K S LO ENGLISH

Have you ever come across the term “counseling” in school? How much do you know about peer counseling? I have participated in a two-days peer counseling workshop. In this article, I will tell you more about peer counseling. 

 1. What is peer counseling? 

Peer counseling emphasizes using helping skills with a non-judgmental attitude, along with knowledge about human growth and mental health, to counsel people who are our equals- peers in age, status, and knowledge (e.g., our classmates). Instead of solving peoples’ problems, peer counseling tries to help them find their solutions and encourage people to take action. To be straightforward, peer counselors help people to help themselves. They could help people clarify their thoughts and feelings and explore various options and solutions. 

2. What are the basic qualities of being a counselor? 

Some of you may ask if you are suitable to be a counselor. To be a counselor, you need to have skills, knowledge, and attitude. It is easy for you to acquire skills if you practice more. You also need to know about human development and counseling. Even if you have gained professional knowledge, you need to have a positive attitude (e.g., having a high EQ, sensitive to feeling, caring, patient, curious, and having the capacity to tolerate pains, uncertainty, and boredom).  

3. How does a counselor think about clients? 

Counselors meet different clients every day. They believe that people from different family backgrounds and experiences have different stories. Instead of only focusing on what they say, they also have to lead the clients to think differently. Some clients believe that their experiences (i.e., their stories) are bad, so they often think negatively. Peer counselors talk to them and help them find another perspective to see their whole stories. Eventually, people can find solutions to their problems when they come up with a new perspective. 

4. Can we use those helping skills under any condition? 

We should use helping skills under three core conditions: empathy, respect, and genuineness. We need to respect people from different backgrounds. To achieve empathy, we should make the people feel that they have been understood. To respect them, we should listen to others’ problems attentively without imposing our own opinions. If we are not able to do so, we should kindly refer the person to someone who can. To show our genuineness, we should build trust with others by being authentic, truthful, sincere, open, and clear. 

5. How to deal with silence during counseling? 

Sometimes people are unwilling to talk about themselves during counseling. In that case, we need to use non-verbal skills such as observation skills. First, we need to focus on kinesics (e.g., body movements, gestures, facial expressions, eye behavior, and posture) and paralinguistics (e.g., the ‘how’ of the message, voice level, pitch, and fluency of speech). Then, we need to concentrate on the cause of silence and their feeling. After that, we have to use other skills to reopen the verbal interaction (e.g., paraphrasing, questioning, and reflection on feelings). 

In conclusion, being a counselor does not mean that you need to help people solve problems directly. Instead, a counselor has to help people to help themselves by thinking about their stories from a new perspective. A counselor should be respectful, genuine, and empathetic. During counseling, it is important to break the silence by observing, focusing on the cause of silence, and reopening the verbal interactions. 

My dog, Captain, used to be a stray dog. 6 years ago, he met me when I was on my way to the school summer camp with mum. He was just following us until my mum said, ‘Let’s adopt this dog’ the only thing I remember is that the dog was cute, but dirty.

The dog then became one of our family members. I remember when I was still a primary school student, every time I came back home, the first one to greet me was Captain. Whenever I was doing homework, he would stay with me until I was done. I still remember his ridiculous look when he hung his tongue in his mouth with his saliva dropping out.

Captain seemed to have a human like sense, when I finished my homework, he always looked at me with sorry eyes. When I saw this, I knew that he needed to have a walk or eat. I always would pick up the dog leash enjoying the walk with Captain.

When I was primary six, I needed to move to Hong Kong and prepare for middle school. ‘Its fine my friend, I’ll come back soon!’ After saying that, the pandemic spread in Hong Kong. I couldn’t go back home to visit Captain. The only chance I could see him was from the picture that dad sent to me.

Captain started to get sick while I was away. Seeing Captain getting thinner and thinner, I was so sad watching him not moving anymore but I couldn’t do anything.

On November the 6th, the day after I finished my final exam, I went home happily. When I got home, I received a call from my dad, he said that Captain just passed away. My joy of finishing the exam disappeared, and I began to cry, as if I had never felt so sad before…

Today, I still have the photo of Captain on my desk. Whenever I get tired of studying, I look at Captain. He seems still beside me, his eyes seem to encourage me. If one day I sneeze, that must be Captain thinking about me.

