LCB Updates( Day 1) -14th Oct

Opening Addresses by Education Bureau Officer & President of LC Association

We arrived at the workshop venue at 8am and waited eagerly for the sponsors and participants. We did some final arrangements and Najeeb met up with 2 table facilitators to brief them on their roles. Mr Peter Wong, Education Bureau Officer and also the organizer of our HK LC sharing introduced Mr Joshua Yau, the Principal of the school & President of the LC Association in Hong Kong that hosted the workshop. Mr Yau was in S’pore in 2000 for school visits and heard about Learning Circles. The LC session was declared open after Mr Yau gave the welcome speech to the participants.

The LC Session:

Teachers were highly energized at the start of the session. They came with an positive attitude, with an open mind to learn, though most of them have no knowledge of LC. They participated enthusiastically in all the activities and shared their learning comfortably with members at the table though it could be the first time they were meeting one another.

The 2 tea-breaks were good with the hosting school provision of cakes and pastry from the popular Saint Honor cakeshop in HK. According to the practice in HK, teachers were given one and a half hours to go out for lunch, and they had to rush off by 12.15pm, to avoid clashing with the students’ lunch hour at 12.45pm. We found out that 90% of schools in HK function from 8am to 3.30pm and their lunch hour break being 12.45pm, where students are allowed to leave the school to take lunch.

After the initial ‘getting to know one another’ activities and the basic understanding of LC, participants got into the non-negotiable hard facts segments of LC – critical friendship, reflection and dialogue. It was overwhelming information for participants but nevertheless, they sat through the segments and learnt with an open mind. There was much sharing of experiences at the table level and a number volunteered in the big group sharing. Participants shared in a language they are comfortable with, using both English and Cantonese.

Participants asked relevant and meaningful questions regarding LCs and we tried to address their concerns by sharing our Singapore experience.

At the end of a tired but great learning day, participants left the workshop venue ready for another learning session tomorrow.

We stayed behind to brief the table facilitators for tomorrow’s session and interviewed the President of the HK LC Association.

Marketing TN services & programmes & Introducing the Singapore Education System to the participants

During one of the energizers, Najeeb took the opportunity to conduct a quiz on participants’ knowledge of TN’s programmes & services. They were asked to visit the information booth (which also featured the Singapore Education System). Prizes were given to the winners who could name at least one service or programme offered by TN.