Reported by:
Ming Xuen Amelia Sr2A 16740
On Saturday, 22 February 2020, a group of 27 students from Kuen Cheng High School went to Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) to attend a seminar that focused on innovative education combining with a screening of film, and a book launching ceremony beginning from 8.00 to 1.00 in the afternoon. The film and the book both won the Global Highlight for Future (GHF) Award in 2018. There were many educators participated in this event including headmasters from different types of schools.
The seminar started with Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman President Professor Dr Ewe Hong Tat, giving an opening speech about the importance of creative education. He gave a brief introduction of GHF as it was from Taiwan and there were altogether three winners in receiving this award. However, there were only two winners present today at the seminar.
Film – BEE, My Friend
This is a 30-minute film talking about how a school has changed and evolved through a bee project. This particular school is SJK (C) Kuala Kemaman, which is located in Terengganu beside the sea. This school consists of about 588 students. For many years, it used to be local school that take students with attitude problems and were forced to go to school.
However, immediately through the Bee Project, students here changed a lot in their attitude and improved the disciplinary performances in the school. The Bee Project is a type of task that students have to complete to receive their Bee badge and Bee T-Shirt. They have to be caring, disciplined, focused, hardworking, punctual, responsible, studious and well-mannered in order to earn a badge that represents each characteristic. The Bee Project transformed the school and had won numerous awards.
Soon, the school decided to take part in the GHF Competition and started to film on how the bee project affected the student’s attitude and changed their life. The script is written by the graduated students based on their primary school life with this bee project and how the love of the teacher touched each student. This film also brought out that everyone has to learn and how crucial it is to understand a student’s need. This also means how parent-child and teacher-student relationships play a significant role in the student’s character building. The first section ended with the questions and answers section and having a break before the second part of the seminar begins.
Book Recommendation – paper windmill under the blue sky, nature education
The session began with Prof Ewe giving a short presentation on education at this AI era and why he recommends this book. Later, the author of this book, gave a short introduction on this book. This book is talking about a kindergarten that runs without a textbook, letting the students there to experience Mother Nature activities and life skills. Giving children a complete childhood but at the same time built the base of curiosity on different subjects in the future.
The uniqueness of this book and the other way of education let this book win the GHF Award. This also proved that the kindergarten knows how to use the resources around them to provide a complete and interesting education to the children. Letting children to think out of the box and raise their awareness on the issues on earth. Everyone was impressed by how the education system was run in the kindergarten and at the same time filled with many questions. It was something new in the education world.
The seminar ended with another questions and answers session. Everyone learnt something through this seminar and realised the importance of a new and creative education that complements the traditional approach which may not be suitable to all students.
