Post-reflection
After interacting with the beneficiaries, my general perception of them has changed slightly. I still they that elderly people are hard to talk to and that they are stubborn. However, through this service learning I learnt that we just have to be patient with them and try to create a bond with them. Whenever I was able to find a topic which interested the elderly, we were able to have a good conversation. In the orientation and activities, I just tried talking to them and getting common topics while helping them with any activities which were being conducted. For example, during the origami activity on the last day, I tried comparing what I did with one of the elderly and tried helping her if it looked like she missed a step. In terms of communication, I felt that the best way to keep a conversation was to find a common topic like what they like to do or common experiences. From interacting with them I have learnt that sometimes you can help people a lot just by listening to them as I found that sometimes they just want someone to talk to. Another thing that I learnt from interacting with the elderly is that they have a lot of little chunks with wisdom which they have obtained from their lengthy experience through life. Some special experiences gained that I can remember is that one elderly told us that in order to be the best, we had to keep fighting. So, you could relate this to my course in that you have to working hard to become the best. Some social issues that I can observe with interacting with the elderly is that there were some elderly people whom I talked who came here because they had nothing to do or that they were alone at home. While it could be because their children are at work, it could be because the elderly lived alone in a HDB flat so they just decided to come here to pass time and interact with their friends. We cannot really fix this issue, so what the school and I can do is just keep organizing activities like the service learning to brighten up their day I think I have done well trying to interact with the elderly whom I am able to approach, however I feel that I could improve in not sticking to my group of friends as it was usually a group of us just interacting with one person so next time I should try to break off by myself to try and interact with other elderly. I feel that in terms of knowledge and resource, I had every I needed. However, I feel that the school could have better organized the service learning as we were supposed to be assigned an elderly to stick with and interact but we were never assigned anyone, so we just picked whichever random elderly we talked to during the sessions. Overall, although the session was a bit unorganized, I felt that the sessions were a fruitful experience in learning how to be tolerant as well as getting advice from the beneficiaries, so I think that it was a hard but good experience to learn from.
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For our first visit to THK@Bukit Batok, 3 of us were paired with J (Not real name), who was actually a helper at the centre. We played a game called Rummy-O, which is played by matching cards based on number and colour. During the game, J told us that the elderly at the centre generally disliked playing this game as they felt frustrated by the mathematical aspect of the game or they would rather play mahjong instead. At the end of the whole session, she told us she had a lot of fun playing with us today. Overall, I think all of us had a good time especially J, who doesn't get to play this game with other people often so I was happy that I was able to help.
From this I learnt that different people may have different frustrations and that we should all try to accommodate each other so that at the end of day we will be able to create a better experience for everyone. I hope that when we return for the next visit, we will be able to make more people happier and create a fruitful experience for everyone there. |