Sunday, February 12, 2017

Food for Thought: Taking control of the time we have


Dear all,

It certainly felt like our first week back after Tet was immediately up to full speed with lots of activities and learning taking place in and outside of our classrooms. Our two visitors from Lebanon certainly enjoyed their time at ISHCMC and will be taking a lot of ideas back to their school. As with so many of our recent visitors their comments support that we are walking the talk with our vision for education, and that we are certainly a welcoming school, that engages and empowers its community in a clearly articulated mission. They were most impressed with our willingness to collaborate and innovate with our programmes.

To be able to deliver on our mission means that we all have to work hard which makes ISHCMC a busy school. Last week, immediately after Tet, we had two sets of sports tournaments, age group sporting fixtures, PYPx with parents and creative arts trips across neighbouring countries. Providing opportunities and a range of experiences for our students is very important in helping then discover who they are and who they can be. However, it is also important that we don't get caught up in a cycle of saying that we are busy and feeling that we do not have time for ourselves. As this 11 minute TED by Laura Vanderkam explains there is plenty of time in a week, 168 hours to be precise, it just depends upon how we prioritize. She's discovered that many of us drastically overestimate our commitments each week, while underestimating the time we have to ourselves. She offers a few practical strategies to help find more time for what matters to us, so we can "build the lives we want in the time we've got."



I want to follow Laura's TED by sharing an old TED, but only a 2 minute summary, by Robert Waldinger. I have shared the original version before. This links perfectly with the need to identify what makes us happy and needs prioritizing in our week. Waldinger talks about his work with the longest longitudinal study of people and what actually made them happy and successful. There are certainly learning's from this work that may help us prioritize and create time in our week for the important things in our lives.


As you all know I believe that mindfulness also brings us peace and clarity in our busy lives and that it is important that we give our ISHCMC students an introduction to mindful tools that will help them take control of their lives in the future. As all studies indicate, to be able to deliver mindfulness it is important that we ourselves understand and practice mindful behaviour. Hence, I want to share this link to an excellent website that provides all the information that you will need to understand the holistic nature of mindfulness and how it benefits people. This site focuses on a Zen approach to life which in turn is about mind and body control. This is not religious per say, but rather a further alignment with the key ingredients of our mission, in that it encourages a healthy diet that provides energy to engage with our lives whilst empowering us to be healthy and strong, both physically and mentally.

Finally, just wanted to share some sad news, that most social scientists probably already know and that is  Hans Rosling died last week. He was famous for his desire to ensure that our vision of our world was  fact based.  The BBC Four programme that made Hans Rosling such a widely known name was his classic 200 countries, 200 years, in 4 minutes. If you haven't seen it before please watch as it can be a great tool for helping students understand our world today.



Have a good Sunday,

Yours
Adrian

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