CAS - Creativity, Action & Service

Alright there comes a point in time when
things dont always work the way i think they should work
perhaps its because im just fussed up over the whole CAS porfolio-ing
and start whining...
but what ever it is, im just gonna express my unhappiness
at CAS

CAS stands for Creativity, Action & Service
As a student of the IB (International Baccalaureate) Diploma Programme, we are required to fulfill a minimum of 50 hours for Creativity, 50 hours for Action, and 50 hours for Service - a 150 hours in total.
And upon completion of a certain project which encapsulates a certain mumber of hours for each category (CAS), students are required to submit a report and a proposal to obtain approval for the number of hours clocked in. Portfolio-ing includes a log of every single activity done.

now let me air my views, im not happy about 2 things about CAS, but perhaps it would be difficult to change...

Firstly, i feel that the sole purpose of the CAS is to ensure that all IB World students are involved with meaningful activities outside curriculum. This is to enrich the learning experience through community involvement projects, organisation and planning for camps, learning a new sport, teaching a new sport. Im not saying that these are redundant and we should do away with them. Definitely not coz i find these activities interesting and character-developing. What i am trying to say here is that there shouldn't be any recording of hours required.

Its like we have to account for every good deed we are doing - every single hour of it. Its like helping an old granny over the road and taking credit, accounting for it in a notebook. This defeats the whole spirit of community service itself! which is to serve others, not because it concerns hours and criteria, but rather the deed itself which makes life more meaningful.

A student once asked about whether he could complete the whole CAS thing within half a year and slack off for the rest of the years of the IBDP. The teacher sternly replied 'no you cannot! you are defeating the whole purpose of the IB CAS program! You are expected to complete these hours over the length of 2 years to ensure your continual involvement in activites outside curriculum hours.' What i have to say here is that, you see - students now see CAS program as an hours-completion assignment rather than meaningful hours of activity.

The thing about our school and its nature is that most of the students are constantly involved in projects, planning sessions, CCA (Co-curricular Activity) involving sports and games, clubs and societies, performances such as Centrestage requiring more than a month of careful planning and that most of them usually meet the criteria quite easily. However, these students complete these activities without logging in hours because in the spirit of the activity itself, hours do not matter but the work done itself. And it seems that at every end of the term, students are stressed over remembering how many hours they did, and how to split specifically those hours into CAS which is simply too tedious.

I say, we do away with those hours. i say yes to portfolio-ing of activities and obtaining a reflection from each activity done. I feel that this is more in tune with the spirit of CAS, rather than just simply an hours-completion assignment.

The second thing im not so happy about is the unclear line drawn between what is considered CAS, and what is not. For example, there is the question whether service hours should be awarded (why is this word here???) to students involved in Centrestage - a fund-raising activity for the school. Some teachers felt that service hours should be awarded to students doing Community Service, and not this form of activity. But in the first place, these students put in a lot of sweat and blood into getting this together to raise funds for the school, and this IS service to the school, and hence shouldnt there be NO question whatsoever concerning whether these students deserve (why is this word here???) service hours. They are working in pendulum with the CAS spirit, doing this outside the box of normal curriculum.

I say we need to define more clearly what is CAS hours awarded to. Another example would be students who come down to school the whole day to plan out an activity or a camp. How should these students divide the time up into creativity, service and action since the activity itself does involve the action of the students practicing the activities planned themselves, service to the school by facilitating such a camp, and creativity involved in planning such activities. That is what i mean...all 3 of CAS are involved at almost every point in time. How should we, as students, know how to divide it? divide it into 3?


Well, expression is only superficial if nothing gets done
i hope someone would read it and help US ib students sort this out.