As the academic year draws to a close, our students’ passion for ecological protection remains unwavering—from Zero Waste Week to these final days of the term. Cooperating with Shanghai Green Light-Year, SCIE was honored to host Mr. Djian Sadadou, International Relations & Communication Manager from the Office for Climate Education, who traveled all the way from Paris to […]
Beyond Passion: A Global Lesson on Ecology Read More »
For every SCIE student, senior week marks the end of their high school journey. After being the observer of three senior weeks, the Class of 2025 reached their time of celebration and farewell. Their fellow juniors, just as they were before, became their audience. In this article, Eugene from the Class of 2025, and Albert
A Dual Look at SCIE Senior Week Read More »
From April 14-18, SCIE proudly celebrated Zero Waste Week, an exciting and meaningful initiative aimed at promoting responsible production and consumption. The week was packed with creative, informative, and hands-on activities that highlighted how small changes can lead to a big impact when it comes to sustainability. The week launched with a humorous and engaging
A Celebration of Innovation, Sustainability & Student Action Read More »
The glamour of Spanish exists not only in the textbook but also in the spring of Salamanca, in the smile of homestay, in the lustre of Plaza Mayor, and in the passion of our teen age. On the 28th of March, riding on the spring breeze, we followed the teachers of the Spanish Department and
Salamanca, Where Spanish Danced Upon Our Tongues Read More »
Editor’s Note: At SCIE, we encourage students to actively engage in extracurricular activities through the Global Citizenship Award (GCA), a program designed to cultivate intercultural understanding, global awareness, and a spirit of service learning. It also serves to document and recognize students’ growth and contributions beyond academics. The campus is filled with inspiring GCA
Connecting Cultures, Serving Communities — We as Global Citizens Read More »
What does four years mean to you? Ask me that question four years back, I would not have the slightest clue. I would never contemplate that I would have gone through so much, learnt so much, and quite frankly, grew so much. When I was bestowed upon an offer from this magical institution back in June
Have trust in your passion, have trust in life Read More »
Editor’s Note: Students at SCIE need to go to different classrooms for different classes. How to avoid congestion in the corridors between classes and optimize traffic efficiency is a problem that is closely related to every student. A group of students from SCIE presented their project OptiWay in “Mathematics and Computer Science Week”, which emerges
Student-developed Software | How to Gain 5 min Between Classes? Read More »
Editor’s Note: Last week marked SCIE’s “Mathematics and Computer Science Week.” This article, written by math teacher Ms. Babara, vividly captures the exciting activities—from plank-problem-solving and math history exhibitions to teacher-student debates—where students explored the fun side of math. It highlights the blend of technology and education, as well as teachers’ dedication to making math engaging
When Plank Meets Algebra: We Made Math & CS Week Epic! Read More »
The school reception welcomed a special visitor—Ms. N (a pseudonym). She was hoping to find a student who had helped her father. It turned out that recently, Ms. N’s father was injured on the road, and this student promptly offered assistance. Since the student did not leave his name, the school identified the helpful student
SCIE Student Leo Commended for First Aid and Community Spirit Read More »
SCIE students performed the traditional British pantomime, Puss in Boots, in January. The play, written by Ben Crocker, former Artistic Director of the Northcott Theatre in Exeter, was a delightful experience for the large audience. The cast of 25, which included students from across the school, brought joy and laughter to the audience, which included
Puss in Boots – oh yes, it is! Read More »
My essay is on the recent development of China’s mental health care system and how it can help address this question. Though, I actually parried the question raised by the prompt, and I did not in the end emphasise too much that more care should be devoted to the socially vulnerable. Rather, I intended to underscore the complexity and ambiguity in any employment of these two notions — “socially vulnerable” and “responsibility” — in the concrete working of society. Through my study I discovered that the train of legislative efforts made in the 1980s to 2000s to legally recognise, to enhance public knowledge of, and to erect new asylums for, “the mentally ill,” in fact coincided spatiotemporally with government efforts in putting new agendas of foreign policies and city development to work. Thus, the recent development of China’s mental health care, from scratch to full maturity, is not solely the consequence of “humanitarian effort,” but also of some other ulterior motives. In my conclusion, I hinted that any answer to this question would entail empirical investigation into the concrete working of social institutions, and depending on the nature of this “socially vulnerable” group, claims of “responsibility” may be leveraged as veils for other purposes.
Before starting my research I did not by then have a well-formed hypothesis, but I did have Michel Foucault’s intriguing study on madness in mind. Due to the rather peculiar nature of the object of my study, I was not able to apply the sociological theories (Marxism, Functionalism, e.g.) I learnt in class to my own research. I must thank my sociology teacher for his encouragement and provision of many textbook resources and classical studies done in the field of mental health care. In addition to that, he prepared a statement of the school for my application to conduct short interviews at a local mental health hospital — this application, however, though quite expectedly, sank into oblivion — without his help this project would be very difficult.
I made a documentary “The Definition” about the situation of elderly in Shenzhen to enter this competition. As I have some previous knowledge in filmmaking, learning from TBU studio, I though it would be meaningful if I combined my filmmaking skills with sociology knowledge. In the meanwhile, after learning the very first chapter of sociology, The Family, I found out that the situation of elderly in the UK is different from that of elderly in Shenzhen. For instance, elderly have the responsibility taking care of their grandchildren and dance in the park for entertainment is distinctive in China. Therefore, I decided to make a documentary to record the interesting culture.
I learnt a lot during the preparation for the competition. I learned a lot about how to carry out an individual primary research when I was filming “The Definition”, which helps a lot in my current sociology study. Also, I understood sociology theories better. For instance, postmodernism used to be only a vague theoretical perspective for me, yet it amazed me knowing that elderly people participate actively in public activities can be considered as view of postmodernism.
Most importantly, I realized filmmaking can make some impacts on people, portraying problems of society. Experience of BSA opened my eyes and led me rethink about my future major in college. I want use my skills and knowledge to help more people, so I will probably try a major with humanity and filmmaking combined instead of pursuing the dream of being an artist alone.
Learning sociology gives me a new perspective in seeing how the world works, and it also lets me care more about the vulnerability in the society. Thank you to my sociology teacher, Richard Driscoll, who gave me lots of inspiration such as filming the dancing in the park, which is interesting to British people, and recommenced lots of sociological books about the elderly.
By listening to his advice, “The Definition” eventually divides into two parts: one is about the elderly in nursing home and the other is about people dancing in the park. Also, there is many interviews in the documentary to give a more well-rounded perspective.
I would like to thank my Math teacher Michael Jin and my friend Franchaska, who helped me with the voice over. Also, thanks to my family members, especially my dear grandmother, who gave me lots of insights related to the issue of elderly.
I made this documentary just before the deadline, thus it’s not so perfect. I’ll probably elaborate some shots and reedit it in the future.
If you are interested, you can click the link below and watch it.
Teng Xun Video：https://v.qq.com/x/page/u0862usad2v.html
Bilibili：https://www.bilibili.com/video/av38188271?from=search&seid=10452775157822232568
