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Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
Throughout my secondary schooling and college, athletics were a big part of my life. I loved being a member of a team and my enduring memories and friendships were part of those experiences in sports. While we all know the physical benefits of sports, the learning and cognitive outcomes of sports are equally important. Sports provide a great metaphor for excellent personalized learning, something we describe in our Keystone definition of learning.
Earlier this year, as we gathered 485 boarding students into the gym on the first night of our residential program, we talked about responsibility and the privilege that comes with responsibility.
Yesterday, on the outskirts of Beijing, I crouched around a small hole dug in the ground with a group of primary school students. One had a flint, and the others were carefully collecting small bits of sticks and dried leaves. They were trying to start a fire and were having a little bit of trouble. They were also looking around at their peers and who had already gotten little fires going. They thought about giving up, but they persisted through failures. They piled up a bunch of little leaves, which lit, but then quickly went out. Then they pressed bigger sticks into the smoldering hole, but there was no fire. Then, with a little instruction about how fires need air to burn, they regrouped and tried again. Next thing they knew, they were successfully cooking marshmallows over the roaring flame. They did not finish the task first, or have the easiest go at it, but they kept at it and were deeply satisfied with their ultimate sweet success
Greetings and Happy Friday to each of you! Shortly after I arrived in Beijing this summer, I spent a day with some colleagues and students downtown. We biked around Tiananmen Square, visited the Forbidden city, had two wonderful meals and spent some time in the workshop of a master kite maker. It was an incredible experience to sit in that beautiful space with kites of all shapes and sizes hanging from the ceiling.
Good morning colleagues, families, distinguished guests, and treasured students! And hello to those watching online as well, our community of Keystone parents, families and friends. A special thank you to the parents of these amazing Keystone students; we are so grateful to you for sharing your students with us. Your trust in Keystone is the foundation of this remarkable school.
Dear Friends,
Thank you for your interest in Keystone Academy! We are delighted to share with you all that this amazing school has to offer...
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
We are gathered, at last and gratefully, to celebrate the Class of 2022 as they graduate from Keystone. I welcome you all to this delayed Graduation Ceremony. The Class of 2022 is Keystone’s 5th, and you take our total number of graduates to just over 300. Congratulations, seniors.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
My nine years in Beijing, and eight years on our lovely campus in Shunyi, have passed oh so quickly. To me it seems recent that I wrote a special letter to all those pioneering parents and students who had signed up to join our new school, shortly before we opened. This was at the end of our planning year, in the summer of 2014. I called it: “Sunrise in Shunyi: some thoughts on joining a new school.”
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
On Sunday evening, May 29, I was accorded the honor of being a graduation speaker at a virtual Graduation Ceremony for 34 young women supported by EGRC, Educating Girls of Rural China. All of them are graduating this year from Chinese universities.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
I wish you all a joyful Dragonboat Festival weekend. In the context of great and lasting traditions such as this, it seems entirely fitting to be thinking of continuity, of the good things that endure, but also of change!
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
Last weekend, I wrote a piece for today’s In the Loop on the theme of continuity and change, change and continuity. However, the events of the past few days have made me decide to keep that back, and to publish it later, in June. What I want to do instead is to share a poem with all of you.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
Tomorrow was going to be our Graduation Ceremony for the Class of 2022. We will still have it, for sure, but it will have to be later, as it was in 2020. The Keystone Diplomas are all signed and waiting to be presented! In the meantime, while you are waiting, this is written for you, Class of 2022. I salute you
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
Sunday, 15 October 2017, close to 5 years ago, was an important day for Keystone. It was on that afternoon that we formally opened, and dedicated, the redesigned and reconceptualized High School Library.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
I want to tell you this week about the Round Square, a worldwide organization of schools to which Keystone has belonged from soon after we opened.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
Last Friday I wrote about two inspiring projects initiated by graduates of schools where I had worked before coming to Beijing. This commitment to create a career in work that directly serves others frequently comes from habits of heart that are encouraged or cultivated at school.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
I wish to take you all back to late January, just before we went online for the week before we took the Spring Festival holiday. It seems like a long time ago now.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
It is not at all surprising that our seniors have a deeper sense of their Keystone experience as each year passes. As we graduate students who have spent more and more years in our school, it is natural that they understand better what we are trying to do here, and how their distinctive Keystone experiences have influenced and transformed their lives.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
Last weekend we enjoyed an uplifting three days. It was a closed weekend for the boarding students. On Friday afternoon all the secondary students were involved, in advisory groups with their advisors, in a World Day. This consisted of stalls in both secondary gyms, stalls dedicated to national foods, games, and interesting information from many countries from all continents.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
Last Friday all our students had a day off school, and so for many it was a long weekend. For the Grade 12 Seniors, this was a most welcome short break as they had concluded their full set of weeklong Trial Exams the day before. Many boarding students went home for the three days. I hope that you parents enjoyed having your children at home on a Friday. Here at Keystone, we had a varied and stimulating Professional Growth Day in which all employees could participate. There were different tracks and workshops for teachers and non-teaching staff, but there was something for all.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
On Sunday evening, March 6, an important ceremony took place in the Keystone Club. This event has already become a tradition of our school. It is when the outgoing student leaders in the High School hand over in a symbolic way to their successors.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
Last week I wrote, in part, about the importance of protecting community, and specifically our community. This week, I have asked a recent graduate to write for all of us. She is Gu Shiyang (Tori), Keystone Class of 2021, currently enrolled in a pre-med course at the University of Rochester. Tori’s thoughts about Keystone, and what our learning community means to her, give us all a lovely example of just how precious our school is. Thank you, Tori.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
I wrote recently about Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whose interpretation and practice of his faith led him to be a savior for his country. By chance, I find myself writing in part this week about another Christian, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who lived in France centuries ago.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
Welcome back from a lovely, long break, full of events and incidents. I led us into the New Year, in my weekly column, with Blake’s powerful poem about the ‘Tyger’, and some thoughts about tigers in the Chinese tradition. Tigers inspire awe, for many. Certain other phenomena, events and experiences inspire awe too. Awe is a sensation to treasure.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
Tigers are everywhere right now. I have a supply of tiger masks. Last week I was given a tiger cup. Around the school I see tiger paper, tiger note pads, various tiger images, tiger toys, and even fluffy tiger teddy bears, a cute yet curious combination.
Dear Members of our Keystone Community,
Just before the end-of-calendar-year break one year ago, on December 17, 2020, I wrote a piece for In the Loop about our value of ren, or compassion, and of the practice of forgiveness as a quintessential part of compassion.
Emily McCarren, Ph.D
