Rebecca's CAS blog: April 2013

Thursday, 25 April 2013

Supervisor Forms

Increased awareness of my own strengths: Service and Creativity (Student Council)

I have had a very busy year so far with student council. I began 2013 forwarding one of my election goals, putting more emphasis on the house system. After a series of meetings with both Ms. Butterworth and Mr. Findlay we put out a campaign to find independent, dedicated and professional members of the student body to run for the position, head of house. This we decided was the quickest way of getting more done with the house system. With students in charge we hope change will soon be on its way for the house system. We went through a 2-step process to find the best candidates for head of house. Interested parties first had to write an essay on why they believe they should be a House Captain, what leadership attributes they believe they have and what changes they would like to see. Secondly we went through a interview with each candidate to follow up. It was a very time consuming and stressful process. Trying to organise for everyone to be at the right meeting, at the right location and the right time took many emails and many more personal reminders. However in the end we choose 4 people for the positions and so far I am exceedingly pleased with the choice.

The next step I decided we needed to take after appointing people to the roles was to introduce them to the student body. I think when through a long process of trying to put on an assembly. Eventually I found a date and a time that worked. It was a very successful assembly I believe. The sports leaders made a good impression, my speech was clear and loud and we even managed to fit in some student musical performances, which was very nice.

Although student council has been going well it has been a very time consuming job. The next task I got onto was organizing two dances for the middle school. Firstly a spring fling for the 6^th and 7^th grades and then a disco for the 8^th grade.

At our weekly meeting we picked a date and got organizing however some of the grade representative got mixed up with some of the dates and we ended up having to chance the first arranged date due to lack of preparations.

It was second time lucky I believe. Much smoother and much more efficiently I spent a lot of time preparing, emailing and discussing the dance. Luckily with much effort both went to plan, the spring fling taking place on the 12^th of April and the disco on the following Friday the 19^th of April.

My final challenge of Student council precedency took place today when I gave my farewell speech to the student body:

It seems like a long time ago since I was up here last year asking you along with Alex for your votes. I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to represent all of you this past year. Because of course without you voting I wouldn’t be standing up here. I speak on the behalf of both Alex and I when I say it has been an honour to represent the student body throughout our presidency.

This time last year I must admit I felt wary of the task ahead of me hoping I could fulfil everything Alex and I promised to you. Over the course of the year I am pleased to say we got many more of you involved in the student council through the events, sports and tech committees. We proposed a formal budget be put in place for the student council and with much help from our treasurer Diederik we have been granted exactly that.

Alex and I have tried to put more emphasis on the house system. Although this process has been slower than we hoped we believe we have secured you a future with more focus on the house system by interviewing and choosing grade 11 students for the head of house positions.

I would like to thank both Sarah our secretary and Diederik our treasurer as well as our student council grade representatives for their help over the past year especially in organizing the many dances we put on.

Something I have learnt from the student council is that it is just as important to have dedicated grade representatives, as it is to have a dedicated executive committee.

Many of you sitting in front on me now may not see the importance of the student council, you may not see our work and what we achieve, much of it is happens in lunchtime meetings, lengthy emails and executive discussions. I am highly subjective of course but I believe there is a great importance to the student council. Our elections at ICS are truly democratic. Being part of the student council teaches life skills such as public speaking, organization, leadership and teamwork. I hope as you listen to the speeches today you take into consideration the importance of the student council and it’s role at ICS.

Finally I would like to thank you the student body as well as Ms. Butterworth, Ms. Cambell, Mr Findlay, Mr Mcharg and all the many other teachers who have helped us achieve what we have during our presidency.

Engaged with issues of global importance: Creativity and Service (Amnesty International)

I have been actively attending the amnesty international English speaking local issues group in Zurich. With this group I have been lucky enough to attend seminars on a wide variety of international human rights abuses. One that particularly struck a chord with me was on the last dictatorship in Europe, Belarus.

I had never realised the full extent of horrifying human rights violations that happen there on a daily basis. The presenter of the seminar was an expert on Belarus who has been to the country 3 times at the risk of jail. Since leaving the troubled nation the human right activist has been banned from ever re-entering.

On top of these seminars I also had the opportunity to participate in a flash mob that took place in Paradeplatz to raise awareness for the war atrocities happening in Syria at the moment. Initially I felt quite embarrassed at having to dance out in the open but I was convince I should do it because of the cause I was supporting. Day after day hundreds are being killed in Syria, the news rarely reports these killings and people are forgetting. This event was done to put the conflict back in people's minds.

