Art for everyone was my CAS project planned by me and my 2 friends. In this project me and my friends contacted a government school and conducted 2 sessions with them. In the sessions we taught colouring to the lower grades, drawing and colouring to the middle grades and drawing and painting to the higher grades. We received help from our batchmates to conduct this activity. Our main aim for the event was to give the government school students an opportunity to express their art skills which they were not able to express during their regular school hours.
Planning:
While brainstorming ideas for our CAS project we found out that art an important aspect in any curriculum was not offered in government schools in India. We decided to act upon it and thought of conducting the project, ‘Art for Everyone’ on a local ground. So, we reached out to one of the government schools nearby and interacted with them about the issue and sought permission to carry out sessions in which the students will explore basic art skills. We decided to spend some more time with the children who weren’t much aware about arts and gave them the opportunity to share palettes of colours and smiles. We discussed and decided we will not buy new resources but will pool in resources we have and ask others to also donate resources which they don’t use any more. To implement this we sought permission from our school and kept boxes across school premises in which any student can donate any of their extra resources. While the interaction with the school authority we got to know that there are around 50 students in the session. We were quite sure that we will not be able to handle all the students so we decided that we can ask our batchmates if they want to volunteer. Hence, we made a google form and circulated the form to our peers. Art as a subject is very diverse, we needed someone to guide us how to go about teaching the same to the students. We looked at potential candidates for the job and realised we have an interested art teacher from our school. Rahul Sir was the one for the guidance and he was very enthusiastic about the same.
LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
From the start of the CAS project I knew I had one major challenge that I will have to face. The challenge was language problem. The regional language in my town is Gujarati which I can only understand and not speak easily. I have been to government school and knew that majority of the students at the government school speak Gujarati. To tackle this challenge learning to speak Gujarati was not even one of the solutions as learning to speak a new language at that point of time was almost impossible for me. I talked with my friends and they told this will not be a major problem but I knew that will be. So to tackle this problem I planned to try to understand all the things they say as stated earlier I can understand Gujarati and replied to them in Hindi. Most of the times this worked and other times I tried to learn a few words from my friends as they spoke and tried to speak in Gujarati. And for major situations I used to seek help from my friends as they helped me to convey my points to the students present there.
LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
I usually like to proudly say that I am good at organizing as I want things to seem perfect to me with very less flaws. In this particular event initiating was more difficult for me to initiate the CAS project. Planning (written above) was easier as theoretically our CAS project seemed to be easy. We had to collect the resources, ask for volunteers, go to the school and teach the students drawing and painting. Sounds easy but while initiating we had many problems. To gather resources we brainstormed to keep donation boxes around the school. To ask for volunteers a form was made and shared to students. The most difficult part came when we reached the school and got to know that the students were of different age groups. We had nothing planned for small students. So we decided to divide students into groups. One group was supposed to draw and paint, other was going to draw and colour and the last group which consisted of small children only had to colour. The teachers of the school helped us and they immediately provided us with sheets on which the students can colour.
After this experience I got to know the importance of having a detailed planning and also got to know that many times unplanned events will happen but instead of turning back one can easily accomplish things with the help of others or alone. Also, this event gave me an experience on how to react to unexpected events.
LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
Overall duration of the project was quite long and commitment was needed to complete the project. The duration was long because some saturdays were not available from the school side and some saturdays we were not free. Also patience was needed as we had to teach the students and teaching is a task where you cannot bombard on any students as they are small and do mischiefs. While teaching everyone have different learning pace. So, we cannot move to fast as some might be left out and we had to understand what the student was not able to understand and help them accordingly.
LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
Working together is always beneficial only till you are comfortable with the group you are working with. My group was perfect. Both my friends were helpful and were ready to take responsibility all the time. We divided our task as per our strength and convenience started to work on them. Each of us took the work we were best at. Despite allocating work to each other we made sure all major decisions will be taken together. We used to discuss each of ours progresses and monitors others. There was minimal need to push the other to finish his task. The team all three of us made was great and we together worked and successfully finished the whole project with little or no problems.
LO6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
Education is and has always been a global issue as education is necessary for all which many are not able to get. Education is always helpful to everyone and does no harm. By conducting our project we engaged with a part of education which was arts. We noticed the lack of art opportunity in government schools and decided to work on that. The flaw with government schools curriculum was direct and our project was just a baby step to solve that. After the activity I personally noticed there were few great talents in the school. I personally was ashamed as despite going to a privileged school, students there were able to draw better than me. After this event I felt that many great talents are being suppressed because of the fixed school curriculum. The level is high as this was one school and there are many schools in my city.
LO7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
We were aware that we were going to one government school and had to make sure we should not boast anything and talk to them politely as students and teachers might catch small details and one huge issue can be created. We had to make sure that we should give equal respect to everyone. This same instruction was to be also followed by each of our volunteers as any misbehaviour by anyone and me and friends would be the one at risk. We as students also needed to teach to smaller kids and smaller kids sometimes do mistakes and mischief but each of us had to make sure we should never lose our temper as ultimately they were smaller kids.
Overall the activity was very fun as it provided me an opportunity to collaborate with my friends but for the good of the society. There was a lot of interaction between me and other students and with them I also learnt a lot. I learnt to keep my temper in control and also a little bit of art skills by my expert friends. I loved each and every moment of the project as I knew it not only fulfilled my requirement but also I was doing something good. The planning and implementation seems easy only on paper but in real life many factors are not considered.
