The Doorstep Art Project

Art in our world is used to deliver information that can be digested by a large number of people. It allows everyone to have much more equal access to education. The purpose of this CAS project in hindsight, is to teach art to students in a fun and engaging manner that allows them to disconnect from their usual stress and show creativity through art. I have already completed one full academic year of service through this experience in DP1 as a member. In the few months in DP-2, I have learned a lot more compared to last year due to my leadership of this experience this year. It was a massive commitment for me and something that I would normally never try to do. I have learned important leadership qualities such as taking the initiative and thoroughly leading two completely different types of students.

The Doorstep Art CAS project proved to be an entirely new experience for me, allowing me to take the initiative and lead a group. Taking the initiative helped me develop and increase my decision-making abilities as well as my analytical abilities. It allowed me to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of various courses of action. Taking the initiative also helped me in the identification and capitalization of opportunities. During planning lessons, the biggest challenge that I normally face is allowing everyone to participate. Being a person that would not normally participate a lot, I used my knowledge to give incentives to the students to chip in their ideas and give their opinions for the planning lesson. Taking initiative and showing commitment while allowing students who do not natively speak the preferred language to Doorstep students was one of the few big challenges that I still face almost every lesson. Since the lessons are online, it is very hard to keep the Doorstep students engaged throughout the lesson. Their internet tends to be very weak, which forces us to repeat the same things multiple times. As of now, this has been a fun ride that has taught me aspects of life (such as teaching) that I had no exposure to previously.

It also taught me how I enjoy teaching and spreading knowledge. As a student, it is very easy to know how a teacher feels. Through this experience, I learned aspects related to what it is like to be a teacher. Overall, this experience was a very informative character-building exercise that taught me things that I can carry on doing in the future.

by Vishnu DP 2