House

House 2016-2017

Description: Here at QSIB, juniors and seniors are pairedup and recruited to be house leaders, and are responsible for leading a community service project for the whole with a variety of students ranging from 12 year olds all the way to the graduating seniors. With the help of two teacher supervisors, the leading house members organize and collaborate on all aspects of the future projects and activities.

Goals: This year, together with my three other house leaders and two teacher supervisors (together the Kingney House), we have chosen to focus on the environment of the younger kids at our school. This revolves around not only the aesthetic appearance of the environment in which the younger students live in, but as well as the social interactions and conflicts that often arise between the students. That being said, we will have one part of the house dedicated towards physical environment improvement, and the other half (if not, more than half) will be dedicated towards peer mediation and the improvement of social life within the younger students.

CAS Learning Outcomes: 
- Planing and Initiation - Together, us four house leaders under adult supervision will be required to plan out all meetings, schedules, appointments, as well as collaboration and activities throughout the whole year and make sure everyone works together collaboratively, and make sure everything gets done properly and as effectively and supportively as possible.
- Development of New Skills - I'll learn how to lead and take care of a large group of other students, as well as teamwork and mature decision making for larger scale events.
- Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses - What points and qualities do I have as a leader that are beneficial and helpful, as well as what ways can I improve on to becomea better leader as well as member for the house.
- Consideration of Ethics - Since we are an international school, ethnicities will be very variable and interconnected so it is necessary to respect each and everybody and bring harmony amongst all
- Undertaking New Challenges - Being a leader of a large group of students and being responsible for almost every aspect of it is definitely a new and big challenge for me. I'll be taking on tasks that I have never done before in my life, such as leadership, peer mediation, or even larger scale art projects.
- Commitment to Activities - I will make sure to be responsible and organize activities in which I will participate and actively contribute.
- Collaboration with Others _ I will work together with my fellow house leaders, house members, house supervisors, as well as any other group or community with which we will be working together with.

Peer Mediation Training:

Date: October 26th
Supervisor: Mrs. Varney, Mr. King

 








Outcomes
Planning and Initiation: Being an entirely student led session (with teacher supervision), getting a guest speaker and arranging a lost session did require work.
Development of New Skills: Being a peer mediator and speaking with an expert on the topic. This is something I have never done actively in my life.
Awareness of Strengths and Issues: What are my good points? How can I help this hous eproject become a success? What do I need to work on?
Undertaking New Challenges: A new experience for me.
Collaboration With Others: Working with kids and resolving conflicts.

Reflection: Having had a 3-period long session about peer mediation from a guest speaker who is an expert on the topic, I certainly learned quite a lot of new material, and even got to hear interesting personal experiences involving peer mediation from our guest speaker. Together with our house we organized activities during the session, and in the end even got to try it out for ourselves, using the 10 year old class. With my group's current pair of students, we went into the practice thinking we were going to practice a bit of techniques, but actually got a real problem that we had to find a resolution to. Overall, the session, which was rather long, did overtime result in slightly less focus from some members of our house. For future events like this, we would have to come up with ways to get 100% participation from everyone in our house for a unitary experience.

Fall Festival Volunteer Work:

Date: Oct 25th-26th
Supervisor: Mr. King, Mrs.Varney

           

Outcomes: 
Planning and Initiation: Organize a collaboration together with the PSG and get all students to participate.
Collaboration with Others: Work as a house together and with other peers during both days.

Reflection: The first of volunteer work consisted of the Tuesday morning helping the PSG with various activities, including setting tables, moving objects, helping hang up accessories, etc. The volunteer work ended up taking a lot longer than expected. However, everything was able to get done and ready for the event for the next day. During the volunteer period, everything was pretty smooth, except for the fact that many house members over time started to get 'bored,' and participation was low towards the end, with mostly just us house leaders doing something. Maybe by giving commands directly to the house members would prove more effective, instead of getting general instructions to the whole house.

The second day, the day of the actual Fall Festival, took place in the bubble gym. Right after school I made sure to stay and help set up everything necessary. I myself had an individual station, in which the children had to find small little spider rings (while not looking) in the sand basket. Since it was raining the past few days, the only available sand was in the ECC play area, where the sand boxes were. Despite being covered up by a protective cover, the sand inside was still really dank. The basket itself, when full, was also really heavy. When our table station was set, and when the event was underway, everything proceeded pretty smoothly. The uncomfortable sand was, however, one reason why some kids were not willing to come to the station. Throughout the event I also helped out in the station right next to me, a sort of mini-golf station. My 'costume' which I quickly threw together was a black outfit topped off with a scary mask. It was really hard to breathe in, my glasses fogged up quickly, and the kids were not willing to speak to a creepy face, so I had to abandon that strategy. When everything was finished, we cleaned up and packed everything away. All in all, it was a successful event.

