LibraryThe book Drive, The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us is highly recommended by Mr. Chen. The book explains the three elements of true motivation: autonomy (the ability of deciding what and how you work by yourself), mastery (the ability of mastering and understanding almost every skill in certain areas) and purpose, which are applicable to every aspect of our lives including learning.Discussion of NSS SystemS4 students stated that our school provided good preparation and support for them to adapt to the NSS curriculum. They expressed their opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of this new curriculum. Mr. Chen responded that many people from the older generation have discovered that they had chosen a stream of subjects way too early and they almost never ended up using the knowledge in their careers. The new curriculum intends to let students choose a variety of subjects according to their interest. So they do not have to fixate on just one aspect of interest. Also, the purpose of incorporating OLE is to let students gain experience from outside the classroom.Mr. Chen also used this opportunity to bring up a criticism of NSS from the newspaper and wanted to know how our students interpreted this issue. From the discussion, our students stated that EDB should look for opinions from world-class universities from all over the world, not just one university. Also, the idea of introducing such a new curriculum is to help enhance the overall performance of all students, not just enhancing elite students.
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| “Do not treat academic results as your sole learning motivation. You need to find your inner drive, your intrinsic values, to be your long-term motivation for learning.” Mr. Kenneth CHEN Wei-On, JP, the Under Secretary for Education, told our students at a casual “meet-and-greet” during a school visit to SPKC on Monday, 10 May 2010. |
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| During the school visit, Mr. Chen visited IH Room, Library, English Zone and LS Park. Mr. Chen was impressed with the diversity of learning opportunities our school has provided through the “Learning Without Walls” Program (LEWOWA). LEWOWA provides different opportunities for students to learn about academic subjects, cultural exploration, self-actualization through visiting different countries and schools. |
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| English Zone |
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| Developing Intrinsic Motivation is the Key to True Success |
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| The highlight of the visit was the casual”meet-and-greet”with our students. Mr. Chen was really impressed by the willingness of our students to speak up and voice their opinions. It shows that our students are proactive in learning. S3 students asked Mr. Chen what his favorite books were. Mr. Chen said that he enjoyed reading Da Vinci Code, Rules of Four, as well as other books from Dan Brown. Also, he has been reading a lot of books about young people. For example Grown Up Digital, which analyzes the digital generation of this century. The book points out that there are learning strengths and weaknesses of this generation that schools need to understand and adopt new teaching approaches accordingly. Another book is《港孩》, which states the characteristics and phenomena of children born in 1990s. |
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| Mr. Chen added that the new curriculum will adapt a standards-referenced approach to assess students. With different levels of progression, students can learn step-by-step instead of a top-down approach focusing on examination requirements. This provides better for students of different abilities who will still be able to find jobs that suit their interests. |
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| Students’ Impressions of Our School |
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| Students expressed that teachers were very nice and helpful and that the relationship between teachers and students was very close and “friends-like”. Since the average age of teachers is quite young, it is easier for students to talk to teachers because they think similarly. Student Union members said that they worked closely with school janitors and students had even learned a lot practical skills from them. Students who came from different schools expressed that they had learned many different things since the school focuses on diversity and holistic development. Students have a lot of chances to be leaders and join activities that involve discussions and debates which can help develop their critical thinking. Programs like “Learning Without Walls” give them opportunities to explore different areas of knowledge that they cannot learn from textbooks. |
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| Mr. Chen concluded that in the 21st century, young people would need to develop very different sets of skills. Academic results have very little to do with their future careers. The reality is that a lot of successful people are not good at studying when they were students. It is therefore not a good idea for students to treat academic results as their learning motivation. If they do so, students may burn out during secondary school years. He reminded our students not to let the examination or education system affect their learning motivation too much. Life is like the ultimate marathon that requires an everlasting drive to keep pushing. Therefore students should read more books, talk to different people, and understand the social development of our community. Then, students would figure out what they want to do in their lives. They would also be able to find their inner drive and use it as a motivation to learn. |
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