From Public School to Private School

 

Winning fencing championship at 13 years old

Achieving high score in world competition

Kaiwen student writes the new chapter of youth

 

Last October, Evan Hao Xuan Wang from G7 shares his story with parents and students at the theatre of the school in fluent English. He talked about how he achieved 144 score out of 150 scores in the Gauss Mathematics Contests.

In the past year, Evan has grown a lot. This time, he has won another new award in the USAP competition of the North China region ——the second place in science and the third place in Math, and the fifth place overall.

Evan not only excels at academic performance, but also stands out in fencing competition. But when being asked how to balance learning and sports, Evan replied modestly, “I don’t really have any time management skills, perhaps it is all because of passion.”

Three years ago, Evan transferred from the international division of public school to CKWA and fell in love with the transdisciplinary inquiry-based experiment. After class, he will practice fencing under the guidance of coaches. The growth of a child is not only about the increasing physical strength and the accumulation of knowledge, but also about finding their own passion and become self-motivated. During the three year’s learning at CKWA, Evan keeps pushing his limits and composes his own chapter of youth.

 

 

The fostering of Straight-A student, starting from an experiment

In the first CKWA science festival organized in 2018-2019, Evan and his classmates won the first place for their experiments.

At CKWA, science class is not only about teaching theory and doing experiments, but also focus on imparting scientific approaches to learning. Through Q and A, teachers arouse the curiosity of the students, leading students to find subjects from simple phenomenon. After finding subjects, students do their research by using the resources from the library and searching the internet. Then they will make their hypothesis, using experiments to check their hypothesis and analyzing the data. After competitive trials, they will draw the conclusion.

Based on this scientific approach, Evan and his group member proposed their hypothesis. Will the music influence the growth of the plants?

 

After posing the question, Evan and his teammates start their research and set out the steps of the experiment. They bought two pots of pepper plants that look the same and put them on the same windowsill. They water the plants twice a week. The sunshine and other conditions are the same. The only difference is that they give one of the plant soothing music. After several weeks, the plant who listens to the music regularly blossoms.

 

Speaking of getting the first place, Evan explains modestly, “perhaps it is because I can speak very fluent English, so the communication is smooth when I answer the questions from the judges.”

 

However, if speaking of his passion for science, it is totally cultivated since he arrives CKWA. He joined CKWA at his fifth grade from the international division of a public school. He feels that the learning environment at CKWA is completely different from his previous school. The resources are rich, and the facilities are state-of-art. In the previous school, teachers teach based on textbook, but it is very different here. In Chinese class, teachers guide student to do extended reading; in science class, there are more first-hand experiments. The experiment that impressed him the most was that UOI teacher guided them to make a boat using the tinfoil and compared with each other to see whose boat can hold more beans. Afterwards, teacher used this experiment to lead the topic of buoyancy.

 

Evan says that from that moment, his passion for science has sprouted.

 

The secret to achieve high score in world competition

 

Not long ago, Evan participated in the USAP. In the competition, students are involved in learning and competition of five different subjects, including math, arts, language and literature (writing included), science and humanities. The test for each subject takes for half an hour. USAP is a rigorous and academically challenging competition, testing the academic performance of candidates in an all-round way. All subjects are developed around the same subject. Candidates study from a brand-new perspective in a systematic approach.

This year’s subject is “The light and the shadow of life: exploring diseases and health”. Evan has spent one month on the exploration of this topic and read a lot of subject-related materials, from the ancient arts to the novel fever 1973, from Hippocrates to X-ray, from cancer to Spanish Flu. In the preparation of the exam, Evan learnt these knowledges about health for the first time. Before, he has never imagined that he would read so much medical materials, learn about medical history and recite the Hippocratic Oath. The fundamental work ethic of a doctor is “never do harm to anyone”. “In my previous school”, Evan says, “All we need to do is to recite the vocabulary, to learn the articles by heart. By learning all these expressions and vocabularies, you can achieve high score.” But at CKWA, we really enjoy using English to study in different areas. While developing my English skills, I have learn a lot of new things.”

 

Evan told us that the reason he got the fifth place in the USAP was because his high score in science and math. He would like to appreciate his Math teacher Mr Hao Qin.

Mr Qin is a secondary Math teacher at CKWA. He tutored Evan in his day-to-day math and Gausse Math competition. Evan told us that Mr Qin had influenced him a lot. The teaching approach of Mr Qin never constrain him but giving him huge space to develop. For example, only after Evan finishes his Math work independently will Mr Qin discuss with him whether there are quicker or more solutions to this issue. When participating in competitions, Mr Qin has given him very practical test suggestion, like in which order should he answer the questions, how to check the answers. Evan is now very confident in Math under the guidance of Mr Qin.

 

The champion on the fencing arena. Despite of pain, I don’t give up.

Evan started to learn fencing five year ago. Since coming to CKWA, professional coaches and facilities have facilitated his training.

Fencing is a one-on-one match. To a child of 10 something years old, it is not only about the cultivation of perseverance, but also building the confidence and courage to face challenges.

In the quarterfinals of the 2017 national youth competition, Evan met an old rival. His rival is physically strong, holding the straight sword, and had beaten over Evan. In the beginning, Evan was completely beaten by his rival. After several rounds, they’ve got the score of 6:9. His rival only needs one point to win the game. But even at this juncture, he didn’t give up. He thought of the analytical play taught by his coach and his father’s encouragement. He faced the challenges in the eye, quickly made adjustments, and tricked his rival to attach with fake move, and then attack him unprepared. Finally, the situation changed over, and he successfully entered the semifinals.

Besides the challenges from the competition, there are more frustrations from injuries. Last year, Evan could not continue fencing for six months because of meniscus injury. But he didn’t give up and stop his training. In this half year, he kept practicing hand movements with his father. His coach will make record of the game video between his teammates and opponents, lead him to analyze the situation and the movements.

After Evan recovered from his injury, he rapidly won the championship of the comeback game in the U14 men’s epee group of the international school league.

 

“I love Math and Science very much. Nor will I give up fencing. In the future, I would like to study computer engineering in Cameron University, and become a video game designer in the future.” At the end of the interview, Evan talked about this dream, smiling, “the world is big. I would like to explore it step by step. The requirements for a video game designer are comprehensive. In the future, I would like to grasp more knowledges about psychology and economics and to explore more areas. At CKWA, I am moving in the right direction.”

 

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