CTry Visioning My Future Con't

Visioning My Future Con't

Facing my life in New Zealand was another inspirational part of this 'Visioning My Future' engagement. We invited two young people who are now at the workforce but migrated to New Zealand few years back as ESOL students. They were to come and shared their experiences on how they faced New Zealand when they arrived and pathways they had taken to get to where they are today. This part of the workshop was to provide authentic inspirations from young people whom our students can easily identify with. Again it was to motivate our students, to develop their self-confidence, and to be courageous.

Ms Kolio is a young Samoan lady in her late 20's who was first adopted by her uncle to come and studied here in New Zealand. When she got her residence, she decided to leave school and worked in order to help her family back at home. Her mother had passed away, only the father and rest of the siblings in Samoa. When she had the chance to adopt one from home, she adopted her sister next to her in age to come and help her working for the family back in Samoa. Now they have adopted seven other children, three siblings and the others are nieces and nephews. They stay together, the two sisters work and provide for the family, they ensure that children work hard at school, and they are both 'mum' and 'dad' for them. What an inspiration! 

Her presentation was enjoyed by the students and was rated high in our evaluation.      

Click 'Inspiration from Ms Kolio'   

'Eliesa Katoa was another quest speker of the day. 'Eliesa is a young Tongan gentleman in his 20's too, who first came to New Zealand in 2017 to play rugby. He was sponsored by Tamaki College to come and play in their first 15 rugby team. He was in our ESOL class for both the two years in secondary school, and he passed both his L2 and L3 NCEA qualification. He has signed a contract with the New Zealand Warriors and is doing extremely well. 

The students laughed when he talked about the day he left Tonga. While at the airport he didn't see his mother crying. He asked why, and the mother replied saying that she doesn't need to cry because he was doing what he wanted to do. He was crying and when his mother asked why, he replied '...because I could not speak English well." His main advice to the students was not to be shy but try and speak English.

His presentation was valued and also rated high by the students in our in our evaluation.

Click 'Inspiration from 'Eliesa Katoa' 

Toward the end of this engagement, students were encouraged to focus on 'Becoming my best - my vision - realise my dreams.  

They were given a chance to try and map out their future, what they might want to becore and do as career pathways.

And they were encouraged to share with another students that they were comfortable to talk to. 

What Now??

'What Now' was the last part of this 'Visioning My Future' engagement. Michele Ensor tried to sum up by 'Bringing together today's journey'. She also tried to identify some next steps to take and shared some reflections. 

She talked about some very famous and successful people in different parts of the world and in their different career pathways. One common denominator in the lives of those successful individuals was the fact that each faced so many failures but they never gave up. Failures are to be recognized as problems but success depends on how each responded to them. They failed, they picked themselves up and continued with their goals and visions. They never gave up.

She finished up with a good focus on 'fixed mindset' and 'growth mindset'. Of course students were encouraged to have a 'growth mindset'.

'Fixed mindset' influences a person to think like:

• I am only good at certain things
• I give up when it gets too hard
• I hate challenges
• I take feedback and criticims personally
• I don't like doing what I don't know
• 
  

'Growth Mindset' encourages a person to think like:

• I can be good at anything
• T try until I get the results I want
• I embrace challenges
• I welcome feedback and criticims
• I like learning about thinks I don't know

Having a 'growth mindset' is what we encourage our students to grow. We will take on that focus in the future.    

CTry Visioning My Future

Motivational and Visioning Engagement 

Visioning My Future

Today is the day of our 'Visioning My Future' workshop. Our students have been prepared to be ready for the learning ahead and to come open-minded and receptive to learn. Even our classrooms, we have arranged them to be special and conductive for the workshop. 

The workshop was opened with a prayer. Then it was honoured by the principal of the school, Mrs Soana Pamaka, talking to the students about the purpose and importance of the workshop. That was one of the main highlights of this engagement. Soana shared her experience when first arriving in New Zealand as a high school student and a second language speaker of English many years back. She referred to the wrong perceptions students and teachers had of her simply because English was a second language. She also spoke about how she endeavoured to prove those perceptions wrong. For example, she was discouraged from doing certain academic subjects because of her English. She encouraged students to read because reading was one way of her learning English and attaining her success.

I must say that Mrs Pamaka's short time with the students was priceless. Not only that they had a time with their principal at a closer and personal context, but they can see a role model with similar struggles to theirs yet with immense success. Their Principla! They learned that should embrace their special features - culture, language, family and friends - set their goals and work hard for success. 

This presentation has been highly appreciated and rated by the students at our evaluation.

Click Principal at Visioning My Future

A Bracelet - Mapping and Talking about who I am

After the inspirational talk from the principal, students were asked to focus on thinking about who they are. They were given beads of six different colours, each colour relates to characteristics they already have and are going to grow. They were to select different colours of characteristics they want to be and make a bracelet visioning their future.

Here are the colours and the characteristics:

R - Resilience

B - Bravery

K - Kindness

S - Self belief

D - Good decision making

T - Strength 

Dr van Hees explaining and encouraging students to focus on thinking and doing the task. The students were very focused and engaged.

The idea behind was that the more they focused on who they think they are and what they want to become, the more their motivation and self confidence would grow grow. This would hopefully lessen their anxiety, shame, sense of inadequacy, and stress. The students were given time to think individually, to share with another person, and then they each made their bracelets.