I am looking at the mission statements of three high schools: Kaohsiung American School, Morrison Academy Kaohsiung, and Kingsway Regional High School, that are described in their handbooks.
At first, KAS lists out and bolds the three main target of the mission statements the audience can clearly and quickly get the information about what goals is this school aiming to.
The mission statement of KAS is to “think BIG”. B stands for balanced individuals in areas of academic, arts, and athletics. I stands for Independent learners which requires students to be passionate, curious, critical thinkers. Finally, G stands for Global Citizens which means to be aware, ethical, cooperative.
Based on the tone of KAS’s handbook, I feel like KAS is aiming more internationally and globalizing. The handbooks of KRHS and MAK both mentioned the high levels of study and grades. KAS does not mention anything about the grade but balanced in academics and being passionate in learning. From a student’s viewpoint, I think I would more likely to go to KAS to study because I feel like KAS has set joyful goals for our future learning and will provide the students more variable opportunities.
MAK also organizes their vision into lists of bullet points, but they have much longer lists than KAS. It stated that the student of MAK will be an ethical Christ follower, such as to always appreciate God and maintain Biblical principles and values in one’s self. It also listed the skills of reading, writing, speaking, listening and collaborating. Additionally, they wish the student to be a lifelong learner and maintain healthy habits. This is what the KRHS and KAS do not have in their sections of mission.
Overall, MAK aims more to the concepts of christianity and high standard learning skills. From reading the three high school handbooks, the vision statement of MAK stands out to me the most because the topic is very detailed and emphasized in more sections. The mission is talked within 3 sections of Philosophy Statement, Visions for the students, and Core values, while the other KRHS has one and KAS has two sections. It can tell that MAK places a high value on their standards for students.
The mission statement of the KRHS states that they believe the purpose of the school environment to create an educational atmosphere for the students to develop their personal learning. It also declared that they provide a safe and supportive district that the students will find their passion for learning and be able to achieve high standards of grade levels.
KRHS only has a short paragraph briefly describing how their school environment keeps student study and get good grades. While KAS and MAK’s handbooks both organize sets of goals for the school to achieve, the KRHS does not really have a slogan or a clear list of objectives that the school is aiming to.
In my opinion, I feel like the handbook of KAS speaks the most clearly to me because it simply listed the three concepts which is very easy and clear to understand. MAK has too much details which made me feel like they have many standards they wish the students to follow. However, different schools’ handbook has different writing styles. I found it very interesting because the style reveals the feel of a school.