Captain, thank you.

We might know about “Time Travel” from films, TV series or science fiction books, like Back to the Future, Avengers: Endgame… But, what is “Time Travel”? Can we really travel in time? In this article, I will look at this question.

According to its name, “Time Travel” means travel to the past or future. It was introduced by British author Herbert George Wells in his science fiction book The Time Machine in 1895. After knowing its meaning, is time travel feasible? In my opinion, it is impossible to come true in the twenty-first century. There are three reasons to support my opinion.

First, there is a famous paradox called “Grandfather Paradox”. “Grandfather Paradox” is a paradox that was proposed by French science fiction author René Barjavel in his 1943 novel Le Voyageur Imprudent. “Grandfather Paradox” goes something like this, if you successfully go back to the past, and kill your grandfather, this means that your father will not be born. If your father was not born, you will not be born too, if you did not have a birth, then nobody will kill your grandfather.

Second, “Wormhole” is an object that can possibly make time travel come true. The theory of a “Wormhole” was proposed by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen in 1930, and is called “Einstein-Rosen Bridge” So, what is wormhole? Wormholes are tubes connecting distant regions of the universe. Dark matter keeps the wormhole exit open. Wormholes could link parallel universes to baby universes and offer the possibility of time travel. A wormhole could also be the tunnel connecting a black hole to a white hole. Wormholes have been proposed for about 92 years, yet scientists have not found any evidence of them yet. Some scientists say that wormholes might be in the microscopic world, like quantum entanglement. The relationship between wormholes and quantum entanglement is “ER=EPR”, ER refers to Einstein-Rosen Bridge (Wormhole), EPR refers to Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox (EPR Paradox). “What is microscopic world?” someone might ask. Nowadays, physicists divide the world into a macrocosm world and a microscopic world, macrocosm world means the world that we live in now, microscopic world means the world where molecules, atoms, electrons are. In order not to make this paragraph too long and too hard to understand, if you are interested in wormholes, please check my next article.

Third, according to relativity, the faster the speed, the slower the time. So does it mean that if you are fast enough, you can “travel further”? And let me apply another famous paradox called “Twin Paradox”. “Twin Paradox” goes something like this, there were two brothers. The older brother boarded a spaceship for a long journey into space, the speed of the spaceship is near the speed of light, while the younger brother stayed on Earth. As a result, when the older brother returned to the Earth, he found that the age of his younger brother was older than him. This result is inferred by Special Relativity (Time Dilation) that is what we started with “the faster the speed, the slower the time”. So logically, does not the older brother achieve time travel? At this point, someone will say, “I thought you said time travel would never happen in the twenty-first century. Why are you now saying that time travel can come true with Time Dilation?” Yes! That is true, but do you think we can develop spaceships in the twenty-first century that can travel near the speed of light?

Time Travel, is very attractive and lets people think they can go back and change something that failed them, make up for the mistakes they made before… But the thing that I want to say is, the chances of time travel being possible in our generation are almost zero, so why don’t we cherish every moment, every second that you spend your time with your family and friends, so that you will not have any regrets in the future. Let me end this article with a Latin sentence that my English teacher told me before: Carpe Diem (Seize the day.).

Growing up is like a journey of getting to know your true self. Along the way, we may sometimes get lost and not recognise who we truly are. However, if we can hold tight to our faith and not be threatened by all the setbacks in life. We can eventually find the meaning of life. For me, the first breakthrough came when I kicked off my secondary school life.

Being a girl with low self-confidence, I thought I was inferior to others. In primary school, I was labelled as a coward and loser. I can still remember very clearly how other people played pranks on me. I always received rubbish in my locker or some wasted paper with words like “You are a loser” written on it. These bullies were like swords that hurt me ruthlessly. Therefore, I seldom talked to others. My only hope was that I could grow up quickly and get promoted to a secondary school which could possibly be a heaven to me.

