Komorebi – Culture day at school

As part of a requirement of the English Language and Literature course, we were introduced to Language in a cultural context. This allows us to get an exposure to works based on different cultures and the kind of language these cultures use. Taking this up a notch, the Language team decided to put together an opportunity for Project-based learning to foster ATL skills as well as International-Mindedness among us.

Getting an opportunity to participate as well lead the event ( World Culture Day – KOMOREBI ) made me super excited for this event and thus I opted to give my name as a potential candidate for Project assistance leadership.

After that, interviews were held and I was selected as the formed project assistance of one of the continents, which was NORTH AMERICA.

Learning outcome 1 – Identify own strength and develop areas of growth

As the event is Student lead, all the research work and other important works had to done by the students itself. And as I had good research skills which is a key element in this event, because we had to find ideas that are appealing to the audience as well as they represent the culture of the countries of NORTH AMERICA.

The weakness that I felt I had, was that I am not much confident with the ideas that I have for our group, which I think had somewhere led to delay in finalising the ideas for our team.

After getting to know my strength and weaknesses in this activity, I thought to work on them as soon as possible. To use my strength effectively, me and a friend of mine ( My partner project assistance ), had started looking after different ideas which our members can do. Also, we kept reminding other members to research as well so that they can complete their role in this event as well and we can finish our work as soon as possible.

Looking after my weakness, I thought to pass on all my ideas to my partner, so that we can together shortlist and finalise the ideas with the ideas of decor as well. She even helped me look after the content (BIG) ideas as per our language (unit) view so that it fits into the aim of the event.

It feels good after getting to know my strengths and weakness. As because of this I am able to further decide my actions in the event. Also being aware of my confidence level beforehand only, makes me feel good that I know what do I have to work on so that it is lined up with the career choice I have made.

Lastly, knowing your strengths and weakness are important because strengths help to push yourself further while weakness is the area which we lack, and thus we need to improve and develop them, so as to become a better person with a greater potential to do something better than before.

Learning outcome 2 – Demonstrating that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.

Challenges!, It is not just a word, but a word which makes a person much stronger than s/he was before. After doing this activity, I feel that I can handle a lot more events after this before our group had faced a lot of problems until the event had ended.

So starting with the first one, was that we as well as our team of 6 members, were not much clear about the aim of KOMOREBI event in the first place. Like, we were getting ideas but how to connect it with our language part was making it difficult to finalise the content of the countries. Therefore, we had a talk with ma’am, where she gave us some examples and then our group had a meeting in which we discussed possible content ideas, finally deciding to do talk about the “FESTIVALS” of North America. This challenge enhanced my knowledge and creativity as in how can simple practices or changes in a culture can be represented in a creative way in the event.

Secondly, there was a member of our group, who neither turned up in any of the meetings nor did he finalised his idea and sent it to us. This had led to a severe delay in completion of our work because my partner and I were not able to finalise the decore part of our group. To overcome this challenge, we had to take help of our project coordinator as well as our teachers to handle and solve this issue because even after several warnings and reminder in school as well as home, he had not done his work. This challenge helped me to learn that this type of members will always be there in any group that I work with and so, giving your potential in the group is best for the group as well as me.

Thirdly, to make our room ( the place decided for us to present ) look appealing and welcoming to our audience and also to make the audience have a look at how the festivals ( CHRISTMAS, THANKSGIVING, HALLOWEEN ) are celebrated, so we had decided the decore part for each of the festivals. However, there were a lot of things which needed to be made, but we had very less time. So to over this challenge, we had come early to school and also taken things at home to complete them. Some of the team members had also utilised their free slots to complete the decor work in the school as much as possible. Doing all this has taught me a very important lesson that ‘It is better to start before than rush in the end.’ – time management, which I would remember my whole life.

The skills that I enhanced or learned by undertaking this challenge are very basic but important for our life and it feels good that I have undertaken these challenges because somewhere down the line, they would help me in my future. As per the demand of my career – CFA, I would be needing to work in groups and also be asked to present my ideas to my customer, so in order to make it beneficial for myself, I need to have the above-mentioned skills.

