Sept 2015!

Time flies real fast these years. It’s hard to believe that it’s the start of another year.

Happy school term! Happy 2015-16!

This year, the term started off with a special holiday- the 70^th anniversary of the end of WWII with the surrender of Japan. My generation and this generation are lucky as we have not experienced war. We just heard bits and pieces from our parents on how they made their way through in their early years. From the history books, photos and documentaries, we saw desperate faces mourning for the loss of families and relatives; waste land of soldiers holding on to their guns while whispering on their beds missing their families. How sad!

I read the poem below recently and just have to share that here. This is written by an American years ago on his father’s experience as a soldier in the War.

Rob Walker

Three months was the least we would sail, 
From Fort St. John to St. Ives,
And we set out again with one hundred-six men
 In hopes we would come home alive.

The able on both sides enlisted, 
To wage the Great War on their foe,
And the safety of those who were loved and held close 
Was the force that compelled them to go. 

This was my fourth tour of duty,
With more than our fair share of nubs,
But they would return with the lessons they'd learn,
As long as we stymied the subs.

Two ounces of rum was our issue, 
To be drunk before bed for our nerves,
But we stored it away for that most fateful day 
No ninety-day wonder deserves.

We checked on our stockpile of foxers 
That were saving our lives by their sound,
Whenever we missed with the DCs we dished, 
And the Jerry's torpedoes came round. 

The Third Reich developed a missile 
To skim slightly under our wake
And alter its path to deliver its wrath 
To the noise the ship's engine would make. 

Our Corvette could never stop moving,
For the noise from the foxer would fail,
And the racket that kept us alive would be still 
And the 'fish' would be right on our tail.

The Captain had given us orders, 
For whenever the engine was down,
To slip off our shoes - so we'd break out the booze
And we'd binge without making a sound. 

Two weeks out of port, in the crossing, 
When the spray of mid-April still bit,
In spite of the engineers' efforts, 
The engine decided to quit.

The subs kept on ringing the radar, 
And now we were waiting to die.
As we prayed, the mechanics, who couldn't make noise,
Had no other choice but to try.

As they laboured to fix what was broken, 
The men up above faced their fear,
And no one would sleep for three days on the deep 
With the prospect of drowning so near. 

I saw the crew stagger and stumble 
As the waves and the booze took effect,
But they knew that their eyes never would see St. Ives
If they so much as spoke on the deck. 

The carryings on and the binging, 
With an absolute absence of noise
Caused a fear so intense it turned boys into men
 And some of the men into boys.

And somewhere above me a seabird 
Looked down upon miles of sea
Where the sun on the whitecaps and wind in its wings 
Must have made it feel glorious and free.

As it spotted our speck of a vessel
And thought how men must be at peace
,With forty-eight million warriors killed 
And no plan to surrender or cease, 

It spied this superior species 
From its vantage point, miles above
And watched as the speck slowly sank out of site, 
Out of hatred and fear, out of love.

The scenes depicted in the poem were so vivid and scary. I just hope there would never be any wars in the world. Unfortunately, I just had a push notification on the phone by CNN about the out flux of the refugees from Syria…

It’s still a promising sign, I would say, that the Chinese Party Chairman, Mr Xi jin ping mentioned the reduction of the troops and the notion of PEACE during his speech on 3/9. As an educator, how to plant the seed of PEACE in our next generation is the biggest challenge. We ask the students to be nice to themselves and to the others. It’s crucial to have kindness and respect in whatever things we do every day. We should all have good manners, good habits, and respect each other’s differences. No picking on nor bullying others!

During the first flag raising ceremony few days ago, I quoted a line from the Back to school speech by President Obama to our students,

‘We should all have a dream. But just that would not make USA strong. We need to help others work for their dream.’

This was so true. Our success is not only our individual success, but success of the class, the school, our hometown and our country. We need to work in harmony as an entity.

To me, a strong country is not the one with most troops or the most bullets, but one which embraces diversity, one with citizens all supporting each other in harmony.

Let’s work on it. Start with

Doing a nice thing every day!

Making no complaints any day!

Back to school again!

It's always an interesting scene to see students coming back after the break! Some still feel sleepy, hoping to stay a little longer in bed! Some are a bit nervous about the new school but most are excited! 

Just before the term started, we received the report from the Comprehensive review team from EDB. I was glad that they found our students ‘happy with their school life’ and teachers,  ‘caring and supportive’. They reckoned the atmosphere of the school is ‘cosy’. It was a very encouraging remark as we have been working hard in the last five years on a happy and caring campus.

 Besides, they described our students ‘on the whole courteous, cooperative, cheerful and well behaved.’ Students ‘enjoy their school life’ and on the whole are attentive in class, ‘exhibiting a positive attitude towards learning’.

