Exploring the Impact of CAS on IB Students' Education and Personal Growth (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hello, my name is Alex, I'm a first year IB student at BISB, and I'm also one of the organizers of this event, and I hope you have been enjoying yourself thus far. As one of the organizers, I wanted to address the audience, because I thought it might be of interest to what IB students have to do besides just studying for their exams. I will be explaining today to you the extracurricular activities that students like me have to do, and also to show the positive impacts of these activities and the effect on a broader and better education. So let's start with CAS. So what is CAS? Well it is the extracurricular activities that IB students conduct as part of their IB studies. And it's split into three different categories. First category is creativity, which is learning a new skill, such as programming, playing the guitar, dancing, you name it. Then there's action, which is either group or individual sport activities, such as representing the school basketball team or football team, or even more solo sports such as just swimming or doing something on your own. Then there is the service, and that's the idea of contributing to a community, be that the school community, the local community by Islam, or in your neighborhood. And these parts of IB are not graded per se, however regular reflections are needed from students as well as evidence, and these are checked. And this is compulsory, and it's part of the IB diploma, and you will not get a diploma if you do not fulfill this, no matter how good your results are. So it is essentially a really big deal. So I'll be talking about CAS and 9-1-1, what I've been doing. One of the first activities that I started was working with DePaul, Slovakia. And DePaul is a non-profit organization whose aims are to address the needs of homeless people living in Bratislava and in their streets. I was working at one of their shelters, and I taught English to one of their clients, that's how they refer to the homeless people. And I had initial fears. I was afraid of the hygiene or the lack of it. I was also afraid of contracting diseases or illnesses, which is all part of the previous connotation I had about the homeless. However, as I started working there, working with the people, I realized that they're not that different from the rest of us. They just had a series of unfortunate events in their lives, and that they should be helped out and not shunned and seen as something like the scum of the earth. They're not that. And I also gained a better understanding of the needs of the homeless in Bratislava, and how we can all help through various activities, either by working with them directly or contributing financially or in other events. But the man himself taught me something, as well as I was teaching him. He lived here during the communist times in Czechoslovakia, and as I studied history, that was an invaluable source. He told me a different perspective about communism at the time, which really helped me in my history essay, and also to better understand Czechoslovakia and its past. Then I also did fitness, or going to a gym, and this is one of the activities I'm really glad that I started to do. I'm not a sports enthusiast, I never was, neither am I of the athletic kind, and Cass forced me to do one of some physical activities, I had to do a certain physical activity, and I decided to start going to a gym. This was great for two things, because I could do it on my own time, and on my own pace. And I gained quite a lot from it. I became much more health-conscious about my lifestyle, started eating more healthily, the whole family is eating more healthily, and sometimes there's bickering about what food to eat, but it made my life more healthy. I also learned the importance of perseverance and discipline, since you have to work hard and you have to work out regularly to actually get any results, so that it has any meaning. And even during times where I have lots of studies, I still try to find the time to exercise, and it's this sort of discipline that helped me improve my workflow. But it also helped me from the biological perspective, I study biology, and when you work out, you have to know which muscles work and how they work. And I gained a better understanding of the muscular system and the skeletal system, which helped me in my studies. A second activity that I've been doing is the Slovak Red Cross training. And I started Red Cross training with a 33-hour, it was over the weekend, it was a course where you were taught various different ways of giving first aid, such as broken limbs, wounds, how to stop bleeding, and what to do, like CPR, before the ambulance arrives. And I go there every Friday for practices, and there's even talks of potential competitions in the summer, which I will most likely be joining. I also am starting to get involved in real-life situations, such as football matches and hockey matches, and also later in the summer in different festivals where Red Cross is needed, because people either get intoxicated or just need some general aid. But most importantly, I got to meet and work with great and charitable people, who have similar aims to mine, who are very interesting people, and they just try to sustain themselves on an external budget. Now we have BRACLIN, which a lot of students from our school, the IB students, took part in. And MUN stands for the Model United Nations. This is when students were given countries to represent, and they had to represent their views. And they were split into different committees. I was in the bioethics committee, and what I gained is a better understanding of how the UN tries to solve medical and bioethics issues, and how they try to appease every single country, despite having very different views on certain topics, on very controversial topics, such as stem cell research or abortions. Some are more progressive, some are less. But I also realized the importance of teamwork. In the General Assembly, you just have one vote as a country, no matter how strong you are, the USA, or if you're a tiny Rwanda country. They all have the same vote, and you have to work in groups, you have to work, you have to make allies, so that your points get into the resolution. And this was an interesting exercise in teamwork, and I greatly enjoyed it. There are also other activities to do within the school. This event itself, TEDx, is one of them. But there's also other things, such as tutoring younger students and contributing to the community in the school, becoming a teacher's assistant and helping them with their work. But also the Stushkova and graduation organization, or platform preparation for the younger students. My initial thoughts on CAS were, I was really cynical. I thought it was a big waste of time, and I thought it was just created by syllabus creators who just wanted a way to challenge students, and that they didn't know what students really needed. Currently, I don't have that view. I met people that I would have otherwise never met. I have learned things that I would have otherwise never learned. And I have found interests that I would have never found without extracurricular activities that I've been doing. But there's also a pragmatic side for CAS. During the last couple of decades, the access to education has improved, which means that more students complete secondary education, and therefore more students go to do tertiary education, in other words, universities. This means that universities have a lot more applicants, and they have to differentiate them somehow. Good marks is not enough, since more people can get those good marks. And in order to differentiate them, these extracurricular activities help greatly. And they can help sort out the better students, or the more interesting students from the rest. But also on a personal level, CAS is an opportunity to look into areas of interest, and that you would otherwise not have the opportunity to do in school. But it's also a way to look into potential careers, and to assess them if you're actually wanting to do something like that in the future, by going to do that extracurricular activity. I think that all schools should have this sort of program, this extracurricular program, not CAS specifically, but extracurricular program which makes the students choose activities so that they can experience something outside of school. The youths will face real issues, real life issues, and will understand what society really is about, the good parts, but also the bad parts, which will motivate them for change. And similar activities could also be introduced for English students, I mean, why not? A, you can prepare them for either projects, such as in the personal statements, but also more importantly, you ingratiate the idea of contributing to society, which is something that we want out of our future generations. I believe CAS is a worthwhile endeavor, and as with most things in life, the effort you put into these activities will determine the output you get out of them. In other words, if you select your CAS activities carefully, and there are topics and areas of interest which you are committed to, and they're meaningful to you as a person, then these activities will contribute to you for your broader education, better define your personality and you as a person, but also better prepare you to day-to-day life. And after all, your input defines your output, as with most things in life. Thank you for your time. Thank you.