Collegiate Honors Yu Xiao for Excellence

This year's Craigie Award designee perfectly exemplifies the values and ideals of excellent teaching at Collegiate. Never one to seek the limelight, our recipient's commitment to students is genuinely for the right reasons: to fall in love with learning a new language. Like learning any new language, our senses and synapses are tested from building fluency through speaking, listening, reading, and writing. But the ability to understand and speak another language is only part of the magic that this teacher is able to pull off. It's not just the ability for students to speak Chinese or perform in various ways such as at our School's Chinese New Year Celebration that shows success, but a truer and more sound understanding of Chinese culture through the masterful work of Yu Xiao.

 

Through her teaching of Chinese, Yu has paved the way for her students to find future success in all of the above. Yu has shouldered so much of the work to build our Middle School Chinese program into what it is today. If you are lucky enough to sit in Yu's class or simply walk by class, there is so much work and play mixed together. A true commitment to exploring the Chinese language through multi-sensory activities, you will always see and hear students actively learning and practicing their newly acquired language. 

 

Yu's ability to teach across all grade levels in the Middle School is a testament to her ability to understand the developmental and intellectual needs of students. Yu has such great attention to detail and possesses the capacity to remember every little detail about her classes and far more importantly, about her students. Yu is a true partner in working with other teachers and advisors to better understand the kids in her class. An exemplary teacher and colleague, please join us in congratulating Yu Xiao, the Middle School Craigie Award winner.