As the month of April wraps up, so does quarter 3. This, of course, means the dreaded midterm! While many students understandably consider this to be a stressful time, I consider it to be an opportunity for them to show off what they’ve learned.

I try my best to remind my students that you don’t prepare for a test by studying the night before, but by learning the material in the months (or years) leading up to the test. For students that have taken their studies seriously, the conclusion of midterms brings much needed relief. For other students, a disappointment. But for all students, an opportunity: we can all learn and grow from our past experiences, no matter if they’re good or bad.

Of course, the end of quarter 3 is the beginning of quarter 4. For students that aren’t happy with their grades, this is yet another fresh start. It’s easy to lose momentum in the last few months of the year, but quarter 4 is 20% of the year total grade, and it’s important for students to keep their academic goals in mind. Summer isn’t here yet!

This month we held our annual English Speech Competition. It was organized by Mr. L, Ms. Guo, and several grade 10 students. They did a great job! Many students competed with speeches about how China has changed in the last 30 years. Hannah Liu of class 10.1 won the competition with an excellent speech about Chinese porcelain in the second round. Great job to everyone that participated!

This month was also our first ever International Department Badminton Tournament. This was especially exciting as it gave an opportunity for the winners of the student competition (Harry Ma and Kevin Chen) to go head-to-head with the winners of the teacher competition (Mr. Kaspzyk and Mr. Constantine). It was an exciting match, but in the end, our teachers won. Big thanks to Mrs. Adams, Harris Zhu, Avery Li, and William Chen for their hard work organizing.

As we do every month, we had a birthday celebration for everyone that was born in April. Happy birthday to Constantine, Beth, Yanjie, and all the students!

Thanks to the hard work of Mrs. Adams, Sally Ma, and several other grade 12 students, we had another overwhelmingly successful Amazing Race Competition this year. Much to my delight, one of the grade 10 teams came in first, beating out all the grade 11 and 12 students for a surprise victory! This year’s grade 10 has so much potential, and I can’t wait to see what an unstoppable force they’ll be next year.

This month we invited two guest speakers to discuss life living abroad. The first was Xue Guifang, a Chinese teacher living in Phoenix, Arizona. This was her second year joining us via Zoom and she answered all sorts of questions from our curious students.

The second guest speaker was St. Mary’s Zhengzhou alumnus Sue Su. She’s currently a junior at UCIrvine, and shared some of her advice and experiences with our seniors.

These speakers are part of our ongoing “culture class” for our seniors. During culture class, we’ve arranged a series of lectures, speakers, and informal conversations to address the many little important differences between life in high school and life in university. It’s important to me that we prepare our students for their future, and while that often means academically, there’s also a lot more to life than academics. Our grade 12 culture class is just one way we’re helping them prepare for life after high school.

I’m the academic dean because it’s my job, but I’m a teacher because that’s what I want to be, so when an opportunity presents itself for me to do more teaching, I take it. Several of my seniors are preparing for their calculus AP test in May, and we’ve been doing some extra cramming on the weekends. It’s a great chance for us to go deeper into some topics that we only touch on in class. It’s a real treat for me to be able to work with such brilliant and driven students, even if it’s only for a few hours a week. Good luck to all my AP students this year, I know you can bring home those fours and fives!

Finally, while all of our students and teachers participated in the excitement of Sports Day, the administration (including myself) found the opportunity to have one-on-one meetings with the parents of some of our grade 10 students. Meeting parents one-on-one is always a little stressful for me because I’m embarrassed about how bad my Chinese is, but it presents an invaluable opportunity for us to communicate with our students’ families. After all, our students’ success is a team effort, and the only way to ensure said success is if we’re all working together towards a common goal.

With that in mind, I’m always available to chat if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. Don’t hesitate to ask!

Sincerely,

—Mr.Fegley

Dean, Calculus Teacher