Undertaking challenges make me feel that I am capable of much more than what I think and shows that how much more potential I have for my growth. I always believe in this quote. makes me keep taking up challenges and gett

“Don’t limit your challenges; Challenge your limits. Each day we must strive for constant and never-ending improvement.” – TOM ROBBINS

It makes me keep taking up challenges and learn something new, which in turn keeps us active and allows us to succeed at some unfamiliar thing, thus allowing us to know our potential.

Learning outcome 3 – Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

Planning is an important aspect of life. It helps an individual to set their goals and mainly offers them directions on how to move on further. While initiating is similarly important because until you don’t take an initiative you won’t achieve the results you desired.

I am a person, who like to organize things as much as possible and thus planning or organizing this activity wasn’t a difficult task. We had already given out team members deadline to show us the final script of the content which they are going to talk about. We had also asked them to write down and speak about the importance of games which are going to make the audience play.

As my partner was looking after the content part of our group, I took the initiative to do the resource part of our group, that is collecting all the resources and giving pictures to print with their URL.

This activity, however, has helped me to improve my social skills by helping me to communicate more when needed Also it had helped me to manage my time in a more effective way. This communication and time management has resulted in an effective planning for the activity which could further be taken into consideration while planning in the future.

Learning outcome 4 – Show commitment and determination

The activity required dedication to the success of the event. First of all, it didn’t have any marks attached to it which would be included in our final reports which were the major point which made us think to do only the required work. However, there was a competition sort of thing of “THE BEST CONTINENT”. This had motivated our team to give our best and full potential in the event.

Also, as I already said that a lot of decor work was there so we had to come early to school. And coming early in winter mornings definitely required our commitment showing our dedication.

The partner, project assistance, was an important part of our group. However, she had her SAT exam on the day of the event, therefore, our group had to commit and be determined to set up the decor as decided by both of us and have a successful event, for which our group had come early to school.

For me, it is easy to commit to things in which I can contribute. And here I can easily contribute my crafty skills to the decor and game part of our continent.

Learning outcome 5 – Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.

I always enjoy working in teams as it finishes the work faster and creates a better understanding between the team members, decreasing the chances of failure if misunderstanding does not occur.

Working in a team in this activity was easier because we both are already good friends, so our understanding level is better. This makes it simpler for us to divide work among ourselves as per our potential which results in work being completed at a much faster rate.

The best part of our team was that all knew their role in the team which made our team stronger than other teams.

Teamwork was important in this activity because we had overcome the above-mentioned challenges. Also, leadership was required, not to a greater scale because everyone knew their tasks already. However, sometimes, due to some small misunderstandings, some or the other member had to take up leadership in order to solve the misunderstanding and complete the task.

Doing this had improved my listening and critical thinking skills as in how to solve issues between members in more of a win-win way.

Learning outcome 7 – Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.

Morals are an ethical conduct in playing out a movement. As this event is World Culture Day, we do not have to information about other culture and thus it required us to research online for the same.

However, while presenting the culture, it may happen that we may not have represented the culture in the right way. It may also happen that the sites we had selected for data collection might have written something which is not true in the real sense, however, we still had used it, in order to win the competition, which then is against our ethics.

This ethical issue affected us indirectly because, though our intention was not against the culture but to win the competition. This, however, did make us feel a little uncomfortable and thus, to showcase our ethical values, we listed down all the source links, through which we got the information in order to on safer side.

Considering my point of view, so using someone for your own purpose without letting the person know is wrong. However, now after taking part in this event, I have realized that we are just showcasing our learning of language, so the way we are going to speak about a culture which we do not practice will have some differences from the actual one. So, this little difference is okay to a point where no one is offended.

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In all this event was fun. I had fun planning, orgarnising and implementing the event. This event had made me a better and stronger person, who can speak in a large unknown public and also handel any last minute problems.

The learner profiles I inculcated here :

Communicators, Knowledgeable and Inquirer – Grabbing the information about different cultures of different countries. , Reflective – after the event, we analysed our performance.

ATL skills I inculcated here :

Communication skills, Collaboration skills, Organisation skills, Information literacy skills and Creative Thinking skills.

Some pictures of the EVENT :

Komorebi – Culture day at school – CAS PROJECT

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