Speech at HS Assembly May 10, 2021
Introduce HS education model
I would like to spend a few minutes talking about our HS education model. Day in and day out, our students and teachers are very busy in concentrating on several pieces that are most related to you, but sometimes you might lose the sense of the overall picture of our goal. I think being aware of the whole picture of our education and our purposes is important to every one of us because this knowledge will establish and strengthen our confidence in our curriculum and education. Often, confidence comes from not only know how to do it but also why we are doing it.
At the beginning of each month, I have been continuously explaining two of these 12 ECNUAS Learner Attributes. These 12 attributes are our common educational values, they are the qualities that we hope to foster and see in every person in this school. Through learning, collaboration, and contributing to the community, each of you should strive to become a person having these attributes. As I have explained before, these attributes are extracted from both international education philosophy and Chinese traditions. They are the qualities that you will need in your future careers and lives. They are also our school’s educational responses to the uncertain world in the 21st century.
As you can see, the 12 attributes are evenly divided into three areas, including ways of being, ways of learning, and ways of doing. This categorization reminds you that you should seek a balanced development in how to learn, how to do things, and more importantly how to become a good person. In a words, we cultivate quality whole persons in the school.
Learner is always placed at the centre of our education as learners are the primary reason why our school exists after all. Learners’ learning and development are facilitated by three important and carefully designed curricular pillars, namely academic curriculum, pastoral curriculum, and hidden curriculum. These curricular pillars make this educational model not just a theory but absolutely down to daily practices, actions, and interactions among the people in the community.
This table with the three columns shows majority of curriculum components that our HS provides. Every day each of you experiences some parts of these components depending on where you are and what you need. It is a comprehensive and complicated system that can support each of you to learn, grow, and develop.
Yet, to truly benefit from the system you should have an open mind and should be willing to receive and accept new ideas and challenges. I believe majority of our students are of this type and will become excellent learners with the support provided by all the excellent teachers behind each component in the three-column table. As a learner at your age, the saddest thing is that you stubbornly refuse new ideas and kind help by adults, such as teachers around you.
If you believe in the philosophy and direction our education, we together can always fix setbacks and can always find solutions to any possible difficulties. Certainly, your future will be full of uncertainties, but regardless of these uncertainties what we can be sure is our belief and confidence in what we are doing and what we can achieve together. I think this kind of strong belief and confidence in ourselves and in our common business must be firmly planted in the mind of every ECNUAS teacher and every ECNUAS learner. Every step forward can be a risk but with belief and confidence we know we will win.
Theme of Month (May)
As learners, this kind of belief and confidence will protect and support you when you have to take on risks in study and school activities while you are with us.
• Risk-takers
You approach unfamiliar situations and uncertainty with courage and forethought, and have the independence of spirit to explore new roles, ideas and strategies.
You are brave and articulate in defending your beliefs.
I would like to say a few more words about the second line today. “You are brave and articulate in defending your beliefs.”
I think as learners at this age, you should learn to examine your forming beliefs from time to time. You have to agree that sometimes your beliefs must be checked and might not be worth being defended at all. For instance, if you unfortunately believe that you will never be successful; for instance, if you angrily believe that all the rules and policies of this school are limiting you instead of lifting you; or for instance, if you sadly believe that no teacher in the school can help you. Obviously, all these believes make you very unhappy and extremely constrain your growth as a learner. We all know everyone can succeed, the question is how you define success and how you work towards it; all rules and regulations in the school consider our common good, some of them might conflict your personal habits and interests; this doesn’t mean these rules and regulations are bad; you should learn to compromise and respect in the face of these rules; our teachers are here to help you, feeling not being helped might be caused by other reasons, for example, you don’t actively reach out and seek help in the first place.
If these or similar types of believes existed in your mind, I would advise you that you can still be bravely articulate your believes to your friends or teachers so that they can give me some constructive feedback. Once you realize some of your believes might not be right, then you should bravely take the risk of accepting new perspectives, new ideas and new believes so that you will be able to grow and become a better person.
• Self-management skills
You demonstrate organization skills such as managing time, tasks, learning materials effectively;
You are able to manage state of mind including but not limited to mindfulness awareness, perseverance, emotional management, self-motivation, resilience.
The second part of this month’s theme is again self-management. Students in this month continue living with pressure incurred by examinations and shortly the end of semester assessment will come to you too. Your ability of managing your time, emotion, motivation, and probably your use of digital devices is crucial for you to succeed in this challenging time. You should take these challenges as opportunity of demonstrating and developing important life skills. Just do not quit as all challenges are chances for learning and grow.
To close my talk about theme of May, I use a quote by Mark Twain.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain
So, students, you should learn to take risks smartly and strategically. With advice from teachers and parents, you can try new things that you normally wouldn’t do. Of course, you should always make sure these new things will help you grow instead of harming you. Once you take on a difficulty journey, you should also learn to better manage yourself and learn to be resilient, so that you will be able to see good outcomes out of it. Eventually, you don’t want to be disappointed by yourself.
Weekly updates
IB global examination is still in progress, as well as IGCSE exams and AS exams. G9 students continue to take another graduation exam on social studies this Sunday. We wish all these exam takers perform well in these important exams.
There will be a few curriculum information sessions for G10 students this week because G10 students are facing an important decision in relation to their future study. They will choose a program between IBDP and A-Level and choose courses according to their personal interests, academic abilities, and university expectations. I would like to advise our G10 students consulting more before you make this important decision. The people you should speak with include your parents, the college counsellors, the homeroom teachers, and the subject teachers. You may also ask those senior students in the school to learn from their learning experiences.
House Points competition results
-Total merits of April 2021
-April 2021 HP competition result
-Presentation of April winner-S House
-Students who earned 10+ merits this month
Praise these students
-Running total of HP in 2021
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