My wish has come true very soon. After I enrolled in my current secondary school, I joined the Archery Team by chance. Then, I started my first practice of archery. The first time I saw the arrow hit the bullseye, I was fascinated by it! I could hit the target so easily. I never knew I could do it. I fell in love with archery from that very moment! Since then, I practice hard every day. Throughout the process, I realised that all I needed to do was to compete with myself. I tried to improve my archery skills by correcting my wrong postures and adjusting my mentality. I have learnt that in archery I don’t have to compare myself with others. Archery has brought me confidence. My only enemy is myself. I have finally found my passion for life.

My first attempt in archery competition came very soon after my first practice. I admitted that I was as timid as how my primary schoolmates described me. But I kept telling myself ,‘I am not a loser!’. When the competition started , I felt that I have gained a lot of emotional power, that made me become more powerful and confident. I tried to perform my very best to complete the competition. When I calmed down, I started to aim at the gold medal. I was determined to get the champion!

Eventually, the competition ended and I was exhausted and soaked in sweat. It was time for the judge to announce the results. While the judge called out my name—”the champion was Lui Ka Lam”, my secondary school friends and teammates all burst with joy! hugged me and the audience gave me a standing ovation. That was just unbelievable! I was overjoyed and that was the first time I felt different from before! That was the first time I gained a sense of achievement!

Through archery, I have regained my confidence. I was once considered a loser and coward in primary school. Now, I am proud of myself for making progress and becoming a better person!

Do you know everyone is thinking in a different way? Although we are speaking in the same language, we understand things in a different way.

It is hard to explain so I will provide an example. Ask three random people what a pencil is. The first person may answer “a tool to help us write.” The second person may say “a thing I need to bring to school every day.” The third person may reply “a substance made of graphite and wood”. As you see, three people may have three different answers. I figured out that everyone is different because of a story that happened to me, and I am going to share it.

When I first became a secondary student, I was not good at English and unfortunately all subjects were taught in English. Therefore, I had a habit of previewing before class. I read all the textbooks before the teacher taught me, so that I could write down the Chinese meaning next to the words which I didn’t know. But this habit has drawbacks too and it leads me to some bad consequences.

The bad thing was failing my Mathematics unit test. After my teacher finished teaching each unit, students needed to conduct a unit test to find out if we really understood that unit. I studied that unit for one hour only because I had learned it in primary school.

In the beginning of the test, it was easy. But when it came to applied problems, I didn’t even know what it was talking about. The words on the paper move like snakes so I could not understand it. I tried to cheat by looking at my neighbor but his handwriting was so bad. Finally, I failed the test not because of maths, but because of English. That was a tragic result!

Afterward, I went back home and gave up learning Mathematics. So I opened my computer to find something to help me relax, and I found a funny video. It was about how English is used differently in different places. For example : “colour” in America is “color”. After watching that video, I knew that we need to think in different ways when learning different subjects. Mathematics wasn’t a language so I didn’t need to care about what it means, I only needed to care about the numbers. So I will change the thinking “mode” when I am having Mathematics class.

After I know how to “change mode”, I perform better in English and also Mathematics. Everyone is different. I deal with English by “changing mode”. How do you deal with subjects you aren’t good at?

Have you ever participated in any volunteering activities? I have been a volunteer since year one at the university. Although volunteering seems boring in some students’ eyes, it is a pretty meaningful event in reality! Have you ever wondered about the advantages of being a volunteer? I will further talk about them in this article.

1. Getting satisfaction

Volunteering is satisfying. I remember that when I was teaching children to experiment, they smiled when they succeeded. Apart from children, I also visited the elderly home on Zoom and talked to the elderly. I spoke to them in front of the camera and showed them what I had done recently. They grinned when they saw some interesting things in my photos. Do you know that real happiness comes from helping others? All their pleasant faces are ingrained in my mind. When I am sad, I immediately think of their lovely faces and try to move on!

