Welcoming our new 1st Year students
Sunday, 5 September 2010
I can’t imagine how we could possibly experience more exuberance and excitement during the coming year than we have witnessed this weekend. The waiting and anticipation are over – our new 1st Year students have arrived.
The students in 2nd Year who have received 1st Year students from their own countries have been proudly introducing their new friends to everyone they see, and there has been an almost-over-abundance of smiling, hugging, hand-shaking and squeals of delight as 2nd Year students have been introducing their new ‘roomies’ to their friends.
Among the new 1st Year students, we have welcomed three ‘pioneer’ students – the first to come to Li Po Chun UWC from their respective countries and regions – Bahrain, Tunisia and Northern Ireland.
The formal proceedings began today with a poolside afternoon tea with the new parents. Geographical constraints meant that most of the parents present were from Hong Kong, although it was a thrill also to welcome several overseas parents who had accompanied their children to the College. Following the afternoon tea, we enjoyed a sensational buffet dinner in the canteen this evening – it was canteen food at its premium best.
And then, starting at 7 pm, our 2nd Year students presented a wonderful 45 minute long welcome show with a Chinese theme in the Courtyard. The show opened with a lion dance, and then proceeded through several acts of singing and dancing (including the fabulous ‘Kowloon Hong Kong’ dance that my students presented a few weeks ago at June 9th Secondary School in Pyongyang), finishing with our perennial highlight, a dragon dance.
During the welcome show, I delivered a short speech to welcome the new students to China, to Hong Kong, and of course to Li Po Chun United World College. In my speech, I drew the attention of the students to the four banners, one on each side of the Courtyard, which encapsulate many of our core principles.
On the eastern side of the Courtyard, the core values of the 13 United World Colleges are listed:
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•International and intercultural understanding
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•Celebration of difference
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•Personal responsibility and integrity
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•Mutual responsibility and respect
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•Compassion and service
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•Respect for the environment
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•A sense of idealism
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•Personal challenge
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•Action and personal example
On the southern side of the Courtyard, we have a banner with a quote from Kurt Hahn, the visionary educator and key founder of the United World College movement whose personal philosophy has shaped much of the thinking in UWCs over the past half century. His words – “Your disability is your opportunity; there is much more in you than you think” – were taken from two sources. The first part – “Your disability is 
your opportunity” – were words that Hahn often offered to students who thought that certain standards (whether academic or physical) were beyond their reach. Hahn was reported as being ‘radiant’ when he succeeded in defeating a student’s defeatism, although not more radiant than the students themselves who had learned a great lesson.
In a similar vein, one of the teachers on Hahn’s staff once made the remark to Hahn: “I have no faith in this boy”. Hahn’s response was simply “Then you have no right to educate him”.
The second part of Hahn’s quote – “There is more in you than you think” – came from graffiti that Hahn had seen written on the wall of a derelict building in Belgium before World War II (originally “Plus est en vous”). These words became the motto of the school that Hahn founded in Britain (Gordonstoun) shortly before he became involved with establishing the first United World College. Moreover, the words became the essence of the philosophy that he wished would underpin the UWCs: that each of us has more courage, more strength and more compassion than we would ever have suspected.
I suspect that in the excitement of this evening’s welcome show, the significance and the subtlety of the words on the four banners may have been lost on our new students. It’s a good thing, therefore, that they will walk through the Courtyard, beneath these banners, almost every day during the coming two years.
