Klaudijus Rulys -
On February 15 the first ever
Lithuanian IB convention was held, which was 2 days long and as the school
which has the IBDP for several years now, we got invited as well. Seven students
from IB1 were chosen to represent the school. But before we went to the event,
we had some preparation to do, namely, we had to create a short film about the
IBDP in our school. Me, Kristijonas Lotiukas, Augustė Bagdonaitė, Kamilė Inčiūraitė, Dovydas Jokšas,
Greta Timaitė and Tomas Bilkauskas rounded up some people from our class
and did a little questionnaire, which we taught was the quickest and most
effective way to gather information. Questions such as “What is the IBDP to
you?” “Why did you choose the IBDP over the national program?” and “How to
spell International Baccalaureate?”(My favourite one) were included. We used
our school’s radio club, because it had the best acoustics for recording the
answers. All in all, it took us about 2 hours to film the answers and another 2
or so hours to make it more appealing. In the end, I was really happy with our
final result, the short film, because it turned out really entertaining and I
think showed the IBDP students opinions about the program really well.
When I thought about the IB
convention as an event, I expected and event of 50 or so students sharing their
ideas, opinions and experiences about the IBDP. I got what I expected, though
perhaps to a lesser extent. There were only about 20 of us, which is not bad,
this made the atmosphere cosier, at least for me. Once we all checked in, we
were shortly briefed about the activities that are to take place. The plan
included such activities as a creative workshop based on the IB learners
profile, a meeting with an alumni, the planning of a CAS activity to unite all
the IB schools in Lithuania and various lessons, discussions Also, in between
the discussions we had some games and a tiny bit of free time to get to know
each other better. What was really surprising for me, is that at the night of
day 1, Kaunas Jesuit Gymnasium held “The battle for independence” to commemorate
the events that happened on February 16 in Lithuania . We often referenced to
the battle of independence as to “the hunger games” and the whole idea of this
game was interesting to me and I believe I may use this idea when organising
future events in our school. Because I was really tired after the creative
workshops and discussions, I wasn’t in the mood to play this game. Despite
this, my team won the first place!
Although there were a lot of good
moments, there were also some awkward and confusing moments. The free time that
was given, at least for me was not enough to get acquainted with other participants,
which for me was really sad. This caused an awkward situation at the end of the
convention when we played a game, where you basically have to tell the chosen
person’s name and tell him what you liked about him and what you wish for him.
I had to tell something about a person who I saw only 2-3 times and never
really got to talk with. What I found confusing during the discussions is that
quite a lot of people are still switching subjects, are not sure about their
universities and overall aren’t planning their future as much as I think me and
my classmates are.
On the other hand, remembering
the best moments of the convention, the first thought that comes to mind is
definitely the sleeping bag fights right before sleep on the first night. Boys
and girls had to sleep in different rooms and the guys got quite a lot of
mattresses. We laid out all of the mattresses and we saw that it covered the
whole floor. So we thought of doing a sleeping bag fight tournament, where you
have to remain in your sleeping bag and get your opponent on his back. Just
like real wrestling… just in sleeping bags. Another fun moment was when we were
discussing our subject choices, university choices and the different approaches
to CAS. We all comprehended CAS in a very similar way. During day 2, we were
split into random groups and had to come up with 2 ideas for CAS which would
include all of the IB schools in Lithuania . There were a lot of
really good suggestions and I hope at least some of them, with our
contribution, will come true.
Overall, the IB convention was
interesting to say the least. There was a lot of fun moments, interesting
people and different perceptions of the IBDP.