Bulletin Board

Date: Jan 20th
Supervisor: Mr. King, Mrs.Varney


Reflection: Since this wasn't all that of a very large task, we still had to wrap it up and finish it in a short amount of period before the deadline. We were required to create a bulletin board for our house, and by far the hardest thing was to gather our house members to do it. Many did not reply and/or weren't willing to participate in this short event. Therefore we took our small sample of art students who volunteered for art int he beginning of the year to help us. After that the bulletin board was handled nicely, and loose edges were fixed to top it off, and then pinned onto the bulletin board. Over the following month we'll be sure to keep the board up to date and always keeping track of our progress.

Valentine's Day Activity

Date: February 13th
Supervisor: Mrs. Varney

Overview: Together with the kids between ages two and four, we'll be doing some simple cut-out arts and crafts activities during 3rd period of our school day. There will be somewhere between 15-20 kids, and together with another house leader and a few house members we'll be working together with them and hopefully creating a fun experience with them.



(@ Jared King photography)
Reflection: Despite the brevity of the activity, there were still some parts to it which were hard to handle. Getting all the kids to listen to me and follow my instructions was hard. Thankfully, there were teachers and 3 house members (apart from me) helping guide everything smoothly. Teaching the kids how to make hearts wasn't nearly as smooth as I thought it would be. In the end, we only had the kids fold their papers, and we created the outlines for them so they could cut, and then glue. All the kids were very cheerful and excited, but not always listening. Even though the activity itself was simple, it took some time and we only got one crafty activity done, before it was time up. However, the kids most certainly enjoyed themselves, and were proudly waving their creations. One kid decided to take the outlying and cutting into his own hands, and created the most awkward creation ever, but that's completely besides the point :D The kids had fun and that's all that mattered.

Earth Week Activity
Date: April 28th
Supervisor: Mrs. Varney

Overview: Since it's earth week, we'll be grouping with the age groups of 5, 6, and 7 to do a recycle craft activity. Since there are three classes, six of us house members (two house leaders) will be taking on each class. This involves prepping up the kids, talking to them about earth week, explaining the activity, and making sure they're doing everything correctly.

Reflection: The class I took with one of the other house members were the 5 year olds. Honestly, I was dissapointed with the lack of excitement from them. Compared to the last arts and crafts activity, these guys spoke a lot less and seemed a lot less happy doing the activity (of course an exception here and there). Overall, it was lot less fun, if I could say it so objectively.

Besides the activity itself, preparation was almost entirely on me, and getting volunteers was quite tedious from our House. We quickly arranged a project for 7th period on the Friday of earth week. Next time we should get this set set down earlier. Only until really the day before did I finalize the actual project and activity itself, as all ideas until that point were only really speculations. All materials I only really had ready the day before, and we still needed some extra materials which I was scrambling to find right before the actual event itself. I need to be more organized and ready for the next time we do such activities and have a good, clear concept of what we will be doing that is good to go well before we actually do it.

School Play Date to Samorin
Date: April 29th
Supervisor: Mrs. Varney

Overview: Leave Saturday morning to go to Samorin campus (new future campus) and help with child maintenance, faint painting, and helping with whatever needs to be done (e.g. instructions from teachers and/or parents)

Reflection: The time frame in which us House Members (me being the only house leader) were expected to fulfill our tasks was only at the beginning, during which the children played on the playgrounds. Supervision on our part was pretty easy, as none of the plaground attractions were dangerous, and only a couple of time did I have to help with getting children up onto a platform (pulley mechanics). Face painting unfortunately never happened, as there was no time for it, and no proper place to have it happen. After this, our job as the house was done, and we were left to either enjoy the place or go for a school tour, which I went on after that.

