Principal's Newsletter 11.5

11月5日校长信

Dear Students, Parents, Teachers, Staff, Board Members, Friends and All other Readers:

亲爱的同学、家长朋友们，教职员工和各位董事以及关心瑞得福的各界朋友们：

I would like to make a clarification regarding the layout of my weekly newsletter. While the three sections remain the same—Academics, Spotlight, and Week in Review—please know that the applicability of the section “Academics at RDFIS” goes beyond our school. This edition is no exception. In Part 1, the Academics Section, read about the harm that labels cause, not just to the one labelled but the one doing the labelling. While the harm certainly applies to designating academic levels—both positive and negative—the harm goes beyond academics to areas that, alas, come back to impact a student’s sense of academic self. Part 2 shines a light on the importance of the topics of health & fitness and how that was on full display at RDFIS’ annual Field Day. Finally, as always, Part 3 will give some idea of the week in pictures. So much happens at RDFIS in any given week that it is, in fact, impossible to do justice to conveying all our students achieve. Know that this is only a snapshot. I hope you enjoy reading about our uniquely positioned and distinctively unequaled school.

我想对每周校长信的谋篇布局进行说明。虽然这三个部分仍然是相同的“学术、当期聚焦和一周回顾”三大模块，但请知悉“RDFIS学术”这一模块的适用范围并不限于本校。本期校长信也不例外。在第1部分，即学术部分，您可以看到标签对人所造成的伤害，不仅使被贴标签的人受到伤害，对贴标签的人同样如此。贴标签的伤害通常在认定学生存在不同的学习水平并给予积极或消极的评价时产生（如下结论说“某某是优等生或差生”），但伤害不仅限于学术领域，还会影响到学生的学术自我意识。第二部分阐述了身体健康和健身主题的重要性，以及介绍瑞得福国际学校的年度运动会如何充分展示了以上主题。最后，和往常一样，第三部分将在图片中介绍本周的一些情况。在每一周里，校园里都会有许多让大家喜闻乐见的瞬间。事实上，由于这是一个校园快讯，我们无法事无巨细全部介绍所有学生在一周所达成的成就。但我仍希望您乐于了解在我们卓越又独特的RDF校园里所发生的一切。

ACADEMICS: AVOID LABELS

学术：避免贴标签

What follows is drawn from a TEDx talk by Psychology Professor, John Shaw, of Lafayette College.

以下内容摘自拉斐特学院心理学教授约翰·肖的TEDx演讲。

I’ve always been uncomfortable with labels even as I understand that it is difficult to avoid them. For me, it was a matter of seeing the inaccuracy of boxing a person in. Professor Shaw’s talk gives sound arguments, based on research, to steer clear of labels.

即使我知道贴标签很难避免，但是我一直对此感到如芒在背。对我来说，这类似于看到把一个人困在笼牢里的错误事件。肖教授的演讲基于研究为避开标签给出了合理的论点。

The purpose of labels, as Shaw notes, is to solve for y where y is the essence of a person. It is a work-around the time and effort it takes to really find out what someone is like. He rightly asserts that labels are “powerful, automatic, and resistant to change.” Professor Shaw’s words immediately made me think of the large body of research pointing to the fact that a teacher’s expectations of a student often determine the academic achievement of that student, for good or bad. On what are these expectations based? Why labels, of course.

正如Shaw所指出的，标签的目的是解决y的问题，其中y是人的本质。这是一个围绕着时间和努力的工作，以此来真正了解一个人是什么样的。他正确地断言，标签是“强大的、自动的、不易改变的”。肖教授的话立刻让我想起了大量的研究——这些研究指出，教师对学生的期望往往决定了学生的学业成绩——无论是好的是坏的。这些期望基于什么呢？当然，还有为什么要贴标签呢？

One might say that a student is good at English, or bad at English; has a high TOEFL score or a low TOEFL score; likes to read or doesn’t like to read. These characterizations—read labels—may seem to be harmless enough. After all, aren’t we just giving information? Are we just stating a fact? Well, no, exactly.

有人可能会说一个学生的英语很好，或者英语不好；托福成绩高或低；喜欢阅读或不喜欢阅读。这些标签上的特征似乎是无害的。毕竟，我们不就是在提供信息而已吗？我们只是在陈述事实吗？不，当然不仅如此。

Logically speaking, how informative are these statements really? In saying that a student is good at English, for example, what does that say about the student’s ability to read, write, understand, and speak English? Even within those four categories, the topic is broken down in a large number of sub-topics. Similarly, how descriptive is it to think of a student as someone with a high TOEFL score? What does that tell you about the student and what constitutes “high” anyway? Finally, it is highly unlikely, I submit, that someone does not like to read at all. At the very least, one could modify that statement with a description of the genre and by adding the adverb yet.

从逻辑上讲，这些陈述的信息量到底有多大？例如，如果说一个学生英语很好，那么这个学生的读、写、理解和说英语的能力具体如何呢？仅仅是在这四个类别中，主题也被分解为大量的子主题。同样地，把一个学生看作托福高分的人，这样所描述的话包含了多少内容？关于这个学生，这告诉了你什么？什么是“高”呢？最后，我认为，很可能有人根本不喜欢阅读。至少，我们可以通过对体裁的描述（如科幻、新闻）和添加副词来修改“不喜欢阅读”的这种说法。

As Professor Shaw says, when we use labels 1) We become lazy perceivers; 2) We over simplify; and 3) We succumb to prejudice and discrimination. What’s more, once a label is said, it takes a great deal of effort to look beyond the label to actually glimpse at what is the complexity of each person. In addition to being inaccurate, labels lead to the following unfortunate outcomes: self-fulfilling prophesy; stereotype threat; decrease in self-esteem; shame, guilt and fear, for example.

正如肖教授所说，当我们使用标签时，1）我们变成了懒惰的感知者；2） 我们把复杂事物简单化了；3）我们屈服于偏见和歧视。更重要的是，一旦一个标签被提及，它需要花费大量的努力去超越标签才能真正了解每个人的复杂性丰富性。除了不准确之外，标签还会导致以下不幸的结果，例如：自我实现的预言；刻板印象威胁；自尊下降；羞耻、内疚和恐惧等等。

So, the next time you might be tempted to categorize a student; to label a student as this or that, just don’t do it.

所以，下一次，当你想把一个学生分类；给学生贴上这样或那样的标签时，请警醒自己避免这样做。

SPOTLIGHT: HEALTH & FITNESS

本期焦点：健康&健身

There’s a saying that I like: “Anything that is important to say is worth repeating.”

有一句话我很喜欢：“任何重要的话都值得重申。”

Well, we all know the importance of having a healthy lifestyle and being fit. See from these pictures how our students practiced fitness.

我们都知道拥有健康的生活方式和保持健康的重要性。从这些图片可以了解我们的学生是如何健身的。