This is speech at the ECNUAS High School assembly on December 6th, 2021.
Photo taken on December 5th evening in ECNUAS main campus.
The educational theme of December 2021 is Open-minded and Social Skills.
Open-minded
You understand and appreciate your own cultures and personal histories, and are open to the perspectives, values and traditions of other individuals and communities.
You are accustomed to seeking and evaluating a range of points of view, and are willing to grow from the experience.
Social skills
You work collaboratively and effectively with others.
You learn and demonstrate a variety of skills such as listening skills, negotiation skills, leadership skills, conflict resolution skills, when you work with others.
I think open-mindedness and social skills are closely linked. Without open-mindedness it is hard for a person to collaborate with others effectively. Without open-mindedness it is also very hard to listen, to lead, to negotiate, and to resolve conflicts. Open-mindedness is a prerequisite to live happily and work effectively in a socially connected environment. Having these social skills are so important to each of us because we are undeniably linked with others and the society emotionally and culturally.
I will speak more about open-mindedness today.
Last December, I already talked about benefits of being open-mindedness. Possible benefits of being open-minded in study and life include making more friends, gaining confidence, strengthening yourself, experiencing positives changes, and liberating your mind. I can clearly observe many students in our school developing this attribute. Around you, either in classes, or in CAS clubs, or sports teams, or any other student groups, you can see those students who have more creative ideas, who are more confident than others, who make changes to themselves and others. These students do not just complain about what seem different to their opinions and approaches. Instead, they try to listen, to understand, and to find solutions that are accepted by everyone.
In September, many new students joined the school. Every new student who came to this school carried his or her own perspective of schooling, own way of learning, and own tradition of doing things in a school. After three months, I think I can see differences with them. Those who are open to the new values, new ways, and new traditions are becoming outstanding students in Grade 9 and Grade 10. Some become student leaders in Homerooms and Houses, some grow to be well recognized stars in sports teams, while some show great prospects in their study journeys. Although I do not name these students, each of you know whom I am talking about because these students are just sitting beside you. They are good examples of being open-minded, they benefited from being open-mindedness. You should learn from them, and if you can start to look at their ways, then you already take the first step towards open-mindedness.
Now you probably want to ask how you can be open-minded or more open-minded. You can actually find many suggestions and tips online. I will just gather a few for you as a starter.
1. Be curious
As a young learner you should be always curious to know and learn new ideas and new ways of looking at or doing things. Even when you eventually grow up, you should still keep your curiosity as there always be unknowns to you. For example, there are just so much disciplinary knowledge, such as History, Economics, Mathematics, Arts, and Physics, which all provide very different perspectives as to our understanding of the human being, the society, the world, and the universe. Remember you will never know everything. This simple matter of fact should sustain the curiosity of every one during the life time. Lifelong learning begins with open-mindedness and curiosity.
I used to have a discussion with the HSSA about the lectures that the school offers. The members of the HSSA raised some issues and gave some good suggestions. The purpose of providing students with lectures is obviously to spin students’ learning a little bit off as to the main curriculum. Otherwise, why don’t we just add two more academic lessons into the two periods on Friday afternoons. The world that you will deal with when you leave the school is much more complicated than the disciplinary knowledge that you study in classrooms. That is why we tend to bring some fresh experiences and perspectives into the campus in a purpose of extending our students’ horizons. We found that some students are curious to learn everything, some only want to receive information and knowledge in certain areas, whereas some others just do not want to learn anything new at all.
You can see different degrees and types of curiosity and open-mindedness in the three types of students, which I believe will lead to different learning outcomes. I believe that those students who are curious broadly and open to more fields of knowledge, they learn more and grow faster. Those who have narrow curiosity still learn but limit their potentials. Those who have zero curiosity will always stay where they are. Good news is that you can always choose what kind of learner you want to be.
2. See things from different perspectives
People with different life experiences, cultural backgrounds, education experiences, or even ages often hold very different opinions and beliefs. For examples, little kids tend to believe Santa Claus truly exists and he would come to their houses to deliver gifts on the Christmas eve. At your age, you probably don’t believe it any longer. You may have a friend who believes there are ghosts and she would tell you many evidences of ghosts. However, you could have completely different explanations for the evidences that she mentioned. Your teacher or your parents based on their education experiences would tell you persistent diligence will help you improve your academic performance at school, however, after a short period of trying you could think the teacher and your parents lied to you because your scores in, for example Mathematics were still very disappointing. What is the problem here? While the teacher talked about relentless efforts for years based on his experience, you probably just tried a few days though. It is hard for you to understand his perspectives unless the long time has been spent.
3. Read and listen a lot
I put the two actions together because I feel they are similar in nature—you are open to new views and ideas and quietly receiving them in a non-judgmental way. Reading without a judgement is easier to do because the author is not with you and you have to receive the information in the book unless you throw the book away after flipping a few pages. You should be open to and invite many different authors into your study room so you can see how they approach to problems and the world similarly or differently as opposed to yours.
When I say reading, I am not talking about reading short messages in your Wechat. Instead, I am talking about reading well written articles or books that are proven to be valuable resources of knowledge and ideas. You can find these resources in our school library or the online databases that we also provide. Some well managed websites and official accounts （公众号）can also provide interesting articles that can improve your understanding.
Listening in a non-judgmental way is harder as the speaker is in front of you. You tend to argue with him or her. The flow of receiving new opinions and ideas could be distracted by the urge to express your own thoughts. My advice would be focusing on what the other person says and trying to understand his or her opinions fully before you make any conclusion. To do this, you must learn to put your arrogance and emotion under control first. You can say to yourself that “I do not know everything. This person in front of me could also be right.” I often do this practice as I have to face students, teachers, and parents who might walk into my office with totally different opinions and values. Sometimes I even have to deal with angry people who believe their right were ignored or they were treated unfairly. What I always do is to listen carefully first and then try to dialogue. Often, I found solutions and agreements would come up during the open-minded dialogue.
Next I am going to announce the winner of House Point competition in November 2021.
(Congratulate E House for winning again and present the certificate to E House Head and Captains)
I have a few observations about the house point result this month.
Surprisingly, we don’t have any students who earned more than 10 merits from the teachers during the month of November. These students earned more than 10 merits because they received awards outside the school, the students include the members of the iGEM team and Qian, Yuqi who won the Top in China awards with her outstanding score in IGCSE Mathematics examination.
In November 2021, I noticed teachers tended to take more and more points from students while not awarding more students for their positive behaviors. I would advise teachers to give more positive points to students in this month and in the future. I think the main purpose of the house point design is mainly to promote positive behaviors by utilizing positive reinforcement methods. House points provide this tool and teachers can better leverage them to improve students’ behaviors and performances in and outside classrooms. While punishments are still necessary, research and our own experiences have told us that negative reinforcement is inferior than positive reinforcement when it comes to promoting a better school climate.
Let us take a look at house points from the dormitory.
(Praise R House and E House for improvement in three consecutive months.)
With only one month remaining, we are close to the answer to the questions who will be winner of this year. O house has a promising result, but R and S may still have a chance.
The quote of today is:
Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.
This is said by Isaac Asimov, who was a famous American science fiction writer and professor of Biochemistry at Boston University.
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