Our learners presented at the 2021 TAISI conference, expressing their views on ‘Unity, Diversity and Equality’ through a poem. A visual treat of words, art and music, take a moment to watch their evocative performance.
I was told about this event through a phone call from my teacher. I felt honoured, but was panicking internally as I only had two to three days to complete the recording and I tend to get very nervous while playing when it is important. As soon as I hung up the phone, my sister exclaimed “THAT’S how you talk to your teacher? Is she an adult or your friend?” My nervousness melted away with a hearty laugh as I sat down and played the piece and it came out almost perfectly in one take. Laughter truly is the best medicine.
Anushka Navaneeth
Grade 10
The TAISI experience was an eye-opening one. It let us express ourselves individually while tying us together by exploring our collaborative skills. It was a thoroughly enjoyable voyage to work on this project and we are beyond proud to represent our school’s diversity, unity and equity. – Aanya Ebrahim
Grade 8
Hi, my name is Aarna, and I am going to tell you a bit about my TAISI experience. The TAISI theme for this year was unity and diversity, something very close to my heart because I feel that everyone should be free, no one should feel like they are being held back. As soon as I heard about this idea, I was on board with it, I enjoyed the whole experience of writing and filming the video. I am very happy that I got an opportunity to be part of something close to my heart, not only did I get to write a part in the poem, but I also got to express myself by recording a few verses. In the end, I learned a lot from this experience, ranging from the emotions I have to use while delivering my lines, to my facial expressions. Overall I loved the experience, and I look forward to many more like this.
Aarna Khatri
Grade 8
The Process:
Working on the TAISI project has been a creative and evocative process. As learners, we have evolved as collaborators, individuals, writers, communicators and artists. The theme prompts given to us was diversity, equity and unity. We didn’t have much trouble coming up with ideas revolving around these prompts because at KC High these are foundational values that we practice on a daily basis. One of the most colourful, fruitful and thought-provoking departments of our school is our visual performing arts programme that perfectly captures the diversity, equity as well as unity. We aimed to provide an immersive experience involving art, music, drama and writing to represent KC High. We started by brainstorming and weaving together a poem revolving around these values and divided parts of the poems amongst the reciters. We shared our poems and thoughts with our artist friends who created beautiful pieces as an outcome of this process. We then gathered a few musicians and guitarists to record fitting instrumentals. We joyfully integrated various forms of expressive arts that lead us to our final project. The journey was one of freedom, expression, satisfaction, art and a process of finding ourselves.
