CAS IB Report #2

Excellent CAS

The Creative Action Service (CAS) Program of my International Baccalaureate Program helped me grow in immeasurable ways. Volunteering my time was an incredibly intrinsically rewarding activity. My many excellent CAS activities introduced me to the joys of trying out new activities. I was already an active participator in school sports before excellent CAS, but lacked interest or initiative to take advantage of the innumerable service positions and creative outlets just waiting for me to explore. Excellent CAS gave me the impetus I needed, and with this initial push I soon discovered how rewarding these activities could be. The many experiences have convinced me of the need to continue volunteering and participating in activities that I have never tried before.

Coaching Grade 4/5 basketball in a community basketball league turned out to be an activity I truly enjoyed and learned a lot from. Starting in the first year of IB, I enjoyed it so much I volunteered again the next year. Through this new experience I learned a lot about motivation and teaching skills. It helped me recognize the importance of patience, practice, and perseverance. Although there are some obvious differences between leading a group of kids who looked up to me and leading my peers, I feel I can apply many of these skills to my future endeavours. The development of these valuable skills as well as others and the mental enrichment are important aspects of the program. They augment the intrinsic pleasure, which in itself is worth it, to make excellent CAS into an even more worthwhile experience.

Taking part in the critically appraised Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival during the summer between my two years at IB is another example of excellent CAS helping me to try new experiences. I learned a great deal about running a production and all the different aspects that are involved. I really enjoyed interacting with the patrons and the whole atmosphere at Vanier Park. The Shakespeare experience opened my eyes to the magical qualities of this famous playwright. Reading, studying, and watching The Merchant of Venice expanded my interests in the arts and more specifically the literary classics. I was amazed that something written around the beginning of the 17th Century could still be so relevant and applicable to today’s society. In partnership with the IB program, I have come to realize the importance of reading and taking an interest in the arts, because there is so much to learn from them.

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Participating in the school’s Reach for the Top, an inter-school quiz-game contest, and the Chess Club have helped sharpen my mental capabilities. I had planned to join these clubs earlier on but always lacked the resolve to make long-term commitments to them. Thanks to excellent CAS, I finally joined these lunchtime activities. Reach for the Top taught me lots of trivia and helped satisfy my competitiveness. Winning back to back interschool provincial chess championships was a great experience as well. I realized how much I liked thinking games like chess and the importance of keeping my brain sharp. Despite all the clichés involving chess and life, I think the skills I practice when playing are very important. The art of forethought, analysis of positions, and decisiveness when playing games under time pressure are all valuable skills to have. These activities also look very good on university applications, and although this surely positively wasn’t my principal primary objective when taking part in these activities I don’t think anyone can deny this valuable byproduct of excellent CAS. Taking part in meaningful volunteer activities throughout university should also help in later pursuits of a job, so it seems they also open up career paths as well.

Participating in school sports and staying active have helped me get through IB in a relaxed and low-stress manner. Unfortunately, my broken foot and twisted ankle prevented me from taking part in school soccer or basketball this year, but otherwise playing sports or going to the gym have helped me a great deal. I love competition and staying active keeps my energy level high and increases my ability to focus for inexorably long periods of time. Having fun, feeling good, looking good, and staying fit are all important things that being active results in. This is why I go to the gym, played intramural soccer, basketball, joined intramural lunchtime sports leagues (as unofficial excellent CAS activities), and will continue to do so through university and for the rest of my life. Realistically there is not really much more growth to be accomplished in this field. But the benefits stand for all to see and will always do so. I firmly believe that taking time to relax and have fun instead of working results in a net gain, since the increased productivity and refreshed mental capacity results in a raise in efficiency that allows the task to be finished faster than if the break was not taken.

Looking back at these last two years, excellent CAS was one of the most important, positive things I did. I enjoyed the great majority of the time I spent taking part in the activities and at the same time developed many valuable skills. There is always so much more to learn, and taking part in new activities is a great way to develop new abilities. I did the activities to become a better person and I can confidently say I am a better person because of it. I did my hours. I grew. I have passed excellent CAS.

I believe altruism does not exist, and in TOK we discussed that there are theories of morality that people act only in self-serving interests. “Altruists” do so because they gain pleasure from helping others and thus do it only for their interests. The narrow-minded assessment sheets which forces students to demonstrate their actions are not “entirely self-serving,” which goes against my perfectly legitimate philosophical viewpoint that this is the only reason humans do anything. Personal selfishness, especially in our society, is the determinant of actions, and I am not ashamed to say this is the only reason I do anything. And what is “genuine effort”? If people are only self-serving then there is no such thing. A billionaire who donates 10 million dollars to charity to help his taxes makes a far greater difference than one person volunteering their time to that charity. My pragmatic view of the world leads me to make the conclusion that this insincere capitalist made a far greater contribution than the genuine volunteer. The fact that I am a cynic and not an idealist makes it very difficult to conform to the criteria. What if the very lifestyle I live is in direct contradiction to “contribut[ing] to a broad community”? Although my personal growth resulted in positive benefits for some people, the pragmatist in me can’t fail to point out that the atrocious externalities of my western lifestyle—the exploitation of the developing world—render these benefits, and the benefits of the great majority of students performing excellent CAS, almost worthless in comparison. I am making a difference in this world: I am in an elitist program and promoting the exploitation of disadvantaged people around the world while apathetic to their hunger and diseases. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the intrinsic pleasure my many excellent CAS activities brought and the personal growth, which speaks to my character that helping some people makes me happy but causing suffering and letting a far greater number of people around the world die—while I relish all the amenities of my lifestyle—leaves me indifferent. What a great responsible international global citizen excellent CAS made me become. It gave me the insight to incite denial in a population. Quite clearly I have identified a lot of room for growth for myself and western society, but unfortunately it would take a titanic effort to do so, too titanic. To those who point out at least excellent CAS helps us address the problems of the world and ask: isn’t something better than nothing? Not if humanity would be better off without you. By my definition, I am in mark band zero for examples but I think this essay displays excellent balance in the overall assessment of excellent CAS. Maybe I am an idealist after all in a sense that I will not just act like a sycophant to satisfy some set of requirements set out by elitists sitting in some office somewhere.