Teaching Volleyball (G5&6)

I have now finished this CAS project involving both "Action and Service".

This experience has shown me some of my strengths (e.g. being able to deal with kids) and weaknesses (e.g. not being able to make everyone pay attention). In spite of this after two months of this experience I have learnt how to deal with them, and if that still was a problem my weaknesses where balanced by the strengths of the other two "teachers" (other G12 students) there with me.

I am very pleased with the final result of this activity because it something I have planned myself from beginning to end. Before even starting this activity I had to make sure I would have had the means to carry it out: a plan, helpers, and a gym. Therefore I have started to send email so some friends I knew would have been interested and I waited for their feedbacks. I found two skilled helpers from my grade, both were in the volleyball team so they knew what was going on during the lessons. Furthermore they could have given good examples to the kids. 
Secondly I started to send emails to Ms Osborne to ask for the permission of running the activity and of using the school gym during Friday's afternoons. After receiving a positive unswear I emailed the parents of the kids giving an overview of the activity and then I waited for the inscriptions. 

This was a good experience for good communication and cooperation. The kids were so many therefore a good organization between us "teachers" was essential to keep calm and order in the gym. Secondly it was essential that I made myself clear to the other two teachers as they were following my lesson plan. I planned some exercises to do with the kids but it was also good that I had some inputs from them as well. It has been a good cooperation experience as everyone came up with different ideas an option on what to do, how, and when. 

Another important think I have learnt is that whatever I did in the gym had an implication on the behavior of the kids, this is why it was essential that I did not fool around and that I kept focused on the lesson. Otherwise it would have been impossible to carry out a normal lesson. Us teachers always had to give a good example to the kids. 

I know for sure that this experience has been fundamental for me as I have developed my leader and patience skills. As mentioned before firm decisions where essential and we did not have to show indecision when making choices. While being strict it was also important to be flexible and listen to what the kids wanted to do, if not they would have hated to come to our class. We dealt with this really well as the kids very much enjoyed the trainings. 


Here I have come to know how hard it is to deal with a class of G5&6. Last year I had a similar experience but I was not in charge of it. I simply was a helper. This year I was the leader and the organizer of activities. It was a great experience for me to enlarge the set of experiences I have for now collected. Furthermore I think that even if after just two months the kids show a great improvement in what they can now do in volleyball. I believe that our enthusiasm in teaching has influenced the kids as well so that they started to improve incredibly fast.

PADI - Scuba Diving

On the 19.06.13 I obtained my scuba diving license. After four days of intensive course including theory and practice I succeeded to obtain my certification. It has been a great experience that I got to share with my friends and classmates as this was part of the school field trip. I have been very happy and proud of this because this has been a field trip that gave the chance to come home with something that I will be able to use again in the future and also it allowed me to improve my sports abilities. Not only I have learnt a new sport, but I have also learnt to better know my body and how it works in different condition (staying underwater for a long time, different pressures, new ways of breathing etc...). Furthermore I had the chance to improve my snorkeling techniques and knowledge. Now I will definitely be a more aware swimmer and diver.

This was a great new challenge for me as staying underwater for so long with an air tank was something I had never tried before and was really mind-blowing for me. Before this week I never though I could have done something similar.

Communication underwater was essential because we always had to have a buddy on who to count on while under the sea surface. Without good communication we might as well been completely lost (my buddy and I in the picture above).

This is also why every single action done underwater had to be pondered and thought before hand as to would have had a great implication on the other members. It was a matter of ethic and thoughts altogether.

The Dare Race

Our Team:

THE FAT L (Fryer And The Ladies) 

On Saturday 8.06.13 my team and I completed the dare race. It has been an amazing experience as we had to train very much to be able to face this 30km long run. A good training was necessary as we had to plan it in such a way that every member would have been completely ready for the day of the run. It was time consuming but we had a good training plan that aimed to develop all our skills and our muscles resistance. That involved every part of our body. The challenge was not only physically demanding but also mentally as we all had to solve different riddles to succeed the race but we also had to keep our mind set for the entire time; no matter how tired. This race highly improved out team work skills as we would have not managed to finish it on our own. It was a good way to keep the motivation up, we cheered for each other and when someone could not do something, some of the others could and vice versa. Teamwork really owned the situation the entire time.

Not only was the race fun to run, but also the build up before it. With and without the entire team we met up during the month and a half before it to train our muscles by running for a few hours around 10km each time. I remember the first time being very hard and too demanding for me, then things became easier with the training. It was nice to see how the group could motivate you even during the practices. The teamwork that I saw was not only related to our group but also with the other teams that were running against us. Many times we trained together and shared ideas and tips, furthermore during the actual race when meeting other teams we helped each other out no matter which school they came from. Another very good outcome of this experience is was to realize what my strengths and weaknesses where. For example I was able to solve the maths riddles and some of the logical challenges we had to do but I had to "back off" when the riddles where language related as I know I do not have a good enough affinity with the language that could enable me to solve "words-riddles". This experience definitely gave me a lot and it is something that I would strongly recommend to anybody, whatever physical level you think you are.

Art Workshop in Kindergarten

It has been a great experience to organize the activity week for the kindergarten students. This activity was carried out for 8 hours but the planning ahead includes much more time. I was working with my friend Lena and in the few weeks before this event we were committed to organize meetings where we wold have planned our lessons. This resulted to be one of the most fundamental steps to reach the success our activity. Organization and communication between us two have been essential for us to be able to organize a well structured lesson. Especially in order not to bore the kids.

