On Wednesday, April 3, 2013, One Education was invited to present the Leadership and Team Communication workshop to senior students in Pakistan Embassy College Beijing (PECB). The founder and lead presenter, Zhuxi Ren, as well as two assistant tutors, Hariadi Tjandra and Venus Wang, conducted a two-hour long presentation in which students were given different tasks to hone their leadership skills.
The first activity, Lost on Islands, was set in a plane crash scene. Many students were injured and scattered on three islands separated by fast flowing river which prevented anyone from crossing. The three different groups of students were required to assess the situation and work together to complete the tasks they were given in limited time.
The Three Mis-Chiefs was an activity aimed to show students how important it is to communicate clearly. Three tutors gave orders to tear a piece of paper, but because of the way they were issued, the students ended up tearing the paper in three different ways.
In the last activity, called The Perfect Blueprint, the tutors divided students into three groups – the architects, the messengers and the observers. The observers look at the blueprint of a building and tell the messengers what it looks like. The messengers’ job was to pass on the information to the architects so that they can draw the blueprint onto another paper. This activity was particularly hard since the observers had to describe everything in detail, including colour and location of the building. The messengers had to convey each message in the exact same way to the architects and the architects had picture the image of the buildings using the informations that were given to them.
Although the workshop lasted for two and a half hours, time seemed to fly as everyone was having fun. At the end of each activity, students were given time to reflect on the part they played as a team and which other areas need to be improved to make a good leader.
At the end of the workshop, One Education founder Zhuxi Ren said, “While I was an undergraduate at Tsinghua University, I interacted with students who grew up in a very Chinese-style education system like myself. While holding a two-year job post in New York, I interacted with many colleagues who were educated in the Western system. From these experiences, I observed the contrast between the two major education systems. The Western education system places an emphasis on skills such as leadership, compassion, and service to others. These are skills that are lacking in the Chinese education system. I was motivated to bring these skills back to China and help Chinese students develop these skills.”
The principal, Mrs Shagufta Saqib Ansari said, “Leadership gives us a very high image of someone else; as such it is one of the qualities that must be inculcated among our students. It forms the basics of successful life which is why we provide students with platforms to develop skills that they can apply in their practical lives.”
Jun Wei Loh, 15, is the beijingkids student correspondent for the Pakistan Embassy College of Beijing. She is from Malaysia and is currently doing her O Levels at PECB. Although her favorite subjects are math and physics, she enjoys writing articles and is part of the newsletter editing team in her school. She is also attempting to write a novel and hopes to publish it one day. Her hobbies change from day to day depending on what mood she is in. The three things she wanted to try out one day are: parachuting, bungee jumping and piloting a plane.
Photos courtesy Junwei Loh
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