Spring is finally in the air, we are looking forward to the students’ coming back to school! Filled with your laughter and smiling faces, CISS is even more beautiful.

“Epidemic” fades while flowers blossom. Wish every student’s future as bright as spring!

Yuna Duan. Executive Director

Yuna Duan.
Executive Director.

Social distancing, quarantine, travel restrictions, lock down… these are all words that we have been forced to include in our vocabulary and daily life for the past couple of months. Never did I imagine that 2020 would get off to such a start. I remember watching the news unfold back in January, finding it both inconceivable and unbelievable when nations around the world started to impose travel restrictions and various measures to fight the spread of the virus. 

One of the many things that have helped me personally cope with all of this has been to create stable routines and break up the day into manageable slots as otherwise I find myself watching too much tv and not doing anything constructive. Routines have been the key to my own well-being and has brought me structure as I know what the days are going to look like and what needs to be done. It has given me a sense of purpose when much around me has been uncertain and changing quickly. 

This is my new normal, for the time being, and I would be lying if I did not say I want things to go back to the way they were. But! Life must go on and we must make the best of the situation in order to help ourselves and those around us. 

Thanks ! 

Ms. Berg.

With the Internet, we can do many things that we couldn’t do before, but the Internet still can’t break through the limitation of time and space.

Ms. Zhang.

Well, I realized that even though my body is in China, my mind and may heart have wings that can fly to any place I want them to be…

Ms. Du Plessis.

The impact of CODIV-19 on our school forced me to quickly improvise on my teaching style and learn new skills at an exhilarating pace. In short: you can teach an old dog new tricks!!!

Mr. Allers.

夏天到了，平凡又可爱的日子也即将来了。悲痛而阴郁的冬天过去了，没想到疫情把大家分开了这么久，但我想，没有哪一刻你们的心彼此这样近。在这段日子里，我想你们学会了独立，乐观，愿你们永远精力充沛，温柔快乐。

Summer is coming, ordinary and lovely days are coming. The sad and gloomy winter has passed. We didn’t expect that the epidemic separated us for such a long time, but I think the Internet has connected our hearts closer than ever before. In this period of time, I think you have learned to be independent and optimistic. I hope you will always be energetic, gentle and happy.

Ms. Zhang.

As I was young we had an outbreak, too: Chernobyl and I disliked as young person everything which ignored this. Today I’m much stronger struggling with a similar situation and I see the positive moments. A friend wrote a poem in the internet. It is always difficult to say if people change their habits after this. Maybe Corona is a start for our future, too. One point might be that it fosters online learning and educational challenges. Online tools for teachers added to normal teaching for making learning smarter will be our future. The other point is that I hope that new possibilities give people also time for a better way of life in their personal and social life.

Ms. Mueller.

The year 2020 is an extraordinary year, with the outbreak of COVID-19, we have to stay at home and keep social distance. Even though nothing can stop CISS students learning. We carried out online teaching with rich contents through software such as Zoom Managebac and Seesaw, and all the students studied very hard. I hope the outbreak can be over soon and the students can get back to school.

Ms. Guo.

“This enclosure period has been a perfect time for teachers to improve our online teaching skills. Time to research new online tools or resources, time to reflect about our professional activity but also time to miss our beloved students”

Mr. Maldonado.

There is an old saying that goes “Only during bad weather can you see the worth of a captain”. During this global pandemic we, the students, parents and teachers, have shown our fortitude working together. We have raised to the challenge and produced good work and great opportunities to learn and continue moving forward. After this year, and continuing to be actively engage with each other, we will be able to accomplish anything together!

Dr. Francisco de Asis de la Serna Sabate.

“One of the challenges encountered was learning how to deal with new technological concepts and adapting the usual classroom classes to virtual classes. Thinking about the challenge that students will have to learn, manage time at home and have discipline to study in the distance learning model. All of this in the context of stress due to being confined at home, away from friends and teachers because of the crisis.”

Mr. Seabra.

Children want to play and learning naturally is in our DNA. It does not matter the circumstances, the places, the resources, … they want to learn and we, … we are teachers! Malala’s phrase comes to mind: “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” I have learned that the source of human creativity is inexhaustible and the harder the situation the more creative you can be. And why should we be more creative? Just for them, for the children. They want to learn. So out of love and respect for childhood for our students, the teacher reinvents himself every day. And that’s what I try to do every day, … despite the isolation, the stress, my work as a mom at home, … every day when I go to my empty class, I sit down and put on the best of my smiles when I plan or open my zoom class because, … my class is empty but my head is full of ideas and my heart is full of love and respect. They deserve it. So … look how far we have come, let’s keep going.

Ms. Garcia.

The quarantine caused by Corona 19 has changed the way people around the world live. We have realized that all our lives are alive with others, and we have learned the joy of sharing with others. After all, learning has a greater purpose to help others, to entertain others, to understand and empathize with others than to satisfy yourself. Our students also need an academic attitude that has a more global perspective, interacts with people around the world and is always interested in people from different cultures and environments.

Ms. Kim.

Just imagine…..How on earth can a small virus literally dump the whole big world into chaos? 

Reality is, this happens all the time. It occurs in different times and takes on different forms; wars, tsunami’s, hurricanes and are even evident from the reported Biblical plagues.  

We, as human beings, just do not want to fathom that something similar can actually happen in our lifetime. But then, just what makes us so special to escape this fate?

What have I learnt from this disaster?  Just do your own best under difficult circumstances. 

Keep going, your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going, tough situations build strong people in the end (Roy T Bennett).

Dr. Allers.

I have learned that to make an online learning environment that is conducive to success, you really have to try a lot of different ways of teaching. One has to keep in mind the students and what they are going through. Having said that, the level of engagement of the student is going to be the most important thing that determines the success of the online education.

Mr. Hobson.

Like many of our students, my greatest struggle was with boredom during our quarantine. However, having extra time allowed me to discover, through books and video, many new creative outlets to be passionate about! My favourite new activity is Suminagashi, the Japanese art of marbling inks on water, and I’m very eager to share this new activity with my students!

Ms. Dugdale.

Generally, we take the simple things in life for granted. A little walk, being able to breathe with no obstructions, and the ability to move around freely. However, due to Covid-19, these things have been taken from us. But there is a silver lining – due to our growing desire for these things, our appreciation of them has increased too. Now, when things return to normal, we will understand that the simple things matter more than anything else.

Mr. Steinberg.

People’s lives are a compilation of responses to experiences and some become coated as litany of memories. These then become who we are in life. 

How we deal with experiences, be they happy, unfortunate, thoughtful, independent etc. will make us who we are.

Today, we are all responding to new experiences but how they will be stored as memories is what is important. 

We can only follow professional advice on stopping Covid 19, but will strong memories of family, sharing, and having taken time to think of the plight of others, be the coating of our memories that allow us to remember, in years to come, how close we all became as a result of Social Distancing!

Mr. Norman.