This is the speech at HS Assembly on Sep 5th 2022
Photo taken in Ontario, Canada in July 2022
Dear SABS students,
I want to spend a few minutes to talk about the Education Philosophy of SABS high school. You should remember that, at the opening ceremony, I briefly introduced the Education Theme of September 2022, which is Open-minded and Social Skills. You might have wondered where this theme is from and why I chose to talk about the two key words. You might want to ask how these words are linked with your study and lives in the school. There are many qualities that you can develop throughout your high school, why these words are selected instead of others. What is the bigger purpose behind these qualities?
After you listen to my speech today, you will begin to understand the big picture behind these selected words and attributes. As a result, I hope you can start consider how you can situate yourself into it and what goals you can set up in line with the Education Goal of the school.
Let us begin with the Vision and Motto of the school as they can reveal the purpose of the school and hence the purpose of you in the school.
学校愿景：School Vision
创办一所影响世界的中国学校 Originate from China, Impact the World
This Vision inspires us to be part of a larger purpose that is to bring our Chinese education experience and practice to influence the world. There are many ways to interpret this Vision in relation to your study, for example you sharing your experience in this school with students or professors in other countries, and there are many approaches to materialized this Vision; for example, gathering a range of curricular resources to help more successful graduates enter renowned universities around the world.
学校校训：School Motto
学为日进，人为日省
Learn for better self, Think for better life
The literary meaning of the Chinese motto is to learn and grow every day, and to reflect every day to become a better person. While the activity of thinking only happens in your minds, activities of learning can be related to every aspect of you, such as academic learning, social learning, emotional learning, physical learning, etc. Therefore, this Motto reflect the essence of holistic education, which I will explain later today.
For the students in the school, we set up an education goal framework. This framework has four domains, which are learn to be, learn to know, learn to do, and learn to live together. This framework is informed by the whole-child education framework proposed by UNESCO (1996), combined with our school's practice that is rooted in excellent Chinese cultural heritage and international education philosophy. In each domain, there are three learner attributes. Altogether there are 12 learner attributes that every student should strive to learn and develop while you study in the school. Actually, this framework serves as the definition of holistic education in SABS high school.
· 学会做人 Learn to Be：成为一个热爱国家、热爱中华优秀传统文化、忠诚善良、坚持原则、胸襟开阔、身心健康、全面发展的人。
Become a person who loves the country, loves the excellent Chinese cultural heritage, is loyal and kind, adheres to principles, has an open mind, is physically and mentally healthy, and develops in an all-round way.
· 学会学习 Learn to Know：习得知识和本领，学会学习的方法，拥有积极探索、勤于思考的学习品质，为成为成功的学习者奠定基础。
Acquire knowledge and skills, learn how to learn, and demonstrate qualities of learning including active inquiry and diligent thinking, laying the foundation for becoming a successful learner.
· 学会做事 Learn to Do：学会应对事件的方法，在日常学习、团队活动和社会实践中积累经验；学会选择并对自己的承诺负责；在挫折中及时反思，坚韧不拔。
Learn to solve problems and gain experience in daily learning, team activities and social practices; learn to choose and be responsible for own commitments; reflect in a timely manner and be resilient in the face of setbacks.
· 学会共存 Learn to Live Together：学会尊重、理解、包容、合作，成为善于交流、懂得关爱的人，并体现一定的领导力。
Learn to respect, understand, tolerate, and cooperate, become a person who is good at communication, know how to care, and demonstrate some leadership.
Although the framework is powerful and inspiring, we make sure the language we use to interpret it is straightforward and relevant. By reading these words, teachers and students can probably imagine how a typical SABS high school learner should look like. We can this typic image as the student portrait of SABS high school.
Students are at the heart of everything teachers do at school. Teachers not only need to know who they are currently but also want to know what they become as the result of our education. We depict the SABS high school student portrait using the 4 development domains and the 12 learner attributes.
学会做人：坚持原则、胸襟开阔、全面发展
学会做人 Learn to Be: Principled, Open-minded, Balanced
学会学习：积极探究、知识渊博、勤于思考
学会学习 Learn to Know: Inquirers, Knowledgeable, Thinkers
学会做事：勇于尝试、及时反思、坚韧不拔
学会做事 Learn to Do: Risk-takers, Reflective, Resilient
学会共存：善于交流、懂得关爱、学会尊重
学会共存 Learn to Live Together:
Communicators, Caring, Respectful
As a school, we have created some good practices in line with our education philosophy.
Informed by curriculum theories, especially the literature on international school curriculum, the school curriculum can be constructed and examined using this three-dimensional framework, which consists of academic, pastoral, and hidden curriculum (Hayden, 2006). We believe that this framework can enable us in the process of continuously reviewing, developing, and implementing the school curriculum. It can guide our teachers’ practices and support our students’ learning. It can support our students to become the successful SABS learners who have the 12 learner attributes in the 4 domains.
Learning to know is one domain of the SABS high school education goal. To know, a student must learn how to learn and learn how to improve learning as they learn. Hence, having good learning skills and continuously developing learning skills is a pre-requisite of being a good learner in this school. We promote five categories of learning skills, including Thinking, Communication, Research, Self-management, and Social.
Dear students, now you have learned the education philosophy of SABS high school, the 4 domains of the education goal, the 12 learner attributes associated with the education goal, and the 5 types of learning skills. Now it should make more sense to you when we look at the Theme of September 2022 again.
Open-minded belongs to the domain of Learn to Be, it teaches you how to become a better person. Being a better person comes first because any knowledge and skills should be directed by good purposes of the person. Social skills is one of the five types of learning skills. To grow to be a better learner in the school and in anywhere in the future, we not only develop some desired attributes such as open-mindedness but also learn how to learn, such as how to work with others for a variety of tasks and purposes.
There are many exemplar students in the school from whom you can learn and with whom you can collaborate. If you choose the right team members to work with and the right example to learn from, you will get better too. For example, yesterday I received good news from the Group 3 SGL, Ms. Catherine Yang. She proudly informed me that our SABS students, Wilson Feng（冯炜宸）and Lisa Wang（汪立楚）, both are from Grade 11, won the Gold Award in Students Investment Competition during the Global Finals session. Let us congratulate them. At the same time, I would like to praise another exemplar student Tina Qiu（邱楚婷）from G12. You probably remember she herself also won awards in the Economics competitions, but this time she offered help to the new team during this summer. Many thanks to Tina for your generous! You and other excellent students are really demonstrating the learner attributes that the school promotes.
Enjoy the week!
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