Principal's Newsletter 11.5

11月5日校長信

Dear Students, Parents, Teachers, Staff, Board Members, Friends and All other Readers:

親愛的同學、家長朋友們，教職員工和各位董事以及關心瑞得福的各界朋友們：

I would like to make a clarification regarding the layout of my weekly newsletter. While the three sections remain the same—Academics, Spotlight, and Week in Review—please know that the applicability of the section “Academics at RDFIS” goes beyond our school. This edition is no exception. In Part 1, the Academics Section, read about the harm that labels cause, not just to the one labelled but the one doing the labelling. While the harm certainly applies to designating academic levels—both positive and negative—the harm goes beyond academics to areas that, alas, come back to impact a student’s sense of academic self. Part 2 shines a light on the importance of the topics of health & fitness and how that was on full display at RDFIS’ annual Field Day. Finally, as always, Part 3 will give some idea of the week in pictures. So much happens at RDFIS in any given week that it is, in fact, impossible to do justice to conveying all our students achieve. Know that this is only a snapshot. I hope you enjoy reading about our uniquely positioned and distinctively unequaled school.

我想對每周校長信的謀篇布局進行說明。雖然這三個部分仍然是相同的“學術、當期聚焦和一周回顧”三大模塊，但請知悉“RDFIS學術”這一模塊的適用范圍并不限于本校。本期校長信也不例外。在第1部分，即學術部分，您可以看到標簽對人所造成的傷害，不僅使被貼標簽的人受到傷害，對貼標簽的人同樣如此。貼標簽的傷害通常在認定學生存在不同的學習水平并給予積極或消極的評價時產生（如下結論說“某某是優(yōu)等生或差生”），但傷害不僅限于學術領域，還會影響到學生的學術自我意識。第二部分闡述了身體健康和健身主題的重要性，以及介紹瑞得福國際學校的年度運動會如何充分展示了以上主題。最后，和往常一樣，第三部分將在圖片中介紹本周的一些情況。在每一周里，校園里都會有許多讓大家喜聞樂見的瞬間。事實上，由于這是一個校園快訊，我們無法事無巨細全部介紹所有學生在一周所達成的成就。但我仍希望您樂于了解在我們卓越又獨特的RDF校園里所發(fā)生的一切。

ACADEMICS: AVOID LABELS

學術：避免貼標簽

What follows is drawn from a TEDx talk by Psychology Professor, John Shaw, of Lafayette College.

以下內容摘自拉斐特學院心理學教授約翰·肖的TEDx演講。

I’ve always been uncomfortable with labels even as I understand that it is difficult to avoid them. For me, it was a matter of seeing the inaccuracy of boxing a person in. Professor Shaw’s talk gives sound arguments, based on research, to steer clear of labels.

即使我知道貼標簽很難避免，但是我一直對此感到如芒在背。對我來說，這類似于看到把一個人困在籠牢里的錯誤事件。肖教授的演講基于研究為避開標簽給出了合理的論點。

The purpose of labels, as Shaw notes, is to solve for y where y is the essence of a person. It is a work-around the time and effort it takes to really find out what someone is like. He rightly asserts that labels are “powerful, automatic, and resistant to change.” Professor Shaw’s words immediately made me think of the large body of research pointing to the fact that a teacher’s expectations of a student often determine the academic achievement of that student, for good or bad. On what are these expectations based? Why labels, of course.

正如Shaw所指出的，標簽的目的是解決y的問題，其中y是人的本質。這是一個圍繞著時間和努力的工作，以此來真正了解一個人是什么樣的。他正確地斷言，標簽是“強大的、自動的、不易改變的”。肖教授的話立刻讓我想起了大量的研究——這些研究指出，教師對學生的期望往往決定了學生的學業(yè)成績——無論是好的是壞的。這些期望基于什么呢？當然，還有為什么要貼標簽呢？

One might say that a student is good at English, or bad at English; has a high TOEFL score or a low TOEFL score; likes to read or doesn’t like to read. These characterizations—read labels—may seem to be harmless enough. After all, aren’t we just giving information? Are we just stating a fact? Well, no, exactly.

有人可能會說一個學生的英語很好，或者英語不好；托福成績高或低；喜歡閱讀或不喜歡閱讀。這些標簽上的特征似乎是無害的。畢竟，我們不就是在提供信息而已嗎？我們只是在陳述事實嗎？不，當然不僅如此。

Logically speaking, how informative are these statements really? In saying that a student is good at English, for example, what does that say about the student’s ability to read, write, understand, and speak English? Even within those four categories, the topic is broken down in a large number of sub-topics. Similarly, how descriptive is it to think of a student as someone with a high TOEFL score? What does that tell you about the student and what constitutes “high” anyway? Finally, it is highly unlikely, I submit, that someone does not like to read at all. At the very least, one could modify that statement with a description of the genre and by adding the adverb yet.

從邏輯上講，這些陳述的信息量到底有多大？例如，如果說一個學生英語很好，那么這個學生的讀、寫、理解和說英語的能力具體如何呢？僅僅是在這四個類別中，主題也被分解為大量的子主題。同樣地，把一個學生看作托福高分的人，這樣所描述的話包含了多少內容？關于這個學生，這告訴了你什么？什么是“高”呢？最后，我認為，很可能有人根本不喜歡閱讀。至少，我們可以通過對體裁的描述（如科幻、新聞）和添加副詞來修改“不喜歡閱讀”的這種說法。

As Professor Shaw says, when we use labels 1) We become lazy perceivers; 2) We over simplify; and 3) We succumb to prejudice and discrimination. What’s more, once a label is said, it takes a great deal of effort to look beyond the label to actually glimpse at what is the complexity of each person. In addition to being inaccurate, labels lead to the following unfortunate outcomes: self-fulfilling prophesy; stereotype threat; decrease in self-esteem; shame, guilt and fear, for example.

正如肖教授所說，當我們使用標簽時，1）我們變成了懶惰的感知者；2） 我們把復雜事物簡單化了；3）我們屈服于偏見和歧視。更重要的是，一旦一個標簽被提及，它需要花費大量的努力去超越標簽才能真正了解每個人的復雜性豐富性。除了不準確之外，標簽還會導致以下不幸的結果，例如：自我實現(xiàn)的預言；刻板印象威脅；自尊下降；羞恥、內疚和恐懼等等。

So, the next time you might be tempted to categorize a student; to label a student as this or that, just don’t do it.

所以，下一次，當你想把一個學生分類；給學生貼上這樣或那樣的標簽時，請警醒自己避免這樣做。

SPOTLIGHT: HEALTH & FITNESS

本期焦點：健康&健身

There’s a saying that I like: “Anything that is important to say is worth repeating.”

有一句話我很喜歡：“任何重要的話都值得重申。”

Well, we all know the importance of having a healthy lifestyle and being fit. See from these pictures how our students practiced fitness.

我們都知道擁有健康的生活方式和保持健康的重要性。從這些圖片可以了解我們的學生是如何健身的。