Collaboration was very important, it was easy to work with my friend because we knew each other already. Instead it was more challenging to work with the kindergarten teacher as we had to lead the lesson but at the same time make sure that they knew what was going on at everything instant. It was hard, but with some organization we managed to keep up with this challenge as well.

Many where the challenged we faced. For both of us it was the first time teaching a class and we did not really know how to act. It took us one lesson to adjust to our mistakes and learn from them. By the time we concluded the activity we definitely came out as more aware of how to teach a class of kindergarteners. It has been a very educative experience not only for the kids but for us two as well. 

In conclusion I have to admit that I learnt the difficulties of organizing a lesson, working cooperatively with other and planning ahead. The skills that I learnt in school to do so definitely helped me, but this experience pushed me to expand these skills, improve them and some of them: apply skills for the first time. 


We decided to base our lesson on the tale of the "Hungry Caterpillar". All the activities aimed to go through the life phases of a caterpillar: caterpillar, to cocoon, to butterfly. All these phases have been recreated through painting using all that was available. In the end all the art pieces have been hanged in the hallway for all the kids to admire their work.

CAS Papers

 Badminton Paper

 Sound of Music Paper

 10km City Run









For piano lesson I still do not have any paper signed as I did not have a chance to meet my teacher in about two weeks due to swiss holidays.
My activity of teaching volleyball just started two weeks ago and Ms Osborne told me to wait until the end of the activity to get my paper signed
For my swimming I will start to take videos to record any improvement in my endurance or swim speed.

Refereeing at Farlifang

The middle school volleyball tournament took place on saturday the 27.04.13 in Farlifang. I was there to referee from 7.45 am to 15.00 pm. It has been another new experience for me as I never had the chance to referee a official game. I did it a few times with my friends but those were all very informal events where we were all playing just for fun. This time I was there as the official referee to whom everyone had to listen to. It has been a great experience because even if it can be considered as something really easy and basic it taught me a lot of things. For examples: teamwork and how to manage relationship with other people. First of all the group of helpers was not very big to communication and team work was definitely necessary; we had to communicate in the best way so that in an hour time we would have been able to have all the three courts ready to be used, ready to welcome the schools' teams, and especially we had to be done with our refereeing lesson. In fact Mr Matthews had to teach us the basics of refereeing as many of us did not know all the rules. For me it has been rather easy to remember all the special gesture for each thing that happened in the field, but i have to admit that if at the beginning it all seemed very easy, during the match everything turned out to be harder. This is because the tension raised, you knew that everyone was looking at you and that if you got something wrong people would have come to you and make you notice, and not always in the kindest way. This is where the "learning of how to deal with other people" comes in. Many of the coaches of the hosted teams were really nice and understood that it was our first time refereeing, many other ones did not even accept some little mistakes from our side and came to complain at us. Sometimes being a bit rude as well. It has been a good exercise to maintain our temper, patience, and always be polite even if we knew we were right and the other person was not. Nevertheless we were the referees and we almost had the absolute power on the game. It was therefore important to be ethically correct while judging the events on court and whoever gained the points without begin biased.  I loved this experience also because I got to meet new students from the school, I got to play some volleyball with my friends, and I started to organize my time better (e.g. lunch shifts, switching with score keepers, and cheering for our ICS team).

CAS Evaluation (04/13)

Creativity:

1. Attending piano lessons (50min) every Monday after school in the Music Schule in Zurich.
2. Guitar lessons in the school every tuesday afternoon after lunch.

• This experience helped me a lot to improve many areas related to my personal growth: increasing awareness of my personal strengths, persevere on my passions and commit in the activity I signed up for, and in the end I developed new skills. Increasing awareness of my personal strengths and learning new skills was shown when the teacher gave new scores to play that increased of difficulty every time. I have been posting on my blog almost all of them. Showing perseverance and commitment in practicing a little bit almost everyday and keep on trying even if I was struggling. I have to get over every single piece I start! All of this reflects in the same way on my guitar lessons.

Action:

1. Training for the 10km run in Zurich going running every friday after school from the beginning of may to the day of the run.
2. Swimming in the Zumikon pool every Saturday morning with a few classmates.
   

• The 10km run made me take new challenges. Especially because I felt the necessity of a good training and the regular commitment to achieve my goal. I really like sports but running is one I do not very much enjoy, but I decided that the Zurich run would have been an interesting challenge to face. It turned out to be a important experience because I improved my weekly sport activity (good for health) and I had to show first to myself that I was committed and I was willing to persevere in what I wasted to do (valid for swimming as well). Training also allowed me to know myself better and find out till where I can push myself (valid for swimming as well). I also started to better know the territory I Iive in, as I have tried to exercise over a variety of different paths while training. In fact I have tried to change them as much as I could every time.

Service:

1. Playing at the sound of music, helping setting up the room for the performance and cleaning up everything at the end of the show (stage, chairs, decorations, instruments etc).
2. Starting next week: teaching volleyball to G4 and G5

• Undertaking this activity (SOM) pushed me to face new challenges and work collaboratively with a group of people (see reflection "End of SOM"). At the same time showing perseverance and commitment has been really important as the time spent to practice, organize, and get every detail of the show ready for the audience took a lot of time. 
• Teaching volleyball still has to start in a week time and for the moment I can only give some ideas of what I hope to achieve doing this project. Mainly I hope this challenge will help me to improve my group working skills. Improving collaboration, communication with the team and planning beforehand will be necessary to teach our student in the best possible way. This activity will force me to undertake new challenges as this year I am one of the organizer of every lesson. I did this experience last year as well but that time I was under the guidance of 12th grader so I was following her instruction while teaching the kids. I am very convinced this experience will  increase the awareness of my own strengths and weakness so that it will be easier to know where I have to improve.