New Year's Message 2026 | What We Still Believe About Education

Five, four, three, two, one. As the first light of the New Year reaches you, wherever you are at this moment, we send our warmest greetings. May you feel that clear, bright joy that comes with the beginning of a new year.

In recent years, we have been witnessing several pivotal trends take off. Digital superintelligence is fast approaching, and technology is a rising tide, carrying us toward a future that is still unfolding—to a place humanity has never reached before.

In the past year, terms such as “sense of worthiness” and “AI fortune-telling” have become buzzwords in China. At the same time, people used self-deprecating humor to describe the grind of modern work. Many found resonance in the poet Mu Dan’s words: “All my efforts have done no more than complete an ordinary life.” We choose to see this as a reminder: being ordinary does not mean being dim; there is wisdom and light to be found in the ordinary.

As new buzzwords emerge and emotions shift, we want to look back at the things that are less noisy, yet more enduring.

Three years ago, few could have predicted where AI is today; even now, our understanding of it may only scratch the surface. As technology advances, we are left to ask: What abilities can machines never truly replace? Will this life be better? Will it make us happier? While no one has all the answers, we believe education remains the key factor in bringing real change.

As we look toward 2026, here are the principles we continue to uphold:

Education: A Sanctuary for the Body and Soul

AI is replacing a vast amount of knowledge-based labor. Both adults and children are entering an unprecedented way of life with very few reference points. Education must reflect and respond to this new future.

We used to think education had to answer a grand question: “What talents does the future need?” But perhaps a more urgent and human-centered question is: “How can people live in a way that feels more human?”

As some knowledge work is “liberated” by AI, the value of mankind will return to experience, feeling, and creation. Our Foundation is exploring AI’s impact on education alongside partners such as Nanyang Technological University, aiming to shift the narrative of education from acquiring knowledge and proving one’s worth to viewing it as a vibrant and gentle life choice. We want to create a space where, despite the noise of the world, one can find a quiet courtyard to watch the clouds roll by:

A genuine conversation,

A meal eaten slowly,
A walk in the evening breeze,
A smile sparked by a small thing,
A peaceful night’s sleep...

By practicing the “ability to find ordinary happiness,” we maintain the drive to learn. Education should allow us to say: “I am ordinary, but I am enough. My cup is not large, but I drink from my own cup.”

Returning to Basics: Empathy and Our Physical Selves

As we reach the quarter point of the 21st century, the relatively static, external knowledge systems of the past may no longer suffice to address the complex challenges of contemporary life. A phenomenon we might call the “paradox of education” becomes clearer: the situations that trouble us now are often closely linked to the starting points we once cherished.

We used to believe knowledge could bring freedom, so we emphasized learning and the accumulation of knowledge. Yet in an era of infinite information, this thirst and curiosity leave us captive to screens. We used excellence as motivation, hoping hard work could change destinies. Yet we unwittingly expanded competition into almost every area of life, leaving many in prolonged tension and rivalry with no end.

These are not faults of education itself, but when efficiency becomes the only metric, we forget that education happens between people and within our bodies and emotions.

Against this backdrop, we are reawakening to the idea that empathy and physical well-being are not add-ons; they are the most fundamental and irreplaceable parts of education.

In late May 2025, the Huanwu Building at Tianxin Middle School in Chao’nan District, Shantou, was completed. This faculty dormitory building, fully funded with 13 million RMB by the Chen Yidan Foundation, offers “ready-to-move-in” accommodation, immediately solving housing and noon-break needs of 88 teachers and their families, providing a comfortable and convenient living environment. At the opening ceremony, Ms. Rao Ruirui, Secretary-General of the Foundation, stated, “We are committed to the development of education and understand the importance of a good living environment for teachers in improving education quality. We hope the completion of Huanwu Building allows teachers to devote themselves more peacefully to teaching.” Perhaps this is empathy in its simplest form: education must first “see” and care for the specific needs of real people.

We also believe education needs to return to the body and experience. The screen-dominated era constantly pulls us away from the real world, yet much authentic learning still grows from embodied experience.

