By Ezra Cai
16 Nov 2023
On the road to studying abroad and learning skills, I encountered an unfamiliar path and have been lost ever since. So many study abroad terms, P1、S1、FP。 So many projects, EPQ、AMC、UKMT。 The increasingly crowded study abroad track brings anxiety, confusion, and perplexity to my heart at every season node. The Zhixin Society in the west corner of the campus serves as your exclusive tree hole, listening to your stories of studying abroad and guarding against the melancholy trivialities that make you unwilling to communicate with your parents and friends.
Luopin Rao： While teaching every teenager the knowledge and practical skills of studying abroad, I also face every 18-9-year-old girl in their prime. I often find in my communication with students that they are undergoing a transition from adolescence to adulthood. However, many parents, due to their busy work schedules, overlook the maturity and changes in their minds and mentality, and their attitudes and ways towards them continue to follow the same pattern as they used to treat their children. As a result, many of these "children" in the quasi adult stage always feel that they cannot be understood by their parents. As a member of Zhixin Society, we provide the listening opportunities that young people in this age group need. Through communication, we often find that they have their own unique insights into their future major choices, study abroad directions, and career plans. Some children aspire to become farmers in the future, but their parents unintentionally mock them for only studying agriculture in college. Some children may want to study world-class hotel management in Lausanne, Switzerland in the future, while their parents may only want them to stay in Hong Kong and be by their side.
The original intention of establishing the Zhixin Society with my students was to make their voices heard, their ideas seen, and to make this group of new adults who are curious about the future and have their own opinions on conventions at an age where they may not fully understand it feel that the future and life are worth it.
Catherine Xu： I have communicated with many high school students and found that many of them lack learning motivation. The lack of learning motivation leads to poor academic performance, and their academic performance declines. However, their parents urge them to work harder in order to improve their academic performance. The result is that students become increasingly tired of learning and parents become more anxious. Every scolding not only sparks a rush to catch up, but also breaks the jar and worsens, leading to a prolonged period of low mood and a lack of interest in doing many things.
As the mentor of Zhixin Society, I have gradually realized that the new generation of young people have stronger emotional value needs. They crave to be respected in family relationships, affirmed in teacher-student relationships, and recognized in peer relationships. As a teacher who has experienced before, my parents are the elders of the previous generation. The background of the times we are in is changing, and our original set of saying that there is bitterness before sweetness cannot be well accepted by this generation of young people.
A while ago, I guided a child who was transitioning to the path of studying abroad within the system. She is an extremely liberal arts oriented child who can approach full marks in English and Chinese, while science is basically a weakness from primary school to high school. Her ideal is to major in education at University College London, and her parents want her to take the entrance exam to the University of Hong Kong, which means she must achieve high grades in science subjects such as pure and advanced mathematics no matter what. After two seasons, her grades in economics, social sciences, and humanities were close to full marks, but her pure scores were still only at the A-line. Slowly, she began to become less talkative and often stayed alone in the corner. When I first invited her to communicate with Zhixin Society, she remained silent until she talked about her parents, and her eyes couldn't stop falling. Originally, she had always wanted her parents' recognition in her heart, but the goals given to her by her parents were completely disconnected from her abilities and her own thoughts, which resulted in no response to her efforts and no recognition from her parents no matter how hard she tried. She felt a sense of powerlessness, and after a prolonged period of powerlessness, she began to doubt her own efforts and abilities
From her, I see that as a member of the Zhixin Society, we are more about serving as a bridge between parents and children, especially for those students who appear obedient and well behaved. Many times, they hide their true thoughts in order to gain recognition from their elders and the outside world. When the outside world gives them unrealistic goals, they feel powerless and pale, and they do not resist and communicate in a timely manner. They only start to doubt themselves in their hearts and feel that giving becomes meaningless, putting them in such a cocoon and requiring external forces to communicate and resolve in a timely manner. Therefore, let every student customize goals based on their own abilities, gain a sense of acquisition and satisfaction in achieving small goals, gain confidence in this cycle, and thus enter a positive and proactive cycle.
Aaron Hu： A while ago, a classmate from Zhixin Society came to us. Before I could brew her coffee, tears streamed down her face. After listening to her account, she realized that she had a falling out with her teammate during an economics business competition. Her teammate's lateness caused a deduction in the team's roadshow, which made her very sad. After communicating with her father, she felt that she was making a big deal out of a molehill, which made her feel even more aggrieved. The young girl in front of me, who is close to 19 years old and 172 meters tall, made me realize in tears that besides adults and children, there is also a "transition period" between big and small.
In the eyes of adults, from a word from a friend to a like from a stranger, there may be countless emotions that need to be released in the hearts of adolescent children. As parents and teachers, we treat every adult of our age as a psychological child, and after putting ourselves in their shoes, we can detect these small emotions early and listen to these small details in order to truly relieve their worries on the anxious and tight road to studying abroad Zhixin Society always believes that if you cannot guide, then listen; if you cannot listen, then care. No matter how external conditions change, no matter how tense the journey of studying abroad is, maintaining a good attitude and a positive mindset is an important hurdle that every international student must overcome.
Source: Ningbo NBCK
Article: Economic and Business Association
Image: Koi Lu
Editor: Ezra Cai
Reviewer: NBCK Integrated Media Department