HS Assembly
December 7, 2020
Today is the first Monday of December 2020. I will announce the result of this month’s House Point competition.
Behind each plus individual point, there is contribution of a student or a group of students in the areas of academic study, extra-curriculum activities, and behavioural conduct. Behind each minus individual point, there is one student who disrespects our rules and behavioural norms or does not meet our academic basics. All these good or bad performances and actions may happen in classrooms, house bases, study rooms, labs, library, clubs, and even virtual learning spaces. Individually or as groups we are improving or not improving depending on which side you stick with.
The point I want to make to all students is that, in this school, you are not only working to reach your own potential and excellence, you are also working for our collective potential and excellence. The collective could be your House, your class, your clubs, and your school as a whole. All these are learning communities where you can flourish as you enjoy and benefit from a lot of support, friendship, care, and love. These people, especially your teachers and those student leaders, are here for you as we believe in your potential and our potential. Each member in this community should pursuit or help each other pursuit both individual and collective excellence.
Communication skills
Communication is a very important to work, study, lives, and relationships. You always have to connect with other people, therefore, you always interact with them for different purposes, such as making friends with schoolmates around you, asking for help from a teacher, discussing important issues in your House, or organizing activities in a club. I observe some students in our school are good at communication and some consciously develop their communication skills, whereas some others’ communications are not considerate, inefficient, and sometimes offending people even though they didn’t intend to be offensive.
For example, I used to receive an email from one student who left our school. The email only had one sentence, without an address such as Mr. or Teacher or even a Hi. He simply said “I decided to change course A to course B”. A funnier thing is that he didn’t even put down his name after this one-sentence email. So, I had to scratch my head to figure out who the guy actually was.
This is a bad example. I believe majority of our students know basic etiquettes in written communications. If you don’t, then you should learn before you will have to write to a person, whether a teacher, a friend, or a more important person such as an admission officer in one university.
One good example from one former House Captain. She reflected on her experience as the leader of the House. She learned that a student leader has to know a variety of communication styles in order to make things happen among students. A touching public speech can be a good communication, a well-planned meeting with a few key members of the house is a good communication, yet another one-to-one close-door discussion can also solve a difficult dispute.
Different communication strategies and styles may work with different people. To make your communication more effective and efficient, perhaps understanding people and considering for the people whom you want to communicate with are things you should learn and do prior to the communication.
A career website, Indeed, listed four main types of communication and ten key communication skills.
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/communication-skills
Four types of communication, 1. Verbal: Communicating by way of a spoken language. 2. Nonverbal: Communicating by way of body language, facial expressions and vocalics. 3. Written: Communicating by way of written language, symbols and numbers. 4. Visual: Communication by way of photography, art, drawings, sketches, charts and graphs.
Ten key communication skills,
1. Active listening
Active listening means paying attention to the person who is communicating with you.
One great way to be a better listener is to focus on what people you’re interacting with are actually saying, on their facial expressions, body language and tone.
2. Adapting your communication style to your audience
Different styles of communication are appropriate in different situations. To make the best use of your communication skills, it’s important to consider your audience and the most effective format to communicate with them in.
3. Friendliness
Friendly characteristics such as honesty and kindness can help foster trust and understanding.
4. Confidence
People are more likely to respond to ideas that are presented with confidence.
5. Giving and receiving feedback
Strong communicators are able to accept critical feedback and provide constructive input to others.
6. Volume and clarity
When you’re speaking, it’s important to be clear and audible.
7. Empathy
Having empathy means that you can not only understand, but also share in the emotions of others. You will need to understand other people’s emotions and select an appropriate response.
8. Respect
A key aspect of respect is knowing when to initiate communication and respond.
9. Understanding nonverbal cues
When you’re listening to someone, you should be paying attention to what they’re saying as well as their nonverbal language, such as body language, facial expressions and eye contact.
10. Responsiveness
Whether you’re returning a phone call or sending a reply to an email, fast communicators are viewed as more effective than those who are slow to respond.
Open-mindedness
Each of us carries a history, a culture and family tradition, some believes and values. These things make who we are, but at the same time, they make it difficult for us to access to different perspectives and opinions. We tend to close our mind, to be surrounded by people with like minds. We see these different perspectives and opinions be hard to explain using your previous knowledge and be impossible to understand using your own believes and value system.
However, these thoughts and ideas are not necessarily wrong from others’ point of view. Being open-minded is the first step leading to understanding, which can be followed by authentic communication and finding solutions to problems.
There are both bad and good examples around us. A bad example might be the former US president Mr. Donald Trump, who appears to be very closed minded on many things.
I have a good example in our school. It is about the use of the public space in our high school. Since we reinforced the rules of using the library and student lounge, the two places have become much cleaner and more orderly. Many students who disregarded these rules now learned to respect them. However, some students felt that these rules are now too restrictive to let them study there conveniently and comfortably.
One of our current students approached me and asked for a meeting with me to raise the issue that really concerned her. She wanted to know how she could use the library and study rooms more conveniently and comfortably according to her own needs, but at the same time she didn’t want to violate rules or abuse the public space. She understands our teachers’ belief and stance; on the teachers’ side, implementing these rules is to make the space more useful to more and all students. In the end, the library and the student lounge were built for students. We sat down, listened to each other’s point of view, and had a quite constructive conversation. At the end of the meeting, we agreed that making some 30-minutes signages might be a good solution and reminder to students who want to leave library desks for a short period of time when they study there.
From the example, you can see both sides, me and the student, were open-minded and were trying to seek understanding and communication. In the end, a common ground was identified to solve the difference.
I think there are many benefits of open-mindedness.
Liberating your mind: your mind is not controlled by your own previous experiences, your own believes. You will see more and learn more, although you don’t necessarily change your mind.
Gaining confidence: Since you see more and learn more, you see the world and people more confidently.
Strengthening yourself: As you gain more knowledge and understand more perspectives, your strengths are improved, you are more able to join people together, you are more able to make things happen.
Making more friends: obviously, since you are more understanding, more knowledgeable, more open to different people, you make more friends, who will likely do the same thing reciprocally to you.
Experiencing positives changes: the above example illustrates this. Open-mindedness leads to constructive conversation and in turn good solution and positive change.
There might be more benefits. You can keep learning, keep your mind open to others, and learn and practice good communication with others.
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