Children need more than knowledge. They also need to run in the fields until drenched in sweat, laugh and play with classmates until the school bell rings, recognize the fruits and vegetables of daily meals at the market, and cut their first crooked carrot in the kitchen.

Touching and feeling something in the real world can shape a person far more than memorization and exams ever could. The body makes us think, brings us back to life, and helps us become ourselves again. Whether fly-fishing by a stream or leading children on a color walk, we may, through each interaction, feel genuine emotions: frustration, joy, comfort, and confidence. That is a “feeling of being alive” that AI cannot comprehend or replace.

Nurturing Taste and Beauty Across Generations

In the past year, besides continuing to host the Yidan Education Forum and co-creating CMYK Future Learner Day with cross-sector partners, we also did something somewhat “against the trend”—publishing an educational mook, the “YiPai Mook”.

This small publication began with humble persistence: in an accelerating age, we believe thinking cannot be outsourced. This “slow” project is rooted in the belief that literacy and deep reading forge the taste and aesthetics needed to support what is beautiful. Great writers also need good readers; when you invest in what is beautiful, you support its continued existence.

While collaborating with external partners, we pleasantly discovered that designers and architects often become powerful allies in education. Their professional training cultivated a sensitivity—an ability to see subtleties, understand ambiguities, and embrace complexity. Such taste and aesthetic sense, gradually nurtured in daily life, may also be a way to “become more oneself.” Elevating a society’s aesthetic capacity requires the sustained effort of generations. We firmly believe education also needs to foster an international perspective through cross-cultural exchange and collaboration, and our Foundation continues to deepen our ongoing collaborative projects with world-renowned institutions such as Stanford University and Harvard University.

Education in Action: Finding Power in Everyday Life

From Confucius teaching under the apricot tree and Socrates dialoguing in the colonnade, the school systems after the Industrial Revolution turned education into a scaled public infrastructure. Today, we may be approaching another shift in education: education should emphasize more strongly the value of individual daily life—coming from everyday life, returning to everyday life; directed toward oneself, returning to life, returning to the everyday.

This year, we have also been refining the blueprint for a new learning space. It is continuously growing, breathing, as if it has its own pulse. We hope learning there can unfold more naturally, like morning light entering a window, like a person breathing—quietly happening in the everyday, taking root in time—

Here and now, in this body;
Self-led, natural, free-spirited.

Education doesn’t always need big words. It is found in small kindnesses: stepping into a museum to let a child see an exhibit; helping a confused elderly person get a queue number at a hospital; yielding at an intersection to an ambulance rushing to the scene; wiping the pantry counter clean to brighten the next user’s mood; understanding a child’s playful nature at school and at home and patiently accompanying their growth; fluffing the pillow before sleep for a more refreshed awakening tomorrow—these small moments teach us the people we want to become.

What education ultimately aims to give people is perhaps the ability to live with more assurance, to rejoice more openly, and to take root more solidly. In the new year, may we move forward with trust in ourselves and curiosity about the world.

On September 1, 2025, Mingwan School—a school born of educational ideals in the Greater Bay Area—opened its doors. This new school faces the sea and the future. At the opening ceremony, Dr. Charles Chen Yidan deliberately shortened his speech, saying, “Dear children of Mingwan, thank you for patiently listening to adults for so long. When I was little, I always wished adults would finish speaking sooner so I could meet new classmates and see the new classroom.”

This brings a knowing smile. Education is never a smooth path achieved overnight; it’s a long road with many challenges. Yet every small step forward deserves a leap of joy. Education is about dialogue and care among people, and it also holds the possibility and promise of the future.

Thank you for reading this far. This annual letter thus draws to a close. A new year always brings hope:

May we be more composed, not feeling rushed to respond to all the noise;

May we walk at our own pace, see more carefully, and feel more deeply, living in our own rhythm;
May we rediscover ourselves through experience and grow fonder of this ever-evolving self;
May the future be less of a race and more of an unfolding journey, step by step, encountering new possibilities.

We also share the hope for the new year: to live earnestly, stay authentic, and, within our means, continue creating a little more beauty for ourselves and for the world.

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

Chen Yidan Foundation

January 1, 2026