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Principal's Corner
Principal's Corner
By Pak Andy
Dear Parents, Students and Staff,
Current government regulations set the age limit for foreign employees at 58, and though I may not look it, I am approaching that magic number. So, at the end of this school year, I will say goodbye to the community I have grown to love.
For the past 20 years, I have followed my passion at GJS and been rewarded for it. I have honored the thing that drives me and gets me out of bed every morning: the desire to make a difference. These past 20 years have been well spent and a big part of that has been because of your trust and support.
I have met men and women who felt like they had wasted their life in jobs that made them miserable, and they all offered some variation of the same advice: Make sure you love what you’re doing.
I love what I do. I don’t look forward to weekends and long vacations like most people. Why not? Because it means I am not at school making a difference in the lives of students, parents and staff. Maybe I’m just weird that way, but I think it is a good kind of weird. I wish I could spend more time doing what I love. I wish, too, that I could say GJS had the best of me, the best years of my life, but that would be a lie. I take with me all that you have given me and all that others have given, too, and because of that, I truly believe the best is yet to come.
The Greek essayist Plutarch wrote, “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” When I leave, I know that if I look back, I will see nothing but flames: the fires I started in the hearts of my students and I will know then for certain that the world will never go dark, will never go cold, will never be unsympathetic or lacking in compassion.
Perhaps many years from now, when the world is finally at peace with itself, when compassion is the currency of the day and thoughts of war and exploitation sit silently decaying on the shelves of the library of irrelevant thoughts, a great world leader will open his speech with words to this effect: “My father spoke of his father who spoke of his father and his father before him and he, he spoke of a very special person who made a difference in his life…” My parting gift to all of you is: I pray the person in his story… is you.
Principal's Corner
Principal's Corner
By Pak Steve
Greetings! For those unfamiliar with me, my name is Steve Spannring and I am in my third year at GJS. For the past two years, my role has been almost entirely focused on students in the Diploma Programme (Years 11 and 12). Beginning this school year, I have the opportunity to work with all students in Years 7-12 as the Secondary School Academic Principal. This change allows me to focus on teaching and learning, assessment, and curriculum development, while Pak Andy leads the school’s focus on well-being and pastoral care.
Speaking of curriculum development, GJS teachers are currently participating in a comprehensive look at how we are planning, delivering, and assessing our curriculum. This year, our focus is on the written and taught curriculum, while next year, we will turn our focus to how we are assessing our students. The end goal of all of this work is to ensure we are providing students with the best opportunity to learn, no matter their strengths, interests, and future plans.
These are exciting times for teaching and learning at GJS, and I look forward to working with the GJS community for another year. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, my door is, quite literally, almost always open and I welcome you to stop by for a chat.
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