 I am so proud of our kids though they could still strive for better performance. Today in the School opening ceremony, I appealed to their ‘sense of responsibility in learning’. Teens in this generation are very much spoilt by parents and teachers and very often, they tend to be very complacent about everything and therefore shift the responsibility of learning from themselves to the others. I hope our students would understand their responsibilities in learning and have higher expectations for themselves.

 It’s about time we escalate the level of happiness to one about achievements and satisfaction. We need to nurture students who have aspirations and know how to train themselves and learn for it. We need students to be serious about their studies and put in the hard work to achieve success.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. You write your own destiny. You make your own future. That's why today, I have asked the students to set their own goals for their education - and to do everything they can to meet them. Whatever they resolve to do, I want them to commit to it. I want them to really work at it.

As I said at the end of the ceremony,

‘We love you very much, kids!’ and...

 

‘You have to love yourself and 

make yourself a BETTER YOU!’

Happy 2013-14

What a roller coaster of a year it' s been! Although it's been packed full of activities and events, from the comprehensive review to the musical, it's been an awesome year. There have been so many happy and memorable moments that I will always cherish. 

Happiness is an option and I choose to be happy at all times. We should all seize the day and be grateful for what we have. This year, for sure has been a happy year because I'm proud of the achievements attained by our teachers and students. 

What are your happy moments this year? 

Love

When lots of people these days are talking about Martin Luther King’s quote, “I have a dream”, I want to share with you another of his quote,

 ‘We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that, we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way.’

What else would be more powerful than love?  With love, there would be no hatred. There would be no greed, no aggression, no fight and no war! When we love our country, we would find ways to better it and be proud of it. When we love our society, we would keep it in good shape and again, try our best to improve the situation that we do not like. When we love our family, we would care for each member in the family and try making every day a happy and memorable time for everyone. When we love our school, we would keep the campus in good shape and respect each person in the building by smiling and caring them.  When we love our class, we would express our love and care to each individual in the room and work as an entity. When we love ourselves, we would be healthy and disciplined so that we could enjoy the happy moments in life.

As a Principal, I would love to see my school full of happy and curious students. Every kid would be enjoying learning with the dedicated teachers exploring their potentials. All of us would be loving each  other like a family. This year, I hope we would all be reflective learners, always thinking of how to improve ourselves and how we could help others in the school and in the community.  We should all strive to learn, to love and to serve in the community and the world! 

This would be my dream!

The world needs us! The world needs our love! 

new term 2012

Havent updated my blog for more than a year. Life has been unbelievably busy but I know it is not an excuse not to have any updates. Every time when I have the impulse of writing something, it's kind of hard for me to find 20 mins to do that.

Anyway, I am back! There are so many things I love to share with all of you here. This is my fifth year  in LTPSS. Time flies. I'm glad that the school has experienced many changes and they are all for the better!
This term I have been really pleased with the smiling faces I meet every day. More and more students are at ease and happy with what they experience in the school.

Yet, this year, we have introduced a new venue system- Homeroom! This system has been widely used in the West for years and in Hong kong, most international schools are having that. It actually means that each teacher has his/her home room and students go in and have their lessons. Why? Teachers could then decorate their room according to their subject nature and display students' work. The junior kids can see what their senior have done and they could all immerse themselves in the world of their particular subject. Have you been to a theme park? When you're in the medieval land, you would start to imagine yourself speaking Medieval language, learning Medieval history. When you're in the earthquake zone, you would start to feel the 'shake' and the 'heat'! Isnt that amazing! Actually, last year we tried that out with half of the classes where students have to go to Spanish room for Spanish, Science lab for their science lessons and English room for their English learning. It proved that with a more contextualised environment, students seemed to be more intact with the learning of that particular subject..

I myself love this idea very much. However, when we first started that, my email box was full of emails from kids and parents. They tended to focus more on the transit from class to class where the kids have to walk up and down the stairs. The kids complained that they got exhausted. Parents supported them and worried about their physical condition! Oh, if you ask me, going up and down the school buildings on the contrary, means excellent physical exercise for everyone under the system. Last year, our index of overweight kids was alarming. We hope students could hijack this as an excuse for good exercises. Besides, our teachers told us that last year during a shadowing exercise, they discovered that students easily get drowsy as they have to sit for at least two hours before they have a break. This year, the situation would be totally changed and I believe students would be more concentrated due to better blood circulation.


As in many other schools, under the previous system, students always had sometime in the class left idle in between lessons( when teachers come and go) . Most of them just used the time to chat and didn’t do enough to prepare themselves for the next lesson. This was always the time when trouble happened. The homeroom system now requires pupils to move to another room quickly, thereby 'utilising' the 5-min transit. Not much time is left to chat and play during the transits. Everyone that was here last year can feel the difference in the above terms. We want to educate the kids to do the right thing at the right time.

