Walk out of the pandemic

This is a short speech at HS Assembly on Dec 19 2022

Empty playground under COVID. A photo taken in SABS high school on Dec 16 2022.

Dear students and teachers, how are you today? I mean I really want to know how are you today. It is very difficult time for us. Most of you are at home, some of you might even have symptoms of COVID. If you feel ok, please turn on your camera so your teachers can see you are ready for classes. This morning Assembly is the first event at the beginning of each week, so it should get everyone ready for a new week.

I don’t know what you felt when you received the notification of changing to online learning again last Saturday morning. I guess some of you might feel shocked because of the abrupt change, some might feel relieved because they were concerned of the safety at school, some might feel apathetic for they just accept whatever changes after the three-year prolonged battle with the pandemic.

I think the teachers’ feelings were equally mixed, particularly after the frantic ten days following the announcement about the 10 new rules of COVID prevention. They were really very confusing 10 days. As of last Friday, we only had one third of students studied in the school while quite a few teachers were also kept at home for different COVID related reasons. The last words I said at the end of the staff meeting last Friday was “I hope I can see all of you next Monday”, and I remembered I had a strange feeling of uncertainty when I uttered these words out of my mouth.

Then suddenly came the public announcement by the Shanghai Education Commission at 8 minutes past 10am last Saturday. We were thrown back to what we had experienced half a year ago. Most learning activities are now moved to online, except some G12 students are taking classes in person.

In the face of the sudden change, the school and teachers reacted swiftly. In one hour, leaders of the school had met and discussed important matters to accommodate the change. At the same time, parents and students were contacted immediately so everyone was on the same page. Clear instructions were sent to teachers in the afternoon so teaching plans would be modified accordingly. Necessary information, including the time to gather learning materials at the school and requests of home learning, was collected by homeroom teachers. The administration continued working through late last night and the whole Sunday, making sure the new period of online teaching and learning will start smoothly today.

I did not hear even one complaint during such a frantic time. Parents asked questions politely and we responded with the best information we had. Homeroom teachers were asked to work on Saturday and Sunday and collected and passed a lot of important information from and to students and parents. Teachers made their modifications of teaching plans quietly, putting students’ learning at the center of their concerns. Again, at last Friday’s staff meeting, most time was spent on discussing how to support student learning in this difficult time, for example, better use of Tencent meetings, better use of devices in teaching online, Grade 12 students’ progresses, etc.

Dear students, I mentioned all the above things for only one single reason. With all the dedicated professional teachers and administrators supporting you through the confusing and unusual time, the only thing should you do is to keep learning hard. You should pick up your good habits of online learning that you developed half a year ago and throw all your time and energy into the learning in the next a few weeks of this semester. A Chinese proverb goes, 赛翁失马，焉知非福. Everything has two sides; you should pay more attention to the positive side of learning alone at home. Perhaps, you will see fewer distractions around you and more quiet time for reading and writing. Perhaps, you will experience higher learning efficiency and better memorization of knowledge.

Finally, I would advise you to keep distance from the distracting news of COIVD on media from now on and focus more on your review and study for the final examinations. I promise you will be healthier and happier when you manage to concentrate on something more meaningful. You will also be rewarded by good scores and a lot of satisfaction from everyone around you if you persist through the end of the period.

Famous Dr. Zhang Wenhong said at one conference on Dec 17, “It is determined that we will walk out of this pandemic soon, this trend will not turn back.” So, no time to be wasted on the nonsense of COVID any longer, let us turn the page and move on.