Cover Story
M
y colleague, Wang Zhao,
and I unconsciously set
ourselves up for a hugely exciting
and deeply reflective journey when
we decided we would write about
the defining – the one and the only
– moments of a new school for this
issue’s cover story. In the pursuit
of these defining moments, we
asked all members of the Keystone
community by email to write to us
about their “the defining moment”.
The overwhelming response from
students, parents, teachers and staff
made us rethink our parameters of
what constituted or could constitute
a defining moment. Almost
everyone highlighted moments,
days, instances that not only
stuck with them, and defined their
experience at Keystone, but also
defined Keystone itself and what it
stands for. It touched us, and took
us on a rediscovery of Keystone
Academy – the one and the only of
its kind in Beijing – through the eyes
of its community members who
saw Respect, Compassion, Justice,
Wisdom and Honesty – the very
five Shared Values that defines the
fundamental edifice of this school.
Respect: It’s The People
It is the people that make Keystone
a place where everyone – big and
small, young and old, child and
adult – are equally respected. It
starts every school morning at
the gates said one parent, “In
my personal experience and the
experiences of my children before
coming to Keystone, meeting the
Head of School was a rare event.
As I entered Keystone for the first
time as a parent, I saw the Head of
School and others standing at the
campus gates to greet us. I thought
this gesture was only part of the
“It is an awesome thing to see an
institution come to life in the combined
efforts of the professionals who work
here...”
school’s welcoming ceremony on its
opening day, and would fade away in
a few days at the most. So you can
imagine my amazement when my
kid told me that they greet him every
day. My child feels very motivated
and proud, and doesn’t dare to
be late to school, because the
Head of School is waiting,” recalls
Ning Jing. Another primary school
parent, Enya Xu, felt the same as
she wrote to us about the time her
daughter was greeted by Dean of
Faculty, David Beare, “Seeing how
shy my daughter was, Mr. Beare
immediately crouched down so his
eyes could be at her level. It was
both spontaneous and self-assured
because I could see that Mr. Beare
knew that children deserved to
be treated like adults, even for
something as mundane as saying
“hello”.” This defining moment
made her realize that “respect,
openness and equality are ingrained
in Keystone’s nascent culture.”
The seeds of this culture founded
on respect were sown on day one
of school when Malcolm McKenzie
requested students attending a
day’s orientation to turn around
and bow in respect to their parents
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The Keystone Magazine
seated behind them. This was an
exhilaratingly defining moment for
middle school parent, Vivian. That
feeling of respect, love and care
that warmed her heart on day one
was reiterated on Matriculation
Day. This time Vivian could not stop
from crying when “at Malcolm’s
spontaneous
suggestion,
the
middle school teachers lined up
in two columns, and formed a
long archway with their hands for
all parents and students to pass
through.” Students w