Before each meeting I write a letter to send to a political prisoner being held against his/ her will without fair and just trial. Then at the meeting we exchange letters and sign them before sending them off. This is part of Amnesty internationals Write for Rights campaign.

Below is an example of one letter:

Shown perseverance and commitment with activities: Action (Completing 10km Zurich City Run)

Over the Holidays and throughout the term I have become more and more dedicated to running. During the ski break I ran my very first full 10 km. I found it more mentally tough than physically. In the beginning I felt comfortable but after a while, kilometre after kilometre I began to doubt I could continue. However I persevered and finished in a respectable 1hr and 10 mins.

I continued with twice weekly runs of around 7km over varying terrain. I tried muddy cross country trails as well as steep hill climbs and have been progressing quickly.

On top of these runs I have also been doing weekly 10km runs after school with Melanie. Our time ranged around 1hr 15mins over a varied route.

The race was rapidly approaching, on the day I felt rather nervous, of course I wasn’t used to racing only to plodding along at my own chosen pace changing course, as I liked. The atmosphere was very foreign. I had to wake up at 5 am to get into town and pick up my runner’s t-shirt as well as my gift bag and running number. Attached to each runner’s number is a radio controlled device that is activated as you cross the starting line and again at the finish line to record your time. Ms. Myanger, Melanie and I lined up and were soon on our way along the picturesque city run course.

Below is a map of the course.

http://www.10kmcityrun.ch/xp_wysiwyg_media/Plane/zh_10km-cityrun.jpg

I found the run challenging but tried to distract myself from any doubting thoughts by playing loud music through my iPod and watching the cheering crowds and scenery. It was a freezing day but at least it was clear with no rain. What frustrated me slightly as I was running the course was the lack of signposts and I was completely shocked when I reached 8kn as I thought I had only gone 5kms.

As I approached what I took for the finish line, relief washed over me and I sprinted with the last of my energy. That was until I realised the finish line was 100m in front and I had to continue. I finished exhausted in an unbelievable 59 minutes around 15 minutes shorter than I had ever run 10km before.

I am very proud of my achievement as I am not a particularly sporty person and so running with such dedication took a lot of effort. I also suffer from breathing problems that have become progressively better since running regularly. Since I have now met one of my CAS goals I know would like to think up a new running challenge for myself.

Considered the ethical implications of my actions: Service and Creativity (Health Issues Committee)

International Women’s day (March 8th) was my second awareness campaign as part of the Health Issues Committee. We approached the project with much the same method as our breast cancer campaign.

First we began to research and gather material on the subject. Then we started a poster advertising campaign to get people excited for the day. We put together a presentation to give to tutor groups, I volunteered to present along with some other girls to the 8^th grade tutorial class, which was an interesting experience. At first we found it quite difficult to get the groups attention as they had just come in to school and were rather rowdy. However after a while we got their attention and gave a strong presentation about the importance of the day. Below are a couple of photo’s of the presentation.

Another part of the campaign was a flash mob we organized. A group put together a dance routine and then over a session of lunch times taught it to the committee. We planned it very well and on International Women’s day we performed the flash mob to a startled crowd in the DSC.

We also put on a very successful bake sale to raise funds for the cause. All in all it was a very interesting and effective campaign to bring to light the importance of International Women's Day.

Engaged with issues of global importance: Service and Creativity (Student League of Nations)

Finding out the countries ICS was given to represent at Student League of Nation was very exciting as my partner Melanie and I had both done extensive research on Saudi Arabia for previous school projects so for us it was a natural choice. We began our research, which was very interesting but also often quite difficult and at times confusing. Saudi Arabia is a state often under great scrutiny and criticism for terrible human rights violations and so it was very important to find positive things about Saudi Arabia in an attempt to find some ammunition against the likely attacks on Saudi Arabia from our fellow delegates. It was difficult at times to argue Saudi Arabia’s controversial stance, being a woman I found it particularly difficult to find solid support for Saudi Arabia’s blatantly discriminatory society and laws. A lot of my research comprised of interviews found online with Saudi Arabian business men and diplomats when questioned on their country to see what answers they game for their country’s often atypical views. Analyzing Saudi Arabia’s foreign relationships was also key to the conference as it turns out. Saudi Arabia has a tangled relationship with many western and neighboring states, what particularly interested me was the Saudi’s relationship with America and also with Israel, as this often plays a deciding vote in a states foreign policy choices. I wrote two speeches for Saudi Arabia one was condemning surrogacy and pushing a worldwide ban on it put forward by the Holy See and the other on supporting Security Council reforms put forward by Brazil.