In the past, when the teachers came in, they normally needed at least five mins to focus the kids. So when we count the amount of time and its quality, we found that the homeroom system has more advangtages. Teachers' teaching materials have all been ready for any class that goes in for lessons. The lessons can start immediately. Unlike last year, teachers having entered the classrooms needed a longer time for the children to get settled. The class time is used much more effectively and efficiently. Moreover, team support for teachers is readily available for homerooms of the same subject are on the same floor or in the closest vicinity.

On the other hand, the homeroom system seems to, if a by-product, break previous 'level ties' which sometimes resulted in bullying. Having been in operation in two weeks, it is evident that there has not been any overcrowdedness in the corridors. Our teachers have planned all the routes with much caution. However, the congestion is sometimes there because the students haven’t got into the habit of walking in single file. That would be something we have to work on.

With the new system, teachers have a much stronger say in their own homerooms to demand cleanliness and order of their own place whenever students leave their rooms. This way, much stronger civic-mindedness is cultivated amongst the users. This is a reverse of the scene, whereas in the past it was the teachers that went into the territory of the students and somehow the teachers even had difficulties in displaying the students’ work as the whole room was 'shared' by all subjects.

I understand that most students now are sometimes faced with hiccups resulted in their forgetfulness. They are required to think about what to bring from the lockers and for what purpose. To us, this is a good training for pupils' self management. This is what the outside world is like. Early training up for these essential life skills is going to be the most valuable part of the life of children.

I truly understand there are rooms to improve or make the system more efficient and so we are all ears to suggestions. I was walking along the corridors in lunch time this week and I found that while some students were having ball games in the playgrounds, some were having chats with the teachers in the homeroom. So we, on the contrary think that the sense of belonging to the school would be more enhanced as what matters are the availability of teachers and the relationship between teachers and students. We hope we could cultivate a happy campus so let’s wait and see and give the system a bit more time to furnish.

I am a strong happy learning advocate! I am sure few years later, our graduates would come back and tell us how much they miss their 'homeroom' and their 'teachers'!

Differentiated Instruction

I have been doing some preparation for the conference I am attending tomorow by doing some researches on the web. I came across an article and the related discussion


We have always been put in the dilemma of whether we should differentiate the instruction in class. Some say that we should have different strategies for students of different abilities and some say that too much labelling causes harm! I have parents calling in and saying that we shouldnt be streaming the students into classes of different abilities as that is demotivating for the less able students. But I also have parents complaining sometimes about the pace of some lessons which have been slowed down because the teacher has to deal with the less able ones in class.



Some teachers tend to be bothered by the marginal group and spend whole lot of time doing remedial classes for them and offering personalised help. This is really good of them. But what about the more able ones, are we trading off the benefits that they can enjoy?



Schools in Hong kong in general tend to be giving little attention to the 'cream' group. We always see advertisements on papers for teachers in doing after school remedial classes, not so much in enrichment classes. What abou the curriculum and the lesson design? Perhaps we should design the lesson well enough to arouse their 'curiosity' to explore further in learning? Or should we give more opportunites to them outside classrooms?


Three of our students won the overall champion in the Cathay Pacific Aviation knowledge contest. They really surpised me! And I couldnt hold my breath as we nearly snatched off their opportunity to win! I remember when the notice of the competition came, it was around the exam period and every one was so busy. Even the teacher given the notice was frowning. He wondered whether anyone would go. I said , ' ask the students! ' Surprisingly, three students came up. They went to the competition, went through the rounds and won the champion! Gosh! This is the opportunity I meant! Given the opportunity, their interest got further enhance and their talent got tapped!



I hope I could get some more insights over the weekend in the conference.

New Term starts

Still excited about the start of the new term though it's 6th Sept already! I love going up the classrooms and meet the students as they are so cute! The S1 kids still look like primary school kids! Lovely! The others are sweet too! Thank you so much, kids, for your smiles! You light up my days!

The job of a Principal is multifacious but to me, building up a good ethos is of paramount importance. It is only when we have a good atmosphere in the school then we could have happy teachers and students doing effective learning!

I read an article on the web about ethos. Here are few lines to share with you,

Ethos includes the atmosphere in the school, relationships between pupils, staff, families and the wider community, the school building and grounds, the sense of welcome and positive learning in the classroom. ....

Pulils learn more and behave better when they receive high levels of understanding, caring and genuiness than when they receive low levels of support.

Good relationships in classrrooms must be based on the teacher having established a framework for order and having earned the respect of the pupils.

A positive and supportive environment is characterized by high teacher and learner expectations, where the learner is relaxed, alert and free from stress, yet challenged.

This year, my teachers are all very keen on building up a lively and positive school ethos. We are all very excited! Let's work hard and go for it! 

Cheers!