Relatives and friends are out of CAS?

[Anasti]

This topic actually bothers me a lot! As I asked before to my CAS Coordinator, I've learned that teaching what you know to someone else can be counted as Service. But the person you are teaching must be someone you didn't know before. So she said, that the people I will be helping shouldn't be my friends or my relatives etc.

For me this rule is prettty unnecessary. CAS is about helping the others without any expectations or profit right? I really love doing CAS activities but these types of rules make me feel limited. IB is about "Getting out of your comfort zone" I know, but for me there is no difference between teaching an instrument or a language to someone I know or somone I just met. They are both equally challenging and helpful. So what is the point here?

I just wanted to know your thoughts about this situation. Did you guys have trouble with this type of rules? Am I wrong to think this way? Let me know

Edited January 25, 2017 by Anasti

[azara]

I don't think that's an IB rule, it's probably one your school just made up.  Personally, I think the regulations should be unimportant to CAS.  What's actually important is the spirit with which you approach it - so when you're teaching music, you should be putting lots of effort into it, and doing things you're passionate about, as opposed to just "doing activities for the hours".  If you're working hard, dedicated, and enjoy what you're doing, I think you're completing CAS correctly, regardless of school regulations.

For my school's weird CAS rules, I found the best method was to make it sound like what I did was way more important than it actually was.  In your case, I would omit the information of who I was actually teaching i.e. title your activity "musical instrument tuition" and just never mention who they are.  Then rave about how great it is in a whole number of ways, and they probably won't care who you were teaching.  Just make sure you're always steering the conversation towards positive things you learned, rather than the specifics of what you did.  I think that's the most important part of CAS, anyway

[kw0573]

I know that in outdated CAS rules, the participants of an CAS activity cannot be family members. However in the latest rules (2017 and later), there is no mention that CAS cannot involve a family member, and it also is explicitly permitted to tutor in a school setting. 

[tim9800]

CAS is just the IB's way of preparing you for what you'll inevitably face in the future - interaction with others and serving them, whether they be known or unknown. A surgeon is trained to treat his or her patient to the best of their abilities, whether they be family or non-family. There may be emotions if they are treating family, but the end goal is the same. So in short, yes, there is no difference between family/relatives and people you don't know, and the IB is being a tad stingy. But in the real-world, how often are you going to serve your family or relatives? Out of n+1 families there are n more families that you don't know and probably have to serve compared to your own. I'm guessing the IB also has that restriction because of people who might use their families for all CAS activities, hence defeating the purpose of CAS.