A reflection linking TOK to CAS - A visit to the children hospital

I never liked children. However there was one time when I actually enjoyed myself being with children. And that experience changed my mind. I had a chance to visit to the children’s hospital and do some volunteer work. It was quite a big challenge for me to set up my mind to go to children’s hospital and help because I didn’t like being with children.

My family volunteered to clean the windows in the hospital. Since we are in Russia and we couldn’t barely speak Russian at all, that was the only job we could do for them. There were some other people playing (talking) to the children. Because I was in hospital, all the children were injured. And when I was cleaning a window of a girl, even though we didn’t say a word, she gave me a smile which I was surprised. I still don’t know the exact reason why I was surprised but probably because I had not nice ideas about children which she broke the frame of it.

Knowledge is like biased ideas in our head and once an idea is stored in our head, it’s hard to change or get rid of the idea whether it’s right or wrong. However through CAS activities, through experiences, it changed and I appreciate the purpose of CAS and my new ways of interpretation with CAS and TOK.

“Working house of woman”

During the summer vacation, I planned to visit orphanage in Seoul, however I changed my plan and visited ‘working house of woman’.

‘Working house of woman’ is an organization supported by “YCMA”, offering and training a job for women who want to, are looking for a job. I helped cleaning the empty desks and get organized files. I saw the place where the training was taken and I also saw the counseling place. Lots of women, high school graduate students, university students, mothers, even working women came and seek for new, suitable job for them. Working in there for one day taught me lots of things; I knew there are such more jobs available then what I knew, lots of women came and seek for jobs, and there are lots of jobs available for women.

I’ve undertaken new challenge of working in an organization for a day with people whom I don’t know, and worked collaboratively with others. There were 2 more volunteers who visited the “Working house of woman”; they were two females, much older than me. We first toured the group and introduced to the organization. Then we sorted out the letters (from who want to visit the organization to get some advice, from the organization which wants new workers to be introduced to them, etc) into different departments. There are several departments of HR, training, marketing, etc. Then we had lunch with the people who came for training and the trainers. After lunch, we cleaned the seminar hall for the training which will be held in there in afternoon. Also we set the hall, putting the papers, documents in place, placed some drinks and snacks, etc. One of us made the print hand-out, other two placed them in each seat. It was really worthy experience to be there with other volunteers, not only for the volunteering but also the knowledge we gain from the organization was really precious.

IB Introduction Day

On the 1^st of November, the first day back to the school, Year 13 organized activities related to IB objectives. Our group organized an activity which one person need to explain a word without saying anything and others have to guess the word. There were 5 groups of 4 to 5 people. Year 12 students had to do all 5 different activities that year 13 ran through, and after when we finished our activities, Year 12 and 13 made kites together (3 people in one group). With only 2 wooden stick, 1 garbage plastic bag, tape and string, we had to make our own kite. Then we all went to the Bitsevski Park to fly them. It was sunny day without wind so we couldn’t actually make them fly but we enjoyed the process of making the kite. Year 13 students worked collaboratively with others, planned and initiated activities for year 12 students and also made a kite. It was undertaking new challenge, and developing new skill of making kite and to make them fly.

Translating letters

During the summer vacation, I started to translate the letters again. As I wrote before, there are lots of supporters in South Korea who help American kids who suffer from food, clothes and health problem. And those who got helps from supporters are writing letter to them to say thanks. It is quite difficult to translate their handwritings because they use rough handwritings. While translating the letters, I also felt happy and proud to be born in Korea and realized the translation is such hard job to do. I will keep translating regardless of CAS activities. I engaged with issues of global importance and considered the ethical implications of helping children who need help.

Moscow Zoo

On 28th of June, Year 12 and Year 7 went to the Moscow Zoo in the center of the Moscow. The aim of this trip was to see lots of animals. Lots of them were endangered animals and we didn't know that. We saw elephants, dolphins, giraffe, eagles, lots of different kinds of fox, cat, bat, mouse, etc. I increased awareness of endangered animals and how to protect them. Also engaged with issues of global importance and considered the ethical implications of saving the animals by using producing less wastes and picking up trashes on the road.

Book reviews

One of my three plans for this term was to read three French books and write a book review. I chose 3 books named “Dans la maison bleue”, ”Le Comte de Monte-Cristo”, and ”Lili a peur des controles”. Three of them are stories for children and also for foreigners who’s learning French. So it wasn’t very difficult for me to read and understand the contents.

“Dans la maison bleue” is a story of two best friends sharing their secrets. One of them tell a story about a house which appears in certain time only. So they decide to go in there. When they got in there, everything was blue and found an alien who lives there. They share their own stories and become friends but keeping the house as secret. “Le Comte de Monte-Cristo” is the story of the count of Monte Cristo which origin from France. And the story of Lili, who’s afraid of having tests. However she manages to get over with it with some help from other people like parents, teachers and friends.

As I read through these books, I increased my awareness of my area for growth: the vocabulary. I looked up almost every word from a sentence even though it was easy books, especially the nouns and the verbs with the conjugation. I realized that I also lack of the idioms and the daily used expressions. And to improve that, I think reading a lot will make improvement and to memories lots of words. News articles will be hard for me to begin with so probably short passages from the internet on the topic which I’m interested in will do for me to start with. And once I become comfortable with translating, I will work on the grammar structure to strength my understanding of the context. Also I showed perseverance and commitment of reading these books. It took me lots of time to read them to understand and find the words which I don’t know. However it helped me a lot and also I had fun reading the story books.

Istra Fieldtrip

From 23^rd May to 27^th May, year 12 IB students went to the science field trip to Istra Region. The location was “Moscow Region, Istra District, buzharovo, Vysotka Hotel” and I did three experiments while I was there.

On the first day, when we arrived to the hotel, we did little activity to get to know the place. By using the latitude measurement, mark the place where the flags are. By doing this activity, I learned new skills, how to use the latitude measurement and also worked collaboratively with people. We get to measure at least 30points with the latitude measurement and draw a map of the surroundings.

The second day, we as a group of three, did an investigation called line transect. We place a line by using the pole above the ground, near pond hill and in each meter; we had to measure the biodiversity of the area. Also in the afternoon we had little bit fun of using soil kits and any other important testing elements.

The third day, we investigated mainly with the quadrats; calculating the total population of the shaded area and non-shaded area. And on Thursday, we did our own investigation and organize a barbecue. During the trip, I developed new skills of using equipment, worked collaboratively and planned and initiated experiments well.