Voices from Teachers & Students – M1

World Without Borders: 

The Adventure of the Week Without Walls

By Mr Matthew Lu

MYP Chinese Language Acquisition and Language & Literature Teacher

 

 

Exploring New Cultures and Embracing Nature

By William Fan M1A

 

On April 17, 2023, I went to my first Week Without Walls with my classmates and teachers. I think Week Without Walls gave me a good opportunity to go away from electronic devices and feel nature. Also, to make new friends, and be open-minded to other cultures and enlarged my sight. I think this is a good combination of physical exercises and studying, especially service as action. There are a lot of interesting parts to tell. So, today I will briefly introduce two parts about activities we did and the feelings I have.

 

First, I would like to share some cultural identities and ways of living. Although I am Chinese and I travelled through the countryside before, I still got to know and understand what life is like in the countryside. It is also the first time that I got to talk and interact with people in the countryside. I also think that even though we are in the same province our way of living is exactly not the same the villagers lived happily and are really relaxed in the countryside. They also get a close interaction with nature, they are also satisfied and lived with happiness without modern technologies, fancy cloth and other physical features that could make us comfortable and convenient. At last, we even tried living as a caveman we built shelters and made fires in the open wild with no man-made materials.

 

Second, I would like to share about the left-behind children centre we went to. The first impression of seeing those children and the environment they live in was surprising and shocking to me. That also motivated me on doing all the work on the farm. Every time I wanted to give up, I think of the poor kids and the environment they are living in, and that’s where my motivation comes from and encouraged me to do work. After, I finished the work I felt accomplished, and proud of myself for doing it, and it was worth doing. After all, it is hard to imagine kids who are the same age as us lived in a totally different life, the only thing that could explain this is that “we are lucky”.

 

I think my first Week Without Walls experience went really successfully, and I am really looking forward to next year’s.

 

Reflections on Gratitude and Perspective

Lily Kang – M1B

 

One of the best experiences of my life was WWW for sure. I felt, learned, and experienced a lot of things. I worked on pretty cool activities like building a fire, making a bee box, and designing my own shadow puppets. However, I think the most awesome experience was visiting the left-behind children’s center and making friends with them. 

We worked on the center’s garden during the day and we got to meet the children after the dinner. They were all new faces, but it was so great to meet them all like old friends. Their living environment wasn’t as satisfying as mine or that of my classmates. However, this experience came to me as a meaningful and important lesson that tells me how lucky I am. So, from now on, whenever the thought of giving up comes up, I will think of the ones who are not as lucky as me. I will work harder and enjoy my life.

 

Click here for more details.