Kang Chiao Spotlight Issue 22 (小學部)

　　Many studies show that character education not only improves social skills but also increases academic performance and has a positive impact on school culture. When planning for English projects, our teachers integrate character education into project based learning. By involving students with community or global issues, the students develop positive character skills naturally through solving real-life problems.

　　Do you agree that boys are more active than girls? Or that girls are quieter than boys? These are common gender stereotypes. Through the project, Strength Has No Gender, our grade five students learned about gender equality and worked against bias and its negative impacts. Please join them to build resistance to gender bias and you will realize how we, as adults, reinforce gender stereotypes and inequities in our culture.

　　不論教育如何改革、翻轉，「品格教育」是千古不變的價值，我們認為「品格」不能只是抽象的教條，更重要的是培養思辨和決策的能力，讓孩子能做出好的選擇並且能實際參與和實踐。透過英文專題連結真實生活情境，帶領孩子去體驗和對話，從情感面激發孩子良善的動機，鼓勵展現良好的道德，進而建立品格核心價值。從王雅薇組長的文章，您將看到更多品格教育融入英文專題的實例。

　　請您畫一位工作中的醫生或護士，您會畫男生還是女生？這樣的一個課堂活動，竟讓五年級的孩子們發現，原來「性別刻板印象」深植人心，女生應該溫柔細心？男生應該勇敢大方？我們問孩子：「為什麼你們有這樣的想法？」最多的答案竟然是：「爸媽或老師說的。」性別刻板印象是學習來的。歡迎爸爸媽媽一起加入孩子們所發起的「破除性別刻板印象」運動。

　　溫馨12月，國際處策劃一系列聖誕活動，「聖誕倒數月曆」今年依舊天天帶給大家驚喜，六年級學長姐發起的「家扶中心募捐活動」持續獲得學弟妹的響應，一、二年級寶貝們也正勤練聖誕歌謠，校園充滿濃濃的佳節氛圍，也祝福大家耶誕平安如願！

　　Character education is the learning of core values. It begins at home and continues on at school. To cultivate social elites who are competitive on the international stage, teachers in KCIS focus not only on their students’ academic performance but also on their character education. Across our vast array of lessons, cooperation, empathy, thankfulness, and persistence are just a few of the essential values that our students are immersed in and encouraged to put into practice in their daily lives.

　　From the Grade 1 project ‘Let’s Work Together,’ students learn to appreciate the strengths of others by working together as a team to achieve a goal. First grade students tend to be quite self-centered at this stage of their mental development. However, with careful guidance from their teachers, they begin to see what other students are good at and sometimes better at than themselves. This project also leads them to realize that through cooperation they achieve a greater degree of success faster when preparing for the Christmas Carol Show. They learn that all members of the team are important, and that everyone compliments everyone else as they work together to prepare to perform their chosen song.

　　Empathizing with people in need

　　From the 4th grade, students become keen to develop their social skills. They start to care more about how their friends see them and they become aware of those who are different from the norm. In the project, ‘Raising Awareness for Disabilities,’ students come to terms with some of the difficulties that disabled people may experience by attempting to do classwork without the use of their arms or legs or by being blindfolded. After they realize just how inconvenient it is, they start to think about what facilities and services a disabled student at Kang Chiao might need. The values of empathy and thoughtfulness are planted and gradually begin to take root in their hearts and minds through this wonderful project.

　　Learning to be thankful

　　Another good example is the Grade 6 ‘Poverty’ project. Students learn how people in very low income-brackets live, and imagine the difficulties they might face. They figure out the relationship between the causes and effects of poverty. When our students realize just how fortunate we are, they are driven to make a difference by starting a school-wide donation drive to help people in need by way of the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families.

　　Never giving up

　　In their Kang Chiao Future Skills (KCFS) classes, students experience what can be termed the productive struggle. The productive struggle is when students must go through a series of failures before they can achieve success. In this, students learn the value of never giving up until ultimate success has been achieved.

　　Character education is essential, and foundational values can be learned from a very young age. From Grade 1, our students are immersed into a wide array of indispensable values that are embedded into their English lessons, along with the many others that are rooted in KCIS’s broader curriculum. They learn the benefits of cooperating in a team, empathizing with those in need, being thankful for what they’ve got, and never giving up in their pursuit for success. With this immersive approach to value-training, we are cultivating leaders who will be competitive on the international stage as they take greater responsibility to face the challenges and solve the problems of tomorrow!