Walking in the desert in the hinterland of China, the cold, dry wind blows over my face. For a moment, I feel like traveling back to more than 2,000 years ago. At that time, Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty sent Zhang Qian to communicate with various countries in the Western Regions, thus opening up […]
Dun Huang | Journey to the West Read More »
Winnie Zhou FOBISIA Social Science Essay Competition 2020 2nd place winner This year’s FOBISIA social science writing competition focuses on the relationship between population growth and the environment, inviting participants to discuss the statement “the greatest threat to our planet is population growth.” Notwithstanding it being classified in the Geography Division, concerns for rapid population
On Wednesday Dec 2, as a final conclusion to the semester-long cross-curricular project, the Mathematics Department hosted our first-ever G Level Project Presentations in the Auditorium, inviting the whole school staff and all of G1 and G2 students to be audience members. The presenting groups were selected to be the best among their peers to
G Level Project Presentations – Successful Conclusion to the Semester Read More »
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris’s research is about how deeply our bodies can be imprinted by ACEs—adverse childhood experiences like abuse, neglect, parental addiction, mental illness, and divorce. Childhood adversity changes our biological systems, and lasts a lifetime. For anyone who has faced a difficult childhood, or who cares about the millions of children who do,
Book Review: The Deepest Well on Children’s Mental Health by Dr Nadine Burke Harris Read More »
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou The recent Halloween creative writing competition yielded some inspirational entries! Students from G1 to A2 submitted work, with the final three winners being selected from over fifty entries. Competitors were asked to write a three-hundred-word short story, beginning with the intriguing
Creative Writing Success at SCIE! Read More »
Dr Mingxing Hu an advisor of the UK Department of Health and Department of International Trade the director of medical technology at UCL and lead of UCL healthcare collaboration with China a senior advisor of Academic Health Solutions (a world top healthcare consultancy company) a former a senior director of IXICO plc (a UK digital
Guest Lecture | Dr Hu : UCL & Fight Against COVID-19 Read More »
At the vibrant beginning of November, the ETC(English Teaching Club) from SCIE was invited to a lively and enthusiastic teaching session in Yitian Elementary School. The activity is endorsed and supported by the special commissioners from the Shenzhen Local Education Bureau. Two of the commissioners presented the teaching sessions as observers and had provided constructive
Sparking Ideas of English Debate, We Learned along the Way Read More »
It is widely known in educational literature that implementing inquiry-based learning approaches in Mathematics improved the outcomes of high achieving students. The holistic development of the human being is just as essential as their academic performance in school, in fact they go hand in hand! Students acquire essential life skills in the learning process such
Mathematics | New Step in the Right Direction — Project-Based Learning in the Classroom Read More »
Previous Next November, it was early autumn in Shenzhen. Along with the warm sunlight, the Shenzhen International School Heads Meeting was held at the new An Tuo Hill Campus of SCIE. From 9:15 in the morning, twelve invited school representatives started to arrive at the lush green campus, and they were attracted by the ground
Shenzhen International School Heads’ Meeting at SCIE 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
