Hitting the CAS Criteria

This post has the purpose of summarizing how I have met each of the 8 criteria.

Taken from an official document:

As a result of their CAS experience as a whole, including their reflections, there should be evidence that students have:

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

During my IB CAS programme, I have done this intensively. Through my action I have become more aware of my physical strengths and weaknesses and worked on improving this. Pilates helped me keep a healthy body, while football served for mental balance between academics and outside-of-school life. Through my intense study of guitar and bass I have realized that if I put enough effort into something, I learn very quickly, given that I enjoy what I am doing. I have grown as a musician. My involvement with DAWG has helped me become aware of what responsibilities I have as a leader outside of the classroom, as well as the fact that I needed to grow in terms of improving my leadership skills.

• undertaken new challenges

The new challenges I undertook during my IB CAS programme include: Pilates, coaching the girls' football team as well as teaching local children about football, playing guitar, engaging with physically and mentally challenged children and being in an active leadership position for DAWG. My biggest challenge over the course of this time was learning how to write my own songs, which I have don on GuitarPro.

• planned and initiated activities

I have been involved in planning school events, such as one of the SGA discos last year, where I was one of the DJs, the DAWG sterilization as well as the trip to the Mama Papa orphanage down south. I was the one who initiated the trip to that orphanage, and will be the one to initiate a continuation of this throughout the next few years.

• worked collaboratively with others

I have worked collaboratively with others in football training, being in a band and especially in DAWG. Specifically the football training included both my own participation (action) as well as planning training methods (creativity) and the actual teaching of football (service), thereby making it my most connective activity throughout my IB course.

• shown perseverance and commitment in their activities

I have always attended regularly in all of my activities, even the ones that I pursue on my own, such as writing poetry, music and short stories as well as playing instruments. I have shown commitment to all of my activities not only by attendance, but also by carrying them on through the years, such as DAWG or training the girls' football team.

• engaged with issues of global importance

The issues of global importance that I dealt with mainly focus around the presence of dogs without owners within communities. The dangers that they are associated with (e.g. spreading of rabies or other illnesses to other animals or even humans) are some of the things that we aimed to work on during this project. Sterilizing and vaccinating dogs for no charge has enabled to us to decrease the number of street dogs around the school area, as well as making sure that some of the serious diseases are contained to a certain extent.

• considered the ethical implications of their actions

The ethical implications that I have dealt with in my actions are very broad. Teaching football to Sri Lankan children especially faced me with having to choose ethically correct training methods that would both discipline the children and let them have fun while learning how to play the sport. I often asked myself how ethical it is to take street dogs and sterilize them against their will, but at the end of the day we humans are selfish beings, and sterilizing those dogs serves our own comfort. Relationship-wise, I think that I have maintained professional relationships with all of the participants involved, from teachers to younger students. I have not heard any complaints about my leadership styles, therefore I can say this with confidence.

• developed new skills

The new skills I developed are easily listed.
I have learned...
- different exercises in pilates
- how to conduct football training with both males and females
- how to write poetry
- how to write short stories
- how to write music on GuitarPro
- how to maintain a good working atmosphere within groups
- how to lead people of different ages
- how to deal with setbacks in terms of expectations and outcomes
- how to organize events, from discos to training sessions to sterilizations
- how to communicate efficiently with others
- how to be more aware of my own actions and their consequences.