Speech for Opening Ceremony for Freshmen of 2015

Tao Wenhao

10 September, 2015Good evening, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen. Warmly welcome to the School of Foreign Languages, Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai (BNUZ). It is Teacher’s Day today. Happy Teacher’s Day! Happy Teacher’s Day to my colleagues!

The School of Foreign Languages was established on June 16th, 2003 and it is one of the largest schools of the university. Numerous outstanding students graduated from our faculty over the past 12 years. On this very special day, I am as excited as you, and I think that the university time is the purest, truest, and most genuine time of our school days. This is the time when we have to work together to start the new chapter of our life. In this amazingly beautiful place with the blue sky, the green grass, the unknown and smiling trees, the quiet lakes and the strong mountains around, I sincerely hope that you could achieve well both in academics and career with your strenuous efforts. I have confidence that each of you, youthful and full of spirit, will be the 21 century elite with vision, mind and wisdom.

The School of Foreign Languages is only 12 years old, still very young in the long history of human society. Just because she is young in the same youth as you who are full of energy and vitality with 78 members of staff. Of all the teaching staff members, there are 28 native teachers of English or Japanese which accounts for nearly a half. Besides more than 1,149 students of English and Japanese majors we have, the School of Foreign Languages undertakes the foreign language teaching of about 24, 000 non-English majors of the university.

You may want to know the teaching quality of the school, here I have chosen some data of our BA graduates for MA studies both home and abroad in the recent three years.

Year Total number of MA Total number of graduates Percentage of MA

2013 45 217 20.74%

2014 46 353 13.03%

2015 39 327 11.93%

Top 10 for MA in the recent three years

The tables above may highly encourage you for further studies after your four years of BA with us. They are good examples for you to go to the most prestigious universities for further studies.

Standing here today, I do not intend to go on with the platitude. Instead, I would like to discuss with you about why we should receive education, particularly higher education. And I would like to introduce to you the famous speech “This is Water” given by American writer David Foster Wallace, which is about the true meaning of education. In the speech, he first gave an example of the different attitudes we can choose to feel about the same boring and annoying day. For example, after a long day at work, we have to drive to the supermarket to buy groceries and go through the traffic jams, crowded isles and long checkout lines. So we can choose to feel angry and miserable, like David says, “Thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. It is the automatic way that I experience the boring and, frustrating, crowded part of adult life when I am operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world”

But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down. … The only thing that is True is that you get to decide how you are gonna try to see it. This, I submit, is the freedom of real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over again.

My dear boys and girls, the nature of education is to help us learn how to think, and how to control our view of the world. I sincerely hope that throughout your undergraduate or postgraduate study, you could be trained to have the thinking mode of the well-educated, learn to keep the self-awareness, understand what is important to you and be able to control your mind. In the meantime, may the university education give you the real freedom of choice.

For the students of School of Foreign Languages, we have special requirements for you. We would like to train you to be the person of thinking in different perspectives and the person of creativity. You are different from others in that you receive the education of mixed cultures, the ones from the east and the ones from the west. Whatever is good is your food and help you to grow and finalize you to make the right choice. So you have no opportunity to make mistakes in choices. You can always make the best choice. Remember you are the best!

May I share with you something that happened to me today? Early in the morning I kept receiving continuous text messages over my mobile phone, I assumed that they were all fond greetings for me for the Teacher’s Day today. I was right but after I finished reading about 20 of them, I suddenly realized something. What is it? They were all from Students of 2004 who graduated in 2008. There were too many messages to finish reading in a moment. By reading mere I could not control my tears because I realized that they had agreed earlier they would send greeting messages to me today. It was a pleasant surprise for me. Students of 2004 were the first cohort of English majors of our faculty. They had too many “firsts” in the history of English education in the School of Foreign Languages, today they created another first. It is the first time in my life that I received so many greetings for Teacher’s Day from one grade. Here is just one message I quote for you: Dear Professor Tao, You’ve done wonders with me: By enlightening me with your wisdom; Transforming me with your intellect; And working diligently with perseverance. Thanks for making me what I am today. Happy Teachers’ Day!!

So at the end of my speech today, I have a new reflection of education. Besides what I said above, another meaning of higher education is to initiate love, broad love to you all, and let each of you be the person of love, in love and for love.

My dear boys and girls, no matter what your dream is, either to be a translator, a diplomat, a teacher, or even a PhD, I have full confidence in you and wish you all a prosperous future.

Thank you!

