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Learning life lessons while making a difference to others
December 26, 2012, Wednesday
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CAS is a variety of Creative, Active and Serviceable activities that Grade 11 and 12 students undertake as a way to earn their IB Diploma and become well-rounded individuals at Shanghai Community International School.
The CAS program asks that students fulfill various learning outcomes, including undertaking new challenges, engaging in issues of global importance and considering the ethical implications of their actions. Students are already fully involved in activities ranging from acting in the school's fall production, "Zombie Love," to playing basketball, to joining at least one of the service programs.
The volunteering and service program that SCIS students are joining this year helps the students to step outside the school campus, work in another language and find ways to help make life a bit easier for those who need the help. This year, the grade 11s and 12s are visiting several different groups of children and seniors as part of their service commitments.
Some students are teaching English lessons at the You Dao Foundation Migrant School in Qingpu District and An Shun Primary School in Changning District. Others have chosen to work with the Hongqiao Ai Wan Ting Senior Citizens' Home. Still others have joined an inclusion program to welcome students from the Essential Learning Group to SCIS.
Another group of students is visiting the Yodak Chest and Cardiovascular Hospital to help with the playroom for young children who have had heart surgery. Others are creating projects where they visit the Children's Hospital attached to Fudan University or the Cerecare Wellness Center for children with cerebral palsy by working with the Hands On Shanghai program.
As the students contemplate what they are learning from the volunteer program, they begin to realize that their own lives are pretty fortunate and that not everyone can have the advantages they enjoy on a daily basis.
Lou Lou Pei, a Grade 11 student, organized a project to distribute mooncakes over the Mid-Autumn Festival and reflected on the experience. "It meant a lot to me to be able to bring holiday greetings in the form of a mooncake and a smile. These people aren't used to receiving things from strangers, so their stunned but incredibly happy faces made me smile."
Volunteering is not only about giving money, but about sharing heartfelt emotions, time that indicates care and investing oneself in the life of another.
Kent Park, another Grade 11 student, noted that when he visited the Yodak Hospital Playroom, "there was a phrase about the volunteers, and I was very inspired by that. The phrase states, 'What is required of volunteers is not the time, but the heart'."
The students have begun to understand that it's not just the time or presence at an event that constitutes volunteering, it's the frame of mind and desire to care for someone else that helps them to make a difference.
Sindri Jonsson, a Grade 11 student, visited the senior citizens' home and found a sense of camaraderie with the elderly residents. "After we had finished singing, the senior citizens decided to sing a song for us. It was a beautiful moment. I felt that no matter where people are from, how old they are, whatever differences, there's always something to connect us together as people of the world."
The CAS program asks that students fulfill various learning outcomes, including undertaking new challenges, engaging in issues of global importance and considering the ethical implications of their actions. Students are already fully involved in activities ranging from acting in the school's fall production, "Zombie Love," to playing basketball, to joining at least one of the service programs.
The volunteering and service program that SCIS students are joining this year helps the students to step outside the school campus, work in another language and find ways to help make life a bit easier for those who need the help. This year, the grade 11s and 12s are visiting several different groups of children and seniors as part of their service commitments.
Some students are teaching English lessons at the You Dao Foundation Migrant School in Qingpu District and An Shun Primary School in Changning District. Others have chosen to work with the Hongqiao Ai Wan Ting Senior Citizens' Home. Still others have joined an inclusion program to welcome students from the Essential Learning Group to SCIS.
Another group of students is visiting the Yodak Chest and Cardiovascular Hospital to help with the playroom for young children who have had heart surgery. Others are creating projects where they visit the Children's Hospital attached to Fudan University or the Cerecare Wellness Center for children with cerebral palsy by working with the Hands On Shanghai program.
As the students contemplate what they are learning from the volunteer program, they begin to realize that their own lives are pretty fortunate and that not everyone can have the advantages they enjoy on a daily basis.
Lou Lou Pei, a Grade 11 student, organized a project to distribute mooncakes over the Mid-Autumn Festival and reflected on the experience. "It meant a lot to me to be able to bring holiday greetings in the form of a mooncake and a smile. These people aren't used to receiving things from strangers, so their stunned but incredibly happy faces made me smile."
Volunteering is not only about giving money, but about sharing heartfelt emotions, time that indicates care and investing oneself in the life of another.
Kent Park, another Grade 11 student, noted that when he visited the Yodak Hospital Playroom, "there was a phrase about the volunteers, and I was very inspired by that. The phrase states, 'What is required of volunteers is not the time, but the heart'."
The students have begun to understand that it's not just the time or presence at an event that constitutes volunteering, it's the frame of mind and desire to care for someone else that helps them to make a difference.
Sindri Jonsson, a Grade 11 student, visited the senior citizens' home and found a sense of camaraderie with the elderly residents. "After we had finished singing, the senior citizens decided to sing a song for us. It was a beautiful moment. I felt that no matter where people are from, how old they are, whatever differences, there's always something to connect us together as people of the world."
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