#casjournal

In about 6 and a half months I successfully completed another 82.5 hours of CAS which brings me to a total of 145 hours over the past 8 months. This is how I did it:

C = 47         A = 50       S = 48

Creativity-

Piano: 20        Violin: 20       Composing/Transposing/Rearranging: 7

Activity-

Football: 20       Basketball: 13          Volleyball: 17

Service-

Coaching (helping out): 7     Coaching (Extended Project): 22

Ok so over the past 2 and a half months or so I've managed to successfully complete 63.5 CAS Hours. This is pretty much a run down of how many hours I did per activity because I'm pretty sure that I have a limit of 20 hours per activity.

C = 23         A = 32.5       S = 8

Creativity- 

Piano: 16        Violin: 6       Composing/Transposing: 1

Activity- 

Football: 14.5       Basketball: 9          Volleyball: 9

Service- 

Adventures on local school. 

Local school is basically going to a local school that is around 5 minutes away from Greengates by car and teaching children from grade 1 to 5 math or spanish. Going there makes me respect my teachers so much. I know I am a difficult student, but teaching little children is impossible. They don't listen, they don't work and everything is just a mess.

The first class we brought candy. Worse. Mistake. Ever. They saw the candy and we barely managed to work. Next week we forgot about the candy and so it has been ever since. We first decide to teach math and we noticed some severe differences in knowledge between children in the same class. There were some that could barely do simple sums, and some I could ask basic multiplication and they knew how to do it. We decided to divide the children in 3, by levels, so that they could make progress at their own pace. I was teaching the ones in the middle, so doing some more complicated sums and starting multiplication. Teaching is really hard because it is difficult to get the children's attention and then it is even harder to transmit concepts that are abstract for them like why 3*2=6.

Let me tell you a side story. 

A very good friend was doing an art project with the children, but the groups we had chosen got mixed up. She and her team ended up in one of the older classes with a very draconian teacher. Apparently she was a devil to them. Our CAS coordinator tried to solve out the problem and the conclusion was that the ones working with that group had to be strict (me) and know their spanish (the guy I'm working with). So we changed groups.

We have been with them now only twice and it has not been too bad. We are teaching composition that is : Introduction, Development and Denouement of a story. We face the same problems of the other class, that is that there are differences in the level of each student. Some understand very quickly what we mean to say and know how to write fairly OK for 10 year old children, but some cannot spell some words and have a harder time understanding what we are trying to explain. I believe that this understanding we are trying to reach can only be achieved with loads of time and practice but I'm afraid the teacher they have will get sick of us teaching the same thing over and over again. i guess we will have to wait and see.

My anger management problems have been put to test again like they are constantly in local library. I'm a person with a very strong character so having children not listen to me really get on my nerves. I have obviously never been to a behaviour management class like teachers so one of the counsellor teachers that goes with us to the school has given me some tips on how to make them listen to them more. Since they are already used to a severe teacher it is better to use a mildly loud but decisive voice and they normally start working.

Funny story:

My partner in the class was trying to teach them indentation in a text so he said : When you change paragraphs you leave a space of about three fingers in between them, this is called indentation. And one of these kids actually left a space in between the paragraphs, like, vertically. I guess it was a problem with his diction but we corrected it immediately to see if anyone else had had this confusion.

Learning outcomes:

worked collaboratively with others

developed new skills

undertaken new challenges

+6 hours

C: 13/50, A: 13/50, S: 23/50 , T: 49

I have never been the best person at working with other people, which includes teaching. Some times I have explained something to a friend but it has never gone further than that. So having joined Local School and Local Library represents quite a challenge for me.

The first class we had on local library was getting to know our students. I joined with a really good korean friend and our student is a woman. She knew a little bit of english already so we didn't have to start from scratch, and we are still deciding if that was good or actually a difficulty. On one side she already knew many things of simple sentence composition and vocabulary was missing so teaching that is not that difficult, but one the other hand the fact that we do not have to teach the basis leaves us in a position where we do not really know what is missing from the basis and teaching english grammar is not easy at all.

We are mainly focused on vocabulary and simple grammar. I'm normally the one that get the working sheets and my partner is the one that helps me during the class as I am not the most patient of people. I get annoyed really easily when someone does not understand something, and I usually make the mistake of blaming it on them instead of taking care of it myself. The worksheet is get from English for Everyone which is a great place and has exercises for all levels. Sometimes they are a bit childish but they are quite useful. Our student manages to remember most of the grammar we teach her, for example that we are contracts to we're but vocabulary is much more difficult and we have to review them every week. I find it very stressing because I try to tell her that she has to revise everyday so that she starts to use the words naturally, but we are not making much progress so I think she isn't. 

Also it has represented a challenge because she doesn't try to learn them, if we tell her a word she just nods and I could ask her 5 minutes later what does the word mean and she doesn't remember. So I'm trying to make her write down every word she doesn't understand. It is also like she doesn't care. I say this because every week (we have class once a week) we ask her what did she do over the week, this is a way to see if she has progressed and she always answers "Nothing" and then she starts talking in spanish which does not help anyone.

I am trying to force myself to be more patient, I know that English may be an easy language for me but for the rest of the people it is not like that. I also see it with my father who is not the best in english and I get annoyed when he asks me questions. I feel I am learning to be more patient and that my methodology for teaching is improving so this activity has really been helpful in a context outside of CAS.

(Drugs face woop woop)

Learning outcomes: 

undertaken new challenges

planned activities (does this count, i dont know, i'll check)

worked collaboratively with others

developed new skills

+6

C: 13/50, A: 13/50, S: 17/50 , T: 43