House 2016-2017

Description: This being my second and final year of being a House Leader, together we make the Plunkett House

Date: School Year 2017/2018
Supervisors: Mrs. Plunkett, Mr. Yoder
CAS Learning Outcomes: 
- Planning and Initiation - Plan all meetings and events, and pretty much facilitate all communication and organization
- Development of New Skills - Planning a large group of kids and together with hhouse leaders start with literally nothing and do something for a good cause.
- Increased Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses - I haven't ever been really in charge of a large group with great responsibility, so it'll definitely let me build character as a leader and take initiative and get new experiences to realize what I'm good at, what I'm bad at, and how to improve.
- Consideration of Ethics - Our house working with the oncological center is a rather delicate territory in all honesty, but is something inevitable in this world, should be noticed, aware in the world, and helped with in the world.
- Undertaking New Challenges - Organizing large events and having great responsibility is something new for me.
- Commitment to Activities - Be at all meetings, organizations, and not let go of projects when in the middle of one
- Collaboration with Others - The house leaders if 2 sec4, 2 sec3, and 2 teachers, so together we have to work to make it all work out.

Selling Food at CEESA HS Boys Soccer Tournament
Date: November 11th, 2017
Supervisor: Mr Yoder, Mrs. Plunkett
Location: Lafranconi Soccer Field

Overview: In order to provide a bountiful concession stand at the HS Boys tournament, me and another house leader had to  prepare a large portion of the concessions the tournament. Also, we were in charge of making sure everybody brought adequate amounts of different food types to the actual tournament. Then, we are in charge of running the stand and physically being there for customers (from about 9:00-17:00)

Reflection: The day before we made about 40 sandwiches of different kinds, and then had them stored for the next day. We also got tea, coffee, kiosks, and a lot more. Thankfully, everybody brought the foods they were requested to bring (and even in copious amounts!). However, as there were only 5 teams, we weren't sure if we would start getting profit after nobody was buying much of the food. It wasn't until the first coach bought food for the whole team and instantly gave us a profit. In the end, almost everything got sold, with a total profit of about 100 Euro.

Visit to Children's Oncological Center
Date: December 7th, 2017
Supervisor: Mr. Yoder

Overview: Using some money from the fundraising, we bought the children's oncological center 12 speed cubes. As an avid speedcuber, I helped share my knowledge of this "sport," give a small presentation, demonstrate some cubing techniques, and then initiate a small workshop on how to solve a Rubik's cube.

@Detom s rakovinou n.o.

Reflection: When we got there, I was expecting a bit more kids to be there. However, depending on the day, there can be more or less people as expected. Nonetheless, the kids with their parents were still very excited and enthralled by the Rubik's cube. They loved the presentation and demonstrations, yet when the time came for the focus to shift, they were really adamant on wanting to know how to solve the Rubik's cube. The only problem is that it's next to impossible to learn how to solve a Rubik's cube in less than an hour. We tried our best and some stuck on, some didn't, as it naturally goes. Either way, the reactions were very positive, the cubes were a nice Christmas gift, and the people at the hospital at least had a new hobby which they could pursue. Maybe for next time establish a more structured workshop, and possibly begin with easier cubes or puzzles.

Weeks after, I got news that the cubes were in full sprint, and that everyone was enjoying learning new algorithms and how to solve the Rubik's cube.

Visit to Children's Oncological Center #2 during Open Week
Date: March 13th, 2018
Supervisor: Mrs. Plunkett, Mr. Blaho

Overview: Us being special guests for the Oncological Center's "Open Week" after our first appearance, this time we decided to add some additional features to our visit. We would buy cubes (different types) than the standard 3x3x3, such as the skewb, pyraminx, and 2x2x2. We would also have a house member dress up as our school mascot, the bear.

@Detom s Rakovinou n.o. (with special guest, Andrej Kiska, President of Slovakia)

Reflection: When we got there, I expected a bit less people to be honest. As we waited for some more people yet to come, the Cerveny Nos (Red Nose) Organization entertained the crowd. When it was time for us to shine, I feel like the beginning was rather slow, and interest was smaller from the beginning. It was only a matter of time before the cubes became more interesting, and I even made sure to have some good interaction between myself and the clowns to make it even more exciting (they were really fun). The inclusion of the bear mascot was a great part of it, probably one of the strongest aspects of the entire image, and even helped portray us, the QSI students, as the bears. Despite the online ordered puzzles not coming in time, we still managed to get ahold of quality puzzles and deliver them to the patients.

I gave some cube demonstrations, taught how to solve the pyraminx, and developed deeper bonds with the patients. It was an amazing experience, and further taught me that despite their given circumstances, they are still exactly the same as you and me, and I had a great time talking with them. Even the President of the Slovak Republic came. After I got introduced as a speed-cuber to him (sweet.) all the attention focused on me, and he even scrambled a Rubik's cube for me and I had to solve it for him (scary.).

The experience was great, and extremely exciting. I want to do as much more of this as possible, and help/entertain a cause I'm passionate about in any way I possibly can, because this was something truly memorable and fun.