Food for Thought: Purpose and Passion

Dear all,

Much of last week was a bit of a blurr for me and I apologize for not being myself, but the lack of holiday and long airflights disturbed my equlibrium. None the less, on Friday watching our Grade 10 students fully engage with our guest poet, Ly Doi, bought me back to ISHCMC and why it is so good to be back in school. Raising awareness of banned books and censorship is such a powerful tool for empowering our students. To have our students directly engage with a poet who is fighting to create a freedom to express oneself in the country where we live, is an incredible opportunity for our students. Our Grade 10's will definitely remember this experience, and hopefully recognize the importance and sacrifice that a person like Ly Doi has undertaken to protect the rights of others.

The first of this weeks Food for Thoughts supports the feelings that I have had for over a decade being an administrator in international schools. At the weekend I was sent this TED talk featuring Adam Leipzig, he talks about our purpose. He asks five questions of the audience that help them get a sense of their purpose. I suggest that when you watch this video you answer, as the audience did. Experience, and reflection upon growing behaviours in international schools have taught me that Leipzig's conclusions about thinking about our purpose in terms of others rather than ourselves are quite true. Stopping to identify our purpose will help us better understand who we are and what we are doing within our ISHCMC community. Knowing that we are happier when our purpose is not about ourselves but others should make us more reflective about our work place relationships. See what you think.

This talk by Terri Trespicio touches on a topic that I have been discussing with members of SLTA for a while; passion. No, not passion about something you love. Rather the idea that we keep asking students to discover their passion by giving them time to explore things that they might like to do. The big question for me is whether passion is the right word to be using for this important time.This talk answers this question for me. I now believe even more that we need to be reducing our use of the word passion. We should be looking for other words that can go with time; like problem solving, challenge, exploration, discovery, uncovering. These provide freedom for students to find out more about what they like or dislike without creating an expectation that this will become your passion for life. After all, how many of us can honestly say what our passion is even as adults.

Have a good Sunday,

Yours
Adrian