Finally, only two more weeks to go. Two more weeks of studying for the upcoming test week, handing in any final reports and practical assignments, and making plans for the summer break. Time to look back on what we learned this year, and what went well and what went wrong.

This year was the second year we attended the subject ‘CKV’. Last year’s classes were a bit of a puzzle: how did this work, what did we have to do? This year was perhaps even more of a puzzle. I will explain this to you.

We commenced the year with a new teacher. He introduced himself and gave some examples of activities we were going to do that year. When the introducing lesson was over, we started working on the ‘real’ assignments. Our first assignment had to do with Greek mythology. We formed groups and started working on a short video that would tell a Greek story. In my group, the collaboration was horrible. Instead of truly working together, there were only two members who did all the work. However, when we explained our dilemma to our teacher, not much was done to help us out. Instead, we all got the same mark. Luckily, I could convince our teacher of the extra work Esmee and I had done, so he gave Esmee a slightly higher mark.

After this project, we had to watch a movie ‘Requiem for a Dream’. Nobody really liked it, and honestly, I agreed with the rest of the class. Luckily, after we had seen the movie, we had to make a group-painting, which I did enjoy.

The next project had to do with the four elements. We made a presentation in which we explained our investigation regarding the four elements in art works. Subsequently, we made our own piece of art, which was, in our case, a sonnet. Our teacher was really content with the work we had done, however, unfortunately we never got a mark for it.

We didn’t have class for about 3 months, due to the absence of our teacher. Then, we finally got a new teacher, and figured out we still had to hand in three CAs, a reflection paper, and an art folio. And that, with only few weeks left.

So we started writing again. Unfortunately, our new teacher was also absent for some lessons, so we had to do most of our work at home. I think it really is a pity our classes this year were so chaotic. CKV should be a fun subject, in which you learn more about culture, but instead we were extremely busy figuring out when to hand in what.

As for my CAs, I had already discussed with my first teacher what I was going to write about. This made it easier for me to write the actual reports. My teacher had encouraged me to hand in some of my poetry, and he had given me permission to write about my cultural experiences in London, so that report was done already. As my third CA, I wrote about a rugby match I saw whilst being in London, because I believe this sport displays so much of a country’s cultural moralities.

All in all, I am not too happy when looking back at this year’s CKV classes, mainly due to the chaos at the beginning of the year, and the haunting deadlines at the end of the year. I truly hope next year’s students will have more time to honestly enjoy the subject, and get the best out of it. :)