On the first day of the conference it was fascinating to be in the actual UN building in Geneva. When you walked the hall with real UN workers it was intriguing to think about what they had been doing that day. This particular day neither Melanie nor I had any resolutions we had prepared speeches on but we kept our ears sharp in case Saudi Arabia was mentioned and we had a “right to respond”. The chairman and the whole set up of the conference was particularly serious, maybe it was the setting but everyone did things very properly, correctly address the chairman and the delegates, not saying I and trying not to offend any countries. Although we didn’t talk that day we spent most of the day agreeing to Arab alliances and generally trying to make sure we were signing friend agreements not foe ones.

The second day was definitely the more interesting day for me, within the first couple of speeches on the Brazil Security Council reform resolution, Saudi Arabia was mentioned and I jumped on the chance to get a word in. Without thinking I raised my placard, and in a slightly nervous voice thanked Qatar for putting forward the suggestion of Saudi Arabia as a regional veto power holder for the middle east and mentioned a couple of key reasons why Saudi Arabia would be a good choice. After that via the messengers offers for Alliances came swarming in. We formed Arab coalitions, multi lateral agreements and even abstention pacts to try and ensure Saudi Arabia or one of her Arab brothers could have a veto power. In the end we were unsuccessful as we found out someone had sabotaged our alliance by not giving the agreement paper to the chairman. In the end Saudi Arabia participated in the abstention pact put forward by Bahrain. The last but most exciting moment of the day was when I came to speak on Surrogacy. To say I was nervous was an understatement, my speech had a religious angle and I was sure I would get a couple of questions fired back at me. Little did I know what would happen. The speech went well I stumbled over a couple of words but the general speech was good, I took my fingers of the microphone and relaxed. Then the questions came bombarding in from all over the place.. States were demanding I explain my use of the word God, why I thought religion had a place in the debate… and they kept coming. I must have answered over 20 questions. Each time monotonously I had to address the chairman, the delegates and refer to myself as Saudi Arabia and the trickiest part, answer each questions with a dignified and concrete response. Delegates were starting to laugh in shock at the amount of questions the chairman was letting me receive, the questions kept coming and somehow I kept answering. I was amazed at my answers and as soon as they came out of my mouth I forgot them instantly. After what seemed like forever the chairman decided to close the floor to questions and I was flooded again with messages telling me their country agreed or their country disagreed, or just to tell me I spoke well. And then like always the Arab coalitions started to come round. The same day we also were lucky enough to go on a tour of the building. What a place, amazing paintings, marble hallways and wooden conference suites. If a place has and will change the world, the United Nations building in Geneva definitely has a chance.

Below are pictures of the trip and a picture of my infamous surrogacy speech:

Planned and initiated activities: Action, Creativity and Service (Sports Leaders)

Sports leaders is a PE option where you can learn leadership techniques, planning and organizing sports classes. Although I taught two lessons during the first semester my biggest test came this semester when I was asked to teach not one but two primary classes. We were then put into pairs to teach together however I was asked to go by myself as my timetable didn’t match my partners.

This scared me quite a lot, I was nervous not only about planning the class but having to organize and teach a whole class by myself for the first time was a terrifying prospect!

Below is my lesson plan for the classes. It took me lots of time to find games appropriate for the year group, which was 3^rd grade as often I would find games too easy and bound to lose the classes interest or too difficult with overcomplicated rules.

My first lesson was interesting. I felt I dealt with the unforeseen circumstances such as the students coming 10 minutes late and having to alter my lesson plan well. I felt slightly thrown in the deep end at the beginning but I also was please with how I managed to encourage the students to give feed back during the session. I asked the kids if they thought the game was fair, if they could think of other rules to make the games fairer and how they liked each game. I felt my games were relatively easy to explain and the students enjoyed them.

If I were to take the class again I would come up with more back up plan games so in case of more time discrepancies in my original lesson plan. I also would have found an easier way to split the students into two groups and hand out bibs as it was rather time consuming and difficult. I also would have liked to take a whistle as my voice got rather strained by the end of the session. I found that at times in the gym the student’s voices would get rather loud and it was difficult to maintain their attention.

For the next session I think I need to work on the new timing of my lesson plan bearing in mind the 10-15 minute loss of time due to lateness of the students. I also need to work on finding better ways to more efficiently divide the class and deal out bibs. I also need to remember to be confident and loud when addressing the students.

I found it difficult to control the students when they came in and so I developed my go to phase “fingers on your lips please” and then mimed to try and regain their attention. I also found it difficult when problems arose during the game as I couldn’t be in to places at once.

After the first lesson I thought carefully and put together the lesson plan below.