2. Being empathetic

Volunteering allows me to step into others’ shoes and design suitable activities for the needy. When preparing for every volunteering activity, I have to consider more about their needs. For instance, children are interested in funny games, so I need to design some exciting games for them to engage in the activities. If the participants are the elderly, I may offer simple entertainment such as basic calculations and guessing animals because of declining cognitive ability. When speaking to them, I should talk slowly so that they can understand and respond quickly.

3. Developing problem-solving skills

Being a volunteer encounters many problems. First, some children were not concentrated on the activity. When I made handicrafts with kids on Zoom, some went away in front of the camera because they found the exercise boring. Then, I tried to call their names and ask whether they could catch up with the steps. Second, the elderly got irritated when they could not get food immediately. On 13 June, I engaged in a food recycling tour which helped collect raw fruits and vegetables and distribute them to underprivileged people. The elderly arrived earlier and asked for the food. We told them we would distribute the food later, and then they were angry. They thought it was unfair for them because they got to the destination much earlier than others. We had to arrange for them to take the food properly without dispute. In short, not all the activities are plain sailing, so you must be well-prepared every time!

To sum up, being a volunteer is beneficial to us because you will be satisfied and empathetic. Your problem-solving skills will be sharpened when you get involved in every activity. If you want to be a volunteer, act now!

Ways to be a volunteer:

• Join the school volunteer team
• Register at https://yvn.hkfyg.org.hk/ to be a member of the HKFYG
• Visit other NGOs’ websites and see the details of being a volunteer

Have you ever tried to demonstrate an experiment with children on Zoom? In April, I participated in a community engagement program about doing an experiment with children. I designed two experiments about static electricity and free fall with other volunteers for a month. I have learned a lot in the program.

In March, I designed experiments with other volunteers on Zoom. Our leader Chris was friendly. He shared his past experiences about doing experiments with children and even helped us revise the PowerPoint. Our target group was students from K1 to P3, so we had to look for simple experiments for them to conduct on YouTube. Although I shared many videos about doing experiments with little kids, most of them were not suitable at all because I did not consider safety problems. For instance, if I carried out an experiment about a solution and chemical reaction, they might drink the dangerous chemicals. Suddenly, I found a fascinating experiment video about static electricity. When children rubbed a straw, some shredded paper was stuck to the straw. I immediately shared it with my group members because I thought it was safe and easy for kids to conduct. They all agreed with my ideas, and they also added that we could provide them with rulers, which was an alternative to straws. We also designed an experiment about free fall, apart from static electricity. We chose a template of a little parachute. After that, we tried to demonstrate these experiments to other volunteers.

Apart from designing the experiments, we also had to prepare questions for children to learn more about the daily application of static electricity and free fall. If I were asked to choose the most challenging part of the activity, I would say “asking children some questions” was the most challenging. We did not know whether children could thoroughly understand the two concepts, so it was difficult for us to think of some questions. When we had done all the preparation, we were confident that the activity would go smoothly. We had planned the rundown of the activity. First, we would introduce ourselves to the children and tell them to follow some rules. Then, children would do experiments by themselves with the help of our demonstrations. After the experiments, we would say to them the concepts (static electricity and free fall) applied in the experiments. In the end, we would ask them questions about the concepts.

On 9 April, I demonstrated the experiments on Zoom with my partner Mary. Some children could not catch up with some steps, so I had to re-do those steps patiently and ensure that all eight children could see the results. It was a bit hard for me to see the children’s progress because some did not set up their cameras properly. Some even turned off their cameras due to unstable Internet connections. Fortunately, most of them were accompanied by their family so they could ask for immediate help easily. When it came to the question parts, I found them excited. Some even shouted out the answers when Mary was reading out the questions.

I felt a huge sense of accomplishment after this volunteering activity. I realized that carrying out activity was always easier said than done. We had to step into children’s shoes and design the experiments. We needed to act as a teacher to teach them how to carry out the experiments during the activity. I had never been a teacher before, so this volunteering activity was an excellent opportunity for me to gain hands-on teaching experience. The most satisfying thing about teaching was the children’s smiles. When they succeeded in doing the experiments, they could not stop grinning. I believed that the activity did not only help children understand some scientific concepts and helped me understand how to design an activity for children.