Meet Sandra Chow, Director of Learning｜欢迎Sandra Chow女士担任NIS教学校长
文摘
2024-08-14 18:00
江苏
Nanjing International School is excited to welcome Ms. Sandra Chow as our new Director of Learning. With years of teaching and leadership experience in education, Ms. Chow comes to NIS from Keystone Academy in Beijing, where she worked as their Director of Digital and Innovative Learning. Ms. Chow is from Canada and has a B.Ed. from the University of Ottawa and a Master of Accounting from the University of Waterloo. She is currently working on completing an Ed.D from Western University. We spoke with Ms. Chow to learn more about her journey and vision for learning at NIS. 我们非常荣幸地迎来Sandra Chow女士担任NIS的新任教学校长。Chow校长在教育领域拥有丰富的教学和领导经验，加入NIS之前，她曾在北京市鼎石学校担任教育科技与创新总监。Chow校长来自加拿大，拥有渥太华大学的教育学学士学位和滑铁卢大学的会计硕士学位，目前正在攻读韦仕敦大学的教育博士学位。我们很高兴与Chow校长进行了深入的交流，了解了她的职业历程以及她对NIS教学的远景规划。 Why did you decide to become a teacher?请问您是如何进入教育领域的? I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to be when I was growing up. I went down the accounting path, but quickly realised that it wasn’t something I enjoyed. It didn’t fit my personality where I like to be constantly creative and thinking outside the box, coming up with a lot of different ideas that people can apply.我在成长过程中并不确定自己未来的职业方向。我最初选择了会计这条路，但很快意识到这并不是我所热爱的。会计工作并不适合我的性格，我更倾向于持续创造性地思考、跳出框架，提出各种切实可行的创新想法。 I decided to start exploring other areas and went into volunteering at a daycare. I also started teaching Sunday school, and I had already taught piano. I discovered that I just truly enjoyed teaching and helping people to understand a subject or to feel like they learned something. It brought me a lot of joy. And I also really like kids! So, I started pursuing a career in education.于是我开始探索其他领域，在日托中心志愿服务。同时我开始在主日学任教，也教授钢琴弹奏。在这个过程中，我发现自己真正热爱教学，喜欢帮助别人理解学科或让他们获得成就感，这种快乐给了我极大的满足感。我也非常喜欢孩子！因此，我决定投身教育事业。 What’s one of your passions besides education?除了教育之外，您有哪些兴趣爱好呢？ I love languages. I grew up in Ottawa, which is a very bilingual city. I was raised in a home that spoke largely Cantonese. So right from the start when I was young, I had to learn English, French, and then also Cantonese – I was immersed in a lot of language, and so that comes easy to me.我喜欢学习语言。我在渥太华长大，那是一座高度双语的城市。我成长在一个主要说粤语的家庭中。因此从小我就需学习英语、法语和粤语——多语言的环境让我对语言的掌握变得轻松自如。 How did your journey lead you to become the Director of Learning at NIS?能否和我们分享一些您在成为NIS教学校长之前的职业历程？ I started my teaching career in the inner-city area of Toronto wanting to make a difference in society and have whatever I do improve the common good for everyone. Somehow along the way, because I was always thinking about educating for the future, technology became a big part of how I taught.我在多伦多市中心的内城区开始了我的教学生涯，怀着对社会的关怀，致力于促进共同利益。在这个过程中，我专注于为未来教育做好准备，技术逐渐成为我教学方法的核心部分。 Eventually, my work led to leadership roles, and a position in China came up. A few years after our big family move overseas, I was looking for a role that would bring me back to my love of just focusing on teaching and learning. At NIS, there was a good fit for that. I could be authentic, and that’s so important to me.随着时间的推移，我的工作逐渐走向了领导岗位，并获得了前往中国发展的机会。几年前在我们全家做出了海外生活的重大决定后，我开始寻找一个能让我重新专注于教学和学习的职位。NIS为我提供了这样一个理想的平台，让我能够不忘初心，坚守本真，这对我来说至关重要。 What is your teaching philosophy?