Another Week with Many Highlights
Another Week with Many Highlights
One of the things I love about my job is the variety. Every day is different, with stimulating new challenges, new ideas, new motivations and exciting change. You may have the idea that my typical week consists only of a single highlight (or, even worse, no highlights!), because I tend to focus my blogs each week on single themes or events. Nothing could be further from the truth!
There is no such thing as a typical week in my life these days, and this week was no exception, as the Easter break meant that we had just four days of classes. Among the many, many highlights of this particular week, the following spring to mind:
On Tuesday afternoon, I had my last GCAT (Global Concerns Action Team) meeting for this year. GCAT is the service group I formed in 2004 which has played a significant role this year in working to serve such diverse groups as lepers in China, orphans in Cambodia and primary school children from ethnic minority groups in China. The students managed to raise almost $30,000 this year in addition to their work in the field, and our last meeting was a great time to share some drinks and nibbles as we reflected on the year and acknowledged the excellent leadership of Chris and then Melissa, as well as the individual Project Team leaders over what has been a very busy year.
After the GCAT meeting, I met with the Director of Studies and the Heads of Departments as we held the last in a series of meetings to consider the questionnaire that forms the main part of the IBO (International Baccalaureate Organisation’s) 5-year self-review of the College that is due to be completed at the end of this month. It was encouraging to realise just how strongly LPCUWC implements the principles and philosophy of the IB Diploma program, while also avoiding complacency by identifying ways in which we can implement this excellent program even more effectively. It was especially good to recall ways in which the dedicated efforts of our teachers serve our students so effectively.
On Wednesday, I also attended a presentation by representatives of the Christina Noble Foundation, which runs orphanages in Vietnam and Mongolia where our students serve during Project Week each year. The partnership between the Christina Noble Foundation and our service program is mutually beneficial and very important for the young people who are helped through the inspiration of Christina Noble.
Following the Christina Noble presentation, we held our regular college meeting. These are meetings of all members of the college community (teachers and students) convened and chaired by students from the SCC (Students’ Consultative Council). College meetings are important opportunities to discuss important issues openly and frankly, to develop speaking and leadership skills among the students, and to develop open personal communication independent of technology such as mass e-mails and internet chat forums, the possible establishment of which was paradoxically one of the significant topics discussed at this meeting.
The fortnightly SCC meeting followed the College meeting. The structure of the SCC has been improved this year with representation now reflecting both geographical macroregions of the world in addition to individual residential blocks. The SCC representatives are outstanding, committed young men and women whose efforts, sadly, frequently go unrecognised by their fellow students despite their importance - but that is often the nature of authentic leadership that seeks to serve others!
I began Thursday morning by discussing Extended Essays with several of the students whose essays I am supervising in Geography. Several of the students need to develop questionnaires that will be administered during the coming summer break, so I wanted to make sure that they are all on the right track. They are! Actually, I should say that at least the students that I DID meet with this week are on the right track! The half hour slots of time I spend with my Extended Essay students is always rewarding and stimulating, and this week was no exception.
We have a vacancy next term for a Chinese language teacher to fill a maternity leave position. On Thursday morning, I interviewed one of the applicants who happened to be a graduate of LPCUWC. Originally a full scholarship student from Qingdao, in China’s Shandong province, the student graduated in May 2004, just two weeks after I started at LPCUWC. Needless to say, I therefore cannot take any credit for the fine way in which this outstanding young man has developed – although I was impressed that he remembered content from my graduation speech to him in late May 2004!
Using the fine weather that same morning, we took the opportunity after announcements to take our traditional annual college community photograph in the spectator area beside the swimming pool. It is always fun to watch our student photographer use the remote timer on the camera, and then try and run around the pool to join the group before the shutter releases. This year’s photographer was quite a sprinter, so hopefully we will have a photograph with everyone standing and smiling, instead of having one person sprinting into the frame from the right hand front corner!
On Thursday afternoon, I attended one of my most important annual meetings – the meeting of the Hong Kong United World Colleges Selection Committee that allocates the scholarships to various United World Colleges (including LPCUWC) commencing this September. I am the Secretary of that Committee, which is appointed by the Home Affairs Bureau, and the Chair is Dr Betty Chan, who graciously hosted the meeting at her school, the new Yew Chung Secondary School at Kowloon Tong. Because of the high calibre of the applicants – which gets stronger and stronger each year – it took us all afternoon to allocate 48 places to LPCUWC plus another 14 places to overseas UWCs, including for the first time ever, a student to the new UWC in the beautiful historical and cultural centre of Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina). This extra scholarship offer became possible following discussions between myself and the Head of UWC in Mostar, Mr Paul Regan, at the recent UWC International Board Meeting at UWCUSA, Montezuma (USA). All the members of the Selection Committee contribute their time on a voluntary basis, and take the task of choosing the best students to represent Hong Kong in the international settings of the various UWCs extremely seriously.
On Thursday evening, I attended the weekly GIF (Global Issues Forum) meeting in the lecture room. GIFs began a couple of years ago as a student-led initiative to offer a venue for students to learn from each other and discuss issues of global and international importance. Presentations are given by one or two two students on a topic of interest to them, and this is followed by general questions and discussions. This week’s topic was Québec and its place within Canada, and was led, naturally, by our French-Canadian student, Philippe.
As always, my week did not end on Friday evening. Apart from my weekend work of typing two speeches to be delivered next week plus compiling and typing a board report (I am not including these as highlights of my week!), I was privileged to be invited to attend the 20th Awards Presentation Ceremony of the Sir Edward Youde Scholarship Fund, held on Saturday afternoon in the Concert Hall of Hong Kong City Hall. Sir Edward Youde was a former Governor of Hong Kong, and he established a trust fund that has now grown to $136.4 million to provide scholarships to worthy Hong Kong students. The reason for my attendance was that three of our students were receiving scholarships. Remarkably, two of the ten scholarships awarded in Hong Kong for overseas university studies in 2007/08 went to LPCUWC students - Ray Fung and Kant Leung, plus a third scholarship to Kelvin Ling. Anyone who claims that boys are disadvantaged in co-educational schools obviously does not know about LPCUWC! The ceremony was very impressive, and included the presence of Lady Youde who flew from the UK to be present. Congratulations to Ray, Kant and Kelvin!
Well, those are the highlights of my week. Sorry they have resulted in quite a long blog, but I do enjoy my job and it is hard to convey the flavour of the things I do in any less space. Fortunately, it was a short working week because of the Easter break last weekend! And I have left out my “less-than-highlight” activities like opening mail, dealing with routine correspondence, signing MRFs (Materials Requisition Forms), and so on.
Okay, that was last week – now, I’m ready to take on all the fun of THIS coming week!
Sunday, 15 April 2007
“Street Names”, a sculpture at the 2007 LPCUWC IB Diploma art exhibition, by Lauren Kwok