School Contests (8/25)

I think that students in the States have to work harder in school than students here. But there are school activities that challenge the students to be excellent. Recently, six of my students competed in an Oral Presentation Contest, and today 12 participated in a Mental Math Challenge competition. These competitions required preliminary rounds in the classroom. Students prepared and attempted to qualify for participation in the assemblies. During the assemblies they either gave their oral presentation or computed strings of math equations in front of large audiences. They may have been nervous, but their performance under this pressures is quite impressive. There is a good bit of fame in these achievements too.

I was invited to participate as a judge in the Oral Presentation Contest. Being a native English speaker, I was recruited to help evaluate English, poise, and speech content. Students from First through Eighth grade presented and there was a winner on each grade level. Topics were interesting and sometimes quite ambitious. I am glad I only had to assign a number to each catagory, and that I didn't have to pick any winners. That would have been too hard.

I participated in the Mental Math Challenge too. I welcomed everybody to the second half and read the questions to students... 500 minus 179, divided by 11, multiplied by 8, one-fourth of this, etc. These were serious questions and students didn't get much time to process them. But, amazingly, they came out with the correct answers. I enjoy participating in these assemblies. I don't crave spotlight, but I do like to shine sometimes.