Week Without Walls Reflection

This is the photo of the preschool children standing in front of the newly painted mural that my group worked on! Reaching this success was not easy and did not just come about. A lot of planning, collaboration, communication, perseverance, reflection, knowledge, action and commitment were absolutely crucial. Wonder how we all did that?

     24th~28th January 2011 marked our last Week Without Walls trip at Hanbantota which was about 6.5 hours drive away from Colombo. Our grade (11)'s WWW turned out to be a really succesful and memorable trip (which I still miss so much!!) and I believe that it was all possible because of our thoroughly planned and initiated activities that the planning group I was invovled in took great care into over a period of time in advance; working collaboratively with each other ( it was a dynamic collaboration,as we got to work together with not only our classmates but also teachers, staff, the students and teachers of preschool that we worked at, religious leaders who oversee the preschool) which was possible thorugh our perseverance, commitment and flexibility. I will now break the reflection into some different service-based days to consider in greater depth how we set goals and the how we were able to succesfully achieve them:

24th January:

     With the arrival at our hotel (Peacock beach) we got into our smaller groups (the SHA and SHI group) that we already have planned and organized before our departure to assign ourselves with specific jobs and prepare for the concert that was to be performed for the preschool in Hambantota in order to discuss, plan and reconsider our goals beginning the next day. The mural group, the one in which I'm a leader have finalized all designs and came to agreements after much input and communication. My goal for the 25th Jan was to:

1.   Enhance my knowledge and understanding of the Hambantota area and especially the situation of the children, teachers, parents and the maintenance of school that we would work at so that I can further    discuss and plan for more appropriate/effective actions for the 26th.

  Staying inquiring and reflective was really important. I found this plan very helpful and effective because having this in mind really helped me to stay alert, open-minded, caring and reflective about what I was experiencing on the first visit to the school and thus I was able to put further input on our discussion for future goals regarding the school.

2. Act upton what I've learnt!

Planned beforehand thoroughly to help the kids in a way that I can give to the full.

3)  Interaction with the children actively!!

        When we first met the children and teachers, we got some time at the beginning to play with the children. I faced challenges, mainly in terms of communication because the main means of communication for me has always been in English, a language foreign to them. Such language barrieres at first, I found, did not enable me to fully understand or express each one's ideas and feelings so I had practiced some of my (poor...) Sinhala and Tamil languages beforehand and made myself realize that there can be more than one language or a mode of communication. I tried to develop deep personal interest in the children and inquired what their needs were and developed more effiecient ways to communicate, such as body-language and art. Really, it is amazing how art can really bring everyone together!

4) Create a more live, happy, hopeful and creative learning environment for the preschool children!



One of our teachers, Mr. De Silva gave us a meaningful food-for-thought. He mentioned that there are 2 Cs for this WWW: Consideration and Community

He told us this in preparation and helped us realize the imporance of responsibility and punctuality to make our WWW succesful. A quote for the day was also delivered to us:

"The worls is full of givers and takers. Takers may eat better but givers sleep better"

25th

A quote for 25th: "I cried for my shoes until I saw a man who had no feet"

on 25th, we embarked on our first job! We were so warmly greeted by the children and teachers, and flowers!! We played with the kids and I must admit, that it took some efforts at the beginning to become a risk taker. I knew that I shouldn't make the atmosphere awkward so I faced such unfamiliar situation with courage and strategies. We were encouraged to take one student each and the lovely girl that I worked with had such innocent, captivating eyes and a gorgeous heart! I communicated with her, to learn some things about her such as name, age, what colours, songs and shapes she likes etc and I was just so thrilled to become her new friend! We drew pictures together such as drawing each other (hahaha) and after spending much time with  her, I was just moved to be more caring and became more determined to make some better changes for her, her friends and her learning environment.

    Soon after, I had to leave my new friend to start my initial job as a 'mural painter'. As a leader, I showed leadership skills by dividing our job into sub-stages such as painting the background, assigning different shapes to be drawn, and encouraging my teammates for thier further communication and input. I must also say that I really appreciate our mural group (Annie, Jakov and Yuko as well as Savinda who helped us to reach the HIGH with his privileged height which otherwise would have been impossible to paint...)for all thier hard work, encouragement and collaboration we all showed! We got 90% of the mural designs done on this day!!

Me, Annie and Yuko at the beginning

stage of the mural (background). As shown, we were always accompanied by our new friend ^^

                                                                             This is me, painting the 'cool' planet!

26th Jan:

A quote for 26th: "Failing to plan=Planning to fail"

We were once again greeted by the children warmly on our second day of visit. After playing some 'cool games' with the children such as musical chair and bowling, we got back to our work from where we left off the previous day.

The second day! After much group discussion, we

decided to work more on the murals in terms of bringing in some more balance (ratio, colour, shapes etc). This is me, Annie and Jakov working on the mural together ^^


On 26th Jan 2011(the date on the photo is due to the mistake my camera made --;;) We got all our planned work done and afterwards held a small feast and concert for the preschool. The happy SHI group!!

During our planning sessions before embarking on the trip, all of us gathered some money together to buy the gift packs that the children needed (schoolbag, stationary, soaps etc). Again, this would have not been practical/effective if some of the members of the planning group visited the school in advance to find out the real need. This is me, giving out one of the gift packs to each child. This was one of our pracitcal ways to be caring and reflective. In addition, this event helped me to gain more 'global awareness', as the children were taught to show respect for the older ones by touching their feet. However, thankfully the teachers told us in advance the possible cultural differences we might face and so it helped me to become more culturally aware of the environment I am living in and become more open-minded, balanced and principled.

  Our mural group spent some time reflecting on our performances so far. We carefully considered and assessed our work, congratulated ourselves (he he) and communicated for further possible developments. By collaborative communication and staying openminded to each one's opinions, we decided to add some more to what had been planned already (which was another form of a smaller planning) and decided to add more planets, stars and border patterns to bring more balance in terms of colours and ratio and bring more liveliness into it. I learned that such collaboration and flexibility were only possible because we all participated fully, reflected and assessed thoroughly, stayed committed, openminded and caring for each others opinions and shared a main goal! Mr Desilva's food for thought for this day was "Failing to plan=Planing to Fail". The experiences I had during the days of WWW truly valuable and precious because I was able to learn how this saying can be applied to my real life and my environment; I developed and matured as a leader; stayed inquiring, knowledgeable and reflective which helped me to put more effective input in my collaboration with my friends, became a better communicator with my friends as well as with those from different language and cultural backgrounds and thus i became a better risk-taker.