HS Assembly Speech Jan 4, 2021
Happy new year! This is the first high school assembly in the year of 2021. I know many students and teachers made their new year resolutions before the end of 2020. Some of them are even publicized in the high school, waiting to be testified by yourselves and others by the end of this year.
As a school, we also need to have some new year resolutions, especially for improvement of the school. We made some progresses in a few areas last year, but far more things need to be done in this year and in the years to come if we want to stand as a reputable, good international school in Shanghai and in China. A long way is to go.
-Our curriculum needs to be further reviewed and improved. Some pieces in the curriculum do not make too much sense, several components do not live up to our expectation, while a few others might be missing completely.
-Our teaching can be further improved. We will encourage every teacher to continue practicing tested approaches to teaching, learn new methods of teaching, and use more technology in teaching. To this end, we will gradually renovate facilities in classrooms in order to support better teaching and learning.
-Students’ learning can be improved. We see more and more students take responsibility of their own learning and growth. We observe a good trend. Yet, unfortunately, some others still don’t know why they are here and where they are going. They would find millions of excuses for their inaction, laziness, and lack of perseverance. In the future, we will strive to provide students with more opportunities to learn, reflect, and change, and we will hope to nudge these students into the right track of their lives. I come across ‘nudge theory’ in Economics recently, I think it can be applied to education too.
-In the area of student behavior, which is the reflection of your believes and principles, there are still some enduring problems to be tackled. For examples, Digital devices distract many students’ learning, unwise use of social media is proven harm to our school culture, too much junk food and drinks in the school, some students manage school uniforms badly and they seem to need help or even enforcement in this regard, some students are repeatedly late in the morning, some students often ignore or miss homework, etc. To all of the above, we will take some measures in this year. We will push you out of your unsanctioned little comfort zones.
As I said before, each member is not only an individual learner or teacher living in this school, each of you not only live up to your own dream but also this community’s expectations and rules. We should strive individually and collectively to build a better culture, better outcomes, better future for this school.
This school has its principles, rules, and expectations. We collectively created them. Each member of this community must learn to adapt to these principles, rules, and expectations. This statement brings us to the announcement of the education theme of this month.
Principled
You act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness, justice and respect for the dignity of the individual, groups and communities.
You take responsibility for your own actions and the consequences that accompany them.
In our school, we have certain principles by which you can judge what are right or wrong. These principles are our common rules, as a member of this community you ought to learn and comply with them, otherwise you will never be happy in this school. One individual person must also have his or her own principles. You must stick with your principles when you make decisions and take actions. Moreover, it is wise to examine to what extent your personal principles and our community principles match, as you do not live and study alone in this school. You have to rely on others, interact with others, collaborate with others, and help others. Therefore, you and others must share some principles to some extent.
Both personal and communal principles may change. But they are not supposed to be changed easily otherwise they are not principles at all. In a school, we don’t change a rule or a principle lightly unless it is fully discussed by all stakeholders. Before the change occurs, you should abide by it. If not, you will be punished.
Research help us gain more knowledge and solve problems. To achieve this, we need develop and hone research skills. Other than other research skills, I emphasize information and media literacy today.
You demonstrate information literacy such as finding, interpreting, judging and creating information.
You also demonstrate media literacy, interacting with media to use and create ideas and information.
I will talk about a few good and bad examples of being principled first. Then I will explain more about information and media literacy.
These are bad example of being principled. As you can see each of them is against some principles or rules.
-cheat in the final exam (against honesty and integrity)
-do not respect the rules of school uniform (against the set rules and fairness, harm the school’s image)
-send a message hurting a classmate in Wechat Moment (against social norms)
-repeatedly be deducted House Points because of disrespectful behaviors (against the norm of being respectful or other school rules)
-violate the rules of using digital devices but refuse to accept punishment (against digital social norms and perhaps personal principles as well)
These are good examples of being principled. You can always see these good deeds around you, you should learn from them and modify your behaviours if you don’t have them.
-never cheat in any forms of assessment including the final exam
-never miss homework because you know it is important to your learning
-do not lie to friends, parents, and teachers
-reduce using plastic products because you know the environment needs our care
-accept consequences and punishments after you make mistakes carelessly
Let me move on to explaining information and media literacy next. These knowledge and skills are extremely important to your research skills.
UNESCO provides this definition of Information Literacy.
“Information literacy enables people to interpret and make informed judgments as users of information sources, as well as to become producers of information in their own right. Information literate people are able to access information about their health, their environment, their education and work, empowering them to make critical decisions about their lives, e.g. in taking more responsibility for their own health and education. In a digital world, information literacy requires users to have the skills to use information and communication technologies and their applications to access and create information.”
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/information-literacy/
What is media literacy?
Media literacy means “the practices that allow people to access, critically evaluate, and create or manipulate media.” (Potter, 2010)
“Media literacy is the ability to identify different types of media and understand the messages they‘re sending….There are text messages, memes, viral videos, social media, video games, advertising, and more. But all media shares one thing: Someone created it. And it was created for a reason. Understanding that reason is the basis of media literacy.”
Let us look at seven key skills of media literacy.
Analysis分析;Evaluation评估;Grouping分类;Induction归纳;Deduction演绎;Synthesis综合; Abstracting 抽象 (Potter, 2004)
My tips for you when you encounter media. Please Remember:
Not all messages or information you saw from the media are true.
Use your critical thinking skills to filter, analyze, and evaluate what you see or receive.
Many media have commercial purposes.
Use your skills of media literacy to construct your meaning.
Important basic information and media skills that are related to your current study and life.
• Find and use reliable information resources such as websites or social media
• Separate facts (what really happened) from opinions (someone’s points of view)
• Evaluate text and image for perspectives (“it is created for a reason”)
• Deconstruct a text based on principles of logic
• Create media responsibly (know what to say, how to say it, gauge the impact before you say it)
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