On 20 June 2022, I was interviewed by a team of P.6 student representatives during the life education period. The interview was held at the hall where there were around 120 or more practitioners attending the event. 3 students took the initiative as the Master of Ceremony. 5 students, each representing Class 6A-6E, directly posed questions to me. In the process, all students were paying high attention to the dialogue between the student interviewers and the principal. They jotted down every word I said in their notebooks. The whole activity was conducted in English and everyone would need to complete a writing assignment afterwards.

The questions raised by the students that day covered different areas related to a principal’s life history. That was great! Students wanted to learn more about the principal’s past and present life experiences, his relatedness about this school as well as his advice on how P.6 students can better prepare themselves for their future study. The quality of the questions was good and the performance of the MCs and interviewers was great, too.

Below are some highlights of my replies:

In response to the question of “what are the three greatest achievements in my life before retirement”, I replied with the following three things:

Being an educator – I was lucky to be trained as a professional teacher. Then I got the chance to serve, from a novice teacher to a panel head, and then promoted to be a senior teacher, and then Vice-Principal, and then Principal of different schools, from primary to secondary. I am honoured to have served 5 different schools being the Principal and in between, I had a chance to serve as a Lecturer in the tertiary education sector for another 11 years.

Being a father of 2 sons – I am very fortunate to have 2 loving sons whose relationships with me have been intimate. They have very outstanding achievements in their professional career. And they are good fathers, too. One is serving as a pharmacist who is running a business on his own now, and he has his own pharmacy in the US. The second son is a professor whose major is Geography. He is now serving at a university in Texas, USA.

Having the chance to serve the community – During my past and present services, I have been invited by the government as well as different school sponsoring bodies, universities or some famous NGOs to serve as consultant, chairperson, school manager, external reviewer or just one of the independent committee members. These are very precious opportunities for me to serve the society.

If you ask me for my advice on the way forward when you embark a new journey after summer, I would share some of my thinking below:

The first thing you need to do is to quickly adapt to your new learning environment. Before you join the new school, my advice is that you need to know more about the background as well as the special features of that school. Get to know some friends and then, pay great attention to each lesson and be attentive and resilient in your learning. In secondary school, you are no longer waiting for teachers’ direct spoon-feeding, detailed instructions or orders, you should be an active and independent learner because the future is in your own hands! Due to your strengths in mastering the medium of instruction in learning, find the subjects you are interested in and pursue your dream if you have made up your mind! The last reminder I want to tell you is that, remember our expectation on you at WFJLPS: be wise decision-makers, self-managed life-long learners, responsible citizens and moral leaders in future!

For the question of “What is the most memorable experience in this school,” my most genuine reply was that:

I am grateful to Dr. Lee that he appointed me to be the principal of this school. The most treasurable and memorable thing is that I have been much welcomed by all of you, from fellow students, where some might have left already and some might be still studying progressively, and of course, to my dear colleagues and parents, too. The school atmosphere within the school is warmer and closer. The learning capacity in students has been improving and this is a good sign for further improvement. The relationship among people is more harmonious than before. The staff morale is high and the intimacy from students and parents to school has been rising year by year. Yes, I have also conducted some school improvement changes, for examples:

The promotion of “Character Building” and “Values Education”: from a very primitive idea to a full curriculum design
The revision of our existing school development conceptual framework and the relevant policy documents
Creating a new image for this School: setting up of a marketing team, creating and maintaining a beautiful campus and learning environment, colourful banners, posters introducing our school values, vision and mission, Facebook posts, the School official website, and new publications like “Harmony”, “A School We Trust”, “Beacons of Light”, “The Convergence”, etc.
The promotion of writing habits and sharing of wisdom: e.g., the initiation of “Principal’s, Teachers’ and Students’ writing corners”
Increasing the communication platform and building up new relationships with parents, alumni and the community: e.g. the establishment of “Community Hub”, “Alumni Association” and “A Brew with Principal”, etc.

In order not to discourage the learning motivation from the students, I let students know that it was a real interview exercise with genuine sharing of views. Hence, I tended to disregard my draft answer sheet but directly responded to the questions passionately and did not refer to the notes I wrote. The interview went on smoothly and after the interview, I asked some of the students whether or not they understood what I said, or if they really enjoyed the activity. Happy to report to you that they felt happy about my replies and did enjoy the interview session as a life experience they learnt from the Principal.