letters to potential sponsors (while visiting many of them in person), and pitching said ideas to our principal and the teacher-in-charge. Going through all these hurdles, I really felt that I was getting better at managing my time, planning ahead, and even talking to people in order to get things done. I’m sure these skills will be of the utmost importance in the long run in tough situations that require a diplomatic approach.

Even though handling such a big responsibility was a potential nightmare, I felt that I rose to the challenge and by giving me this opportunity the school was helping me grow into a more responsible person who could actually deal with the obstacles that I will have to face down the road. I honestly do not think I was as responsible as I am today before Spectra took place. Being held responsible for the prestige of our school as well as having to uphold our own standard in organising something that was bigger and better than anything the school and indeed, the city had seen before, but at the end I was just happy to be able to provide a stage for all the students that took part as they were able to display their special abilities in front of our judges and the audience.

CAS Journal Entry No.4: Anti-Bullying Session

          As part of our CAS program, we conducted an anti-bullying session for the fifth graders in our school. Each of us made a presentation about one of the following topics of bullying, bad language, and stealing. For eighty minutes, our class presented the topics to the junior class in an engaging manner. Going into the presentation, I did not expect it to turn out so well. Having stage fright, I was very nervous about talking in front of a crowd and it took me  a good deal of preparation to be a little sure of myself. The other problem which we faced before presenting these issues was how to connect with the audience.

As senior students, there is a certain distance which most students of the junior school maintain in our school. Our first task was to break this unseen barrier and the approach we took to deal this problem was to include child-friendly cartoons and animations in the slides. We also used a bright color pattern of blue and yellow, to help catch their attention. Although we were well prepared for the presentation, the nervousness when they came into the room was a different experience. While we were presenting out topics, the juniors asked a lot of questions about various situations and what to do if they happened. While most of the situations seemed possible and we tried to answer as best as we could, after a while it got a bit out of hand and we had to quiet them down.

            After the presentation, we sat down and talked about what had just happened and we all agreed that it was a refreshing experience because we had, for most of our student lives, been spectators who were content to simply sit back and absorb everything that was being thrown at us. For the first time, we were actually participating in creating and teaching children. Given a chance I would like to repeat such an experience, and I definitely think that these types of opportunities are a learning activity that will enrich us far more than a simple session of a much more mundane session. A learning opportunity is unmatched in terms of enlightenment, and now I understand why teachers are so happy with their jobs.

CAS Journal Entry No. 3: No-Plastic Zone

To make our school campus a no-plastic zone, as part of our CAS activities, we decided to make recyclable paper bags that we could distribute to the students of our school and help them to stop using plastic bags. When we first started with our project, we never anticipated that we would end up making as many bags as we ended up making. The paper bags were to be inaugurated during the school book fair, to replace the plastic ones that are usually handed out. Using newspapers to make the bags and with the help of the art department, we headed down to the AV room with a couple of bottles of glue and a lot of optimism.

              

  I had never been greatly involved in art before joining the IB diploma programme (except for a small stint in second grade but I don’t count that). What I found out was that I should have spent more time colouring, and less time watching TV. A refreshing eighty minutes later, we walked out much more active than we went in (our CAS hours are on Friday afternoons, so you can’t really blame us for our lethargy). The process of creation always lifts up anyone’s mood, and it was no different that day. It was a good team-building activity because we found ourselves co-ordinating with each other to get that piece of newspaper, or that glue bottle, or to put that bag here or there and with help from our CAS co-ordinator to keep us on track, we actually didn’t get out of topic for once.

                

In all the experience was a great example of a creative session. I hope we get to do more activities like that in the future. There is really a lot to explore in the creativity component of our CAS activities, and I think in the future I would be very interested in doing more such activities.