I applied my lesson plan well as I now knew I would have around 15 minutes less than 45 minutes due to the students coming in late and needing to get changed for their next class. I remember some of the children’s names and was able to call out student’s names to help setting up and cleaning up. I also improved from the last lesson and deal teams and bibs more efficiently.

At times I don’t think I praised the students enough and so sometimes I defiantly could have given more praise. If I were to change the lesson I would also have tried to relax more as I should have felt more comfortable especially the second time round teaching but I still found myself looking a the clock a lot.

I think for the next lesson again I need to make sure I have more back up games and even though I didn’t need one this time it might help me feel more calm. I also need to remember to bring a whistle as sometimes I was straining my voice.

I still found it quite difficult to let the keep the flow of the lesson natural. Often I was timing too much, trying to make sure I filled the time completely. Although I did feel more comfortable then last lesson, I think I still have far to go until I feel completely at ease teaching.

Developed new skills: Action (Knaben Scheissen)

Quite early on this term, around August I was sent an email by my local shooting group I attend during the summer inviting me to attend the Zuricher Knabenschiessen. A shooting tournament which takes place annually. I was very excited to participate as I have been a keen shooter since a chance encounter in 7th grade at a rifle range showed I had some beginners luck. I was also nervous as I would have to speak in German and learn to use a new gun which had a lot more power than I am used to.

I signed up and below is the email I received from the organizers:

On the day I was rather nervous but the event turned out very well with me getting 19 points which is pretty good for a first timer with Swiss army issue machine guns. My suspicions were confirmed and indeed I had to speak german the entire time, which was quite a challenge.

Here is a picture of my prize:

All in all I am glad I attended and had a thoroughly enjoyable experience, I hope to attend again next year.

Undertaken new challenges: Creativity (Learning the Guitar)

I am not a very musically proficient person unforutnatley. Althought I love music I am not the most musically inclined.Since the age of 7 I have tried various instruments with various success.

Although my previous knowledge of learning to play the piano, flute and the Cello has given me a base to work with. The biggest difficulty I have encountered is fitting in the time to practice. I think this lack of practice time has been the main factor in hindering my learning. I try to practice at least 3 times a week but often this simply slips my mind. I hope that with more practice I will get better. Practice would help not only remembering finger positions and strum patterns but also make practicing less painful. Learning guitar means you develop sores on your fingers from the wires and it isn't until you develop long term callouses that the guitar becomes less painful.

I have a teacher, Thomas who I try to see every Thursday after school to try and touch base as to where I am. I think now I’ve had around 6 lessons. I can now play a couple of chords and am attempting transition from various finger positions. I aim to be able to play at least the intro to a song by December 31^st.

I have been trying tabs like the one in the picture below with my guitar.

Shown perseverance and commitment with activities: Action (Training for 10km Zurich City Run)

At the beginning of the year a typical run for me would be around 5 km, now however with more and more practise I have managed to push it up to 7km. I train about 3 times a week, twice by myself after school and once one friday afternoons with Melanie and Ms.Myanger.

I must admit at times i have struggled to find the energy to go for a run after school however I have showed much perservence and committment by sticking with my thrice weekly training sessions. What has really helped me is encouragement from my running partners Melanie and Ms. Myanger and having the 10 km goal. Often I find if you don't have a specific target it can be difficult to stick with the activity.

Therefore I think training for the 10km has been pretty successful so far, I have always enjoyed running so I think that helps a fair bit. My Friday workout is definatley my favourite. It usually consists of some warming up, cardio and then strength training. It definitely helps to train with a group as this helps keep me motivated especially as it often is the last thing I want to do on a Friday afternoon after a long week. Ms.Myanger is a great trainer and I am so glad she can make the time to join us as she’s such a help.

Hopefully after this October break I can fit in more time for my running. In the up coming weeks I am going to try to focus on my breathing as this is the key problem for me when running distances.

Here are some photos we took during our Friday workout:

Worked collaboratively with others: Service and Creativity (Student Council)

Student council has had much success since the beginning of the year. It has been rather an exhaustive job every week as co-president I probably have around 3 or 4 lunch time meetings. However it has been rewarding having been able to finally secure a budget for the student council!!! It will be of around 2,000chf for the student council, which I have been pushing since my time as Student council treasurer in 10^th grade.

This has been a major milestone as student council has never openly managed to secure a budget and I hope to start a tradition of budget transparency with the student body as the year goes on. We have also managed to set up and run Events, Sports and Tech committees of which students can join to help develop different areas of their own personal interest. I am very proud of the participation levels and look forward to seeing them maintain momentum throughout the school year.