亲爱的同学们，你们好！热烈欢迎你们考入美丽的北京师范大学珠海分校外国语学院！今天是教师节！祝大家教师节快乐！

北师大珠海分校外国语学院于2003年6月16日成立，同时也是我校最大的学院之一。12年来，我们培养了众多优秀的学子。在今天这个特别的日子，我和你们一样心情激动深感大学的时光，是属于我们学生时代最纯，最真，最诚的时光，这个时光是需要我们大家一起开启美丽的华章。希望在这个山清水秀的龙凤之地，通过自己的努力，同学们的学业和事业都能取得一定的成绩。我相信，今日朝气蓬勃的你们也会成为有眼界、有胸怀、有智慧、有理想的21世纪的精英。

北师大珠海分校外国语学院只有12岁，在人类的历史长河中非常年青。然而正式因为她的年青，她和你们一样朝气蓬勃，充满生气。我们现有教职工78多人，其中有28位外教，外教几乎占了我们教师人数的一半。我院现有1149名英语专业和日语专业学生，也同时承担全校2万4千多名同学的公共外语课程。

你也许很想知道外语学院的教学质量如何，那么我特意将我院近三年的读研和出国数据向大家简单展示一下：

Year Total number of MA Total number of graduates Percentage of MA

年份 考研出国总人数 毕业生人数 考研和出国总比率

2013 45 217 20.74%

2014 46 353 13.03%

2015 39 327 11.93%

近三年进入名校学生名单（每年10名）

看了以上几个表格，你也许会收到极大鼓舞，四年本科毕业后读研是你的首选。他们是你们考取名校读研的好榜样！

今天站在这里，我并不想说教式地告诉同学们一些大道理。相反，我想跟大家探讨我们为什么要接受教育。这里，我想要推荐美国作家大卫.福斯特.华莱士的一篇很有名的关于教育的真正意义的演讲“这就是水”。演讲中首先提到了我们在面对平凡生活的困境时可以选择的不同思考态度，比如，在经历了忙碌的一天之后却不得不开车去超市购物，在拥堵的交通中穿过熙攘的街道，然后看到收银口长长的队伍时，我们可以选择愤怒、悲观地面对这一切，正如大卫.福斯特.华莱士所说,“这种思考方式是如此的简单和自动，我们根本就无需做任何选择。这是我们的下意识思维。这是我们自然而然所选择的无聊，厌烦，拥挤的成年人的生活方式。这是我们下意识的信念：我是这个世界的中心，这个世界应当围绕着我的直接需求和感受而运转”

但是如果你真的学会了怎么去关注，那么你会发现其实还有其他的选择。你就会用你自己的意志去选择用不同的方式来诠释这个拥挤，炎热，缓慢，罪恶的消费场合，你会觉得这个场合不仅富有意义，而且甚至是神圣的，与天空中的繁星有着同样的热忱：爱，同情，还有在我们内心深处的神圣的统一感。唯一真实的是，你决定你自己要如何尝试看待一切。因此我主张，这才是真正学习如何良好地适应环境所带来的自由。你自己有意识地决定哪些东西有意义而哪些没有。你自己决定信仰什么。…这是真正的教育所需要的真正的价值观，和知识无关，而只是完完全全地需要我们有一种单纯的自知，清楚地认识到什么是真实的，什么是必需的。这种真相就一直隐藏在我们眼皮底下，以至于我们需要不断地提醒自己。

亲爱的同学们，教育的本质是帮助我们理解如何去思考，让我们掌控如何去看待这个世界。我真心希望同学们能够在接下来的大学或是研究生学习中培养真正的受教育的思维方式，学会在生活中时刻保持有意识，知道什么对你是重要的，学会控制你的想法。同时，也希望大学教育能够赋予你们真正自由的选择。

对于外语学院的学子，我们对你们更有特殊要求。我们的培养目标是，把你们培养成为具有特殊思考能力的人，是具有创新能力的人才。你们和其他专业不同，因为你们的教育是多元文化的教育过程。这个多元文化是东方文化和西方文化的融合精髓。你们吸收的是最好的营养，你们的成长造就了这样一个特殊现象，即你们的最终选择一定不会犯错，因为你们没有犯错误的机会。你们会永远做出最理想的选择。记住：你是最棒的！

在此我想和大家分享一下今天发生的一件事。清晨刚醒，我的手机不停的有短信提示音，我想今天是教师节，都是教师节祝福的短信。打开阅读时，果然不错都是教师节的祝福，可是读了大约20多条时，我突然意识到什么。是什么呢？这些短信都是来自2004级的毕业生，他们于2008年就毕业了，大多数多年没有了联系。他们的短信太多无法及时读完，但是读着、读着我再也抑制不住泪水了，因为我已经意识到这是他们的集体行为，事先约好今天给我的惊喜。2004级学生是我院首级招收的英语专业学生，在校期间创造了无数个第一。今天他们又一次创造了第一，这是我人生第一次在教师节收到同一个年级最多的祝福。以下我和大家分享其中一条短息吧：陶教授，我无限感激您，您用智慧启蒙了我，用知识改变了我，您的不懈努力，孜孜不倦感染了。我真诚感谢是您成就了我的今天！祝教师节快乐！

在我临近讲话结束时，我对教育又有新的反思。除了我的综上所述，大学教育的另外的意义在于身体力行传播爱，大爱、博爱，让大家成为一个具有爱心之人，被爱着，也善于给予爱！

不管你们选择的梦想是当名翻译，成为教师，还是做个外交家，或是继续攻读博士，我都对你们充满信心，并且衷心的祝愿你们的未来无限美好。

谢谢！