New Faces @SPC

Before joining our SPC family as a music teacher, Miss Chak taught at a girls’ school. Nonetheless, she chose to continue her career here as she was impressed by the students’ passion for music, as well as the sheer size of the music department.

“I chose SPC for its sizable music department, which comprises various choirs and ensembles with members across different forms. I find managing all these music groups challenging, yet enjoyable at the same time,” she said.

Unlike her past experiences in teaching girls, our students came across as being active learners, who often take the initiative in acquiring new knowledge, and ask questions whenever they stumble upon an intriguing topic.

In order to bridge the gap and bond more closely with her students, she indulged herself in the world of pop songs recently, now claiming Aurora and Terence Lam as two of her favourite artists. She hopes that by integrating pop culture into her lessons, she can explain abstract musical concepts in a more understandable way.

Miss Chak’s love for music does not end here. Lately, she has branched out into composing, an area she was unfamiliar with, not only to broaden her horizons, but also just to try something new.

Apart from incorporating elements of pop music, she takes the STEAM educational approach in her teaching, merging arts into the more familiar STEM model to foster pupils’ problem-solving skills.

“I value creativity highly, and I hope that my lessons can help students tackle daily challenges from a different perspective,” said Miss Chak.

Mr. Choy is a new member of the teaching staff, teaching Mathematics and Physics. His first impression of our school is that our students can be a little shy at times during lessons and that we could take more initiative by being more confident in our own abilities. He appreciates our value of brotherhood and would love to see students being even more supportive of each other, enjoying harmonious interpersonal relationships.

On a personal note, Mr. Choy is an avid photographer, who has a lot of analog photography experience under his belt despite not having had any professional training. Instead, he played around with his camera and—through trial and error—bolstered his skills in exposing the film and developing the picture. He likes taking snapshots of Hong Kong’s busy streets, which contrasts with his methodical style. He hopes that through his photography, he can appreciate a slower-paced life of serenity and tranquility.

Mr. Choy’s message to SPC students is simple: When we enter his classroom, we will acquire knowledge while having fun.

Despite having the opportunity to pursue a career as a conductor or as an instrumental teacher, Mr. Lee chose to be a music teacher in the classroom since he enjoys interacting with students. As a Pauline himself (Class of 2017), Mr. Lee sees himself as both a teacher and a peer.

Because SPC is a school that values all-round education, Mr. Lee highly recommends that we take up more roles in SPC, whether it be as a Prefect, an SA official, a Peer Mentor, or even as a member of the Music Union committee. By taking on such vital roles, we can develop leadership qualities and pick up interpersonal skills which cannot be learnt from reading books.

All in all, he upholds the belief that only by fulfilling our own responsibilities, his being to teach, and ours to learn, can everyone be at ease communicating with each other, making our society a more harmonious place.

Miss Ma is one of several new Physics teachers joining our SPC family this year. She also teaches Mathematics. Miss Ma has recently taken up hiking and boxing as her hobbies. Her aspirations of being a teacher started in high school when she was a student tutor, assisting her classmates and helping her teachers out. She found it rewarding seeing students acquire knowledge from her.

Miss Ma considers herself to be a relatively laid-back teacher, meaning that she does not insist on her class following all the rules. As long as her students obey basic class etiquette, she gives them a certain level of autonomy and freedom. She added that she wants her pupils to be capable of learning by themselves since it is an essential skill to possess at tertiary level.

By the time of our interview, Miss Ma had already been teaching in SPC for two weeks. She mentioned that the students behaved really well in class and even though she could only communicate in English, she was able to conduct her lessons efficiently. She has appreciated students actively asking questions in class and really enjoys this kind of class interaction.

During our interview, Miss Ma highlighted that she has high expectations of herself and of her students, she said, in fact, “I think I’ve told your class that I’m a very competitive person. So for examination results, you better excel, like literally excel.” However, besides getting good grades, she wants SPC students to learn happily in all their subjects and to develop their non-academic abilities and interpersonal skills.