After a difficult start to the year trying to hurry on the elections of each grade for their representatives we had our first full attendence meeting the week before break which was quite successful. I hope that throughout the year our representatives attend weekly.

I brought in the events committee to help me plan a halloween party for the 6th and 7th grade. It was particularly difficult to put on due to the fact there was also another event on for the primary school and so we had to split decorations. This was quite a headache for me as I wound up doing a lot of the preperation by myself. I have found since becoming president that I have a difficulty with delegating tasks, tending to take on the brunt of the work myself. I hope to improve on delegating throughout the rest of my presidency.

Below are pictures of the budget report and the halloween dance for grades 6 and 7.

I had hoped that we would also be able to put on another Halloween event for the upper school however due to lack of interest in many of the ideas aired we couldn't get the project off the ground. Hopefully in the coming year we will be able to put on more dances as the 6th and 7th grade dance was such a success. Clean up took ages and I ended up being at school until 11pm but I am really pleased with the result of the dance. Hours of planning and worrying had paid off.

Considered the ethical implications of my actions: Service and Creativity (Health Issues Committee)

Health Issues committee began soon after the year started, we usually have one meeting per week to plan fundraising ideas and awareness days. We decided our first health issue to raise awareness and money for was breast cancer. This topic is particularly close to the health committee as our teach supervisor Ms David is a breast cancer survivor.

We started off by researching key statistics, information about the disease, who it tends to affect, treatment and survival rates. I think is is fair to say the group was shocked by the statistics. We really threw ourselfs into the campaign, so far we have successfully publicized and put on two awareness days where we encouraged students to wear pink to show support for the cause.

Another method we have employed in our effort to raise awareness was by giving informative presentations on the issue. We have had representatives from the heath committee visit every tutorial session in the school to raise the diseases profile. I presented to the 6^th grade during their tutorial session which was a interesting task and I had to keep in mind their age and how information might effect them. I had to consider what information would be ethically right to give them and what I should censor.

Our third awareness technique was to put on two bakesales to raise funds for the cause. I volentteered to plan the bakesales which was quite a large task to coordinate but ended up very sucessful in total raising 680chf.

Below is a couple of slides from the presentation we used for the 6th grade.

Engaged with issues of global importance: Service with lots of Creativity (Amnesty International)

Engaged with issues of global importance: Service with lots of Creativity

October 2012

I have been actively participating in the Zurich Amnesty International English issues group we meet once or twice a month in Zurich on a Tuesday evening to discuss recent Human Rights violations, plan events and write, sign and send off letters. This takes place in the Zurich regional Amnesty headquarters. It’s a very interesting group and I am very glad to be involved in it after running ICS’s Human Rights Club last year.

The other members are professional men and women who all live in Zürich with a range of jobs including biologists and IT specialists. At first I was worried about participating in discussions because I didn't want to say the wrong thing. I also felt rather out of place as all the participants were significantly older than me. Because the meetings take place in the heart of Zurich often quite late in the evening it has been challenging to fit it in with homework and other commitments but so far I have managed to attend every meeting.

Recently as part of the issues group I helped plan an event for Amnesty International in Zurich to mark the International Day Against the Death Penalty. This event took us quite a few weeks to plan, as we were to coordinate the event with other Amnesty groups in Zurich. It was also important to consider the ethical implications of each element of the day, at first we found it difficult to find a unique selling point of the event without making it comical. Originally we wanted to put on some kind of guessing game involving current death row convicts but we felt it was insensitive to make a game out of the difficult and taboo subject of capital punishment.

Eventually we decided on a game we felt confident was not insensitive but instead provocative and eye opening. I volunteered along with my friend Melanie to bake 100 cupcakes to draw in punters and provide advertising for the event, because nothing is more appealing than free cupcakes. However the week before the event was jam-packed with assessments and tests. So it took a mammoth baking session spanning 5 hours of the Friday night before the event to bake the 100 cupcakes let them cool and ice them. It was quite a feat. The next morning we had the even trickier task of transporting the cupcakes. Luckily with help from our parents we managed to get all the cupcakes down to the Neiderdorf in one piece.

I am pleased to say the event was a huge success, everyone who came to the stand had many questions and I dare say each person learn't something new that day. Lots of people signed up to donate to the Amnesty International and some even expressed interest in joining the local issues group. It was challenging not only to answer questions about the death penalty and its ethical complications but also to fulfill the promise of baking 100 cupcakes. I felt very proud of both Melanie and myself for what we accomplished that day.

Below are some photos of the baking processes and the event. Baking photos are my own however event photos have been taken from the amnesty local group website.