可以谈谈您个人的教学理念吗？ I see education as such an important part of developing social good. Our children are our future. It’s a cliché, but I believe that. As an educator, I need to focus on students first. Future mindset is another aspect that’s important to me as a teaching philosophy. Along with that is a global mindset, or international mindedness. You can’t just think about your immediate surroundings. There are so many things that we need to consider outside our bubble. A global perspective is needed to survive as a species. Looking at international mindedness helps us to keep those in perspective.我认为教育在推动社会进步和促进公共利益方面至关重要。孩子是我们未来的希望，尽管这听起来像是老生常谈，但我坚信这一点。作为教育者，我的首要任务是关注学生的发展。未来导向的思维是我教学理念中重要组成部分。此外，全球视野或国际思维也同样重要。我们不能仅限于眼前的环境，还需考虑超出我们舒适圈的各种因素。为了人类的未来，全球视角不可或缺。保持国际视野帮助我们更全面地看待问题。 If we can help prepare students with the skill set to make future decisions, I think we’re doing a good job as an educator. I believe we need to focus less on content and much more on skills – and the experiences to take risks or try new things in a safe environment.如果我们能帮助学生培养出应对未来决策所需的各项技能，我认为我们作为教育者已经做得很好了。我相信，我们应更多地关注技能培养，而非单纯的内容知识，并在安全的环境中提供冒险尝试或探索新事物的机会。 What are your thoughts on the IB (International Baccalaureate) programmes?您如何看待IB（国际文凭）课程？ What attracted me to the IB was very much that inquiry mindset – the opportunity for students to have voice in certain projects and make it their own. This is embedded in many of the IB core programming like the PYP exhibition, personal projects, and their CAS projects. The IB scaffolds many of these experiences so that students can learn in their classroom but then apply it to a larger interdisciplinary project of their choice. In addition, the IB’s emphasis on approaches to learning means that students are developing skills throughout the learning process of any subject or content area, so that they can pivot, adapt, and still use those skills later in life.引我选择国际文凭（IB）课程的主要原因是其强调的“探究性思维”——学生可以自主掌控某些项目，并将其打造为独特的作品。这种方法融入了许多IB核心课程中，如小学部毕业展、10年级个人项目展和CAS项目。IB通过结构化的支持，为这些体验提供了框架，帮助学生在课堂上学习基础知识，并将其应用到更大、更综合的跨学科课程中。此外，IB对学习方法高度重视，持续培养学生在学习过程中所需的各种技能，帮助他们灵活应对、适应变化，还为他们未来的职业和生活打下了坚实的基础，使他们能够在不同的环境中应用和发展这些技能。 Another aspect I truly appreciate about the IB is that there's global standardisation, which helps to ensure the integrity of the program worldwide, especially when it comes into the upper years. You want students to have a voice and a choice, but you also want to make sure that there’s excellence in whatever they're pursuing and learning about.我特别欣赏IB的另一个方面是它对全球标准化的坚持，这确保了其课程在全球范围内的一致性和完整性，尤其是在高年级阶段。我们希望学生在学习中更加自主和积极同时，确保他们的学习质量和成果能够达到卓越的标准。 What message do you have for our community?谢谢您接受我们的采访， 最后，您还想对NIS社区说些什么呢? I think NIS has something very special. We need to hold onto it, nurture it, and embrace and develop it. The sense of community is so strong. It’s kind of like a fire. You don’t want to let it burn out. You want to help let it grow and be a spark for others.我认为NIS拥有一种独特的魅力。我们应当珍视它，培育它，并让它蓬勃发展。这种社区凝聚力如此深厚，犹如一颗炽热的火种。我们不仅要守护它的光芒，更要助它绽放，成为他人心中的灵感之源 With Ms. Chow’s innovative spirit and dedication to nurturing both students and the community, Nanjing International School looks forward to her leadership and expertise.依托Chow校长的创新精神以及她对学生和社区的深情关怀，NIS期待着她的领导与专业才能带领学校迈向更辉煌的未来。
