Dulwich Talks Learning Symposium

On Tuesday 8 November Dulwich College Shanghai hosted the first Dulwich Talks event. Inspired by TED talks, Dulwich Talks is a symposium in which all students from Years 10 to 13 are engaged in stimulating multi-disciplinary talks, seminars and panel discussions around a common theme. Guest speakers were chosen to ensure the talks cover a range of academic fields, whilst seminars encourage students to explore new concepts that they would not necessarily encounter as part of the curricula.

The theme of this year’s Dulwich Talks was resilience. The presentations and workshops varied in focus, covering everything from resilience in city planning to resilience in elite sport and in relation to the one-child policy. Students heard from economist Yu Song, civil rights lawyer Veena Rao and a senior partner at McKinsey & Company, Jonathan Woetzel. Guest speaker Ann Daniels flew over from the UK to speak to students about her experience as the only woman to have walked to both the North and South Poles. Over the course of the day there were over 25 different interactive workshops for students to participate in. During these sessions, students worked in groups to tackle different challenges and debate subject matter. Some groups gathered clues and solved problems to break out of a locked room, while others considered a literary perspective on the short-lived nation of Biafra, and still others discussed the financial crisis or examined similarities and differences of resilience shown by birds and humans.

When asked about what they took away from Dulwich Talks, one student noted, “I’ve learned that I need to find internal motivators, to look not at what aspects of the situation cannot be controlled but at what can, and that the only thing that you can always control is your mindset. Success is not always about getting to the final destination yourself - it can also be about how you've helped others get there.”

Dulwich Talks reflects the Dulwich approach to learning, one that nurtures confidence and intellectual curiosity. Dulwich College International schools offer a holistic education founded on scholarship and complemented by rewarding co-curricular programmes. The Dulwich College International network of schools partners with leading universities and organisations to bring unique learning experiences to the students.