SOIS Successful at World Scholar’s Cup 2016

24 OIS students participated in the World Scholar’s Cup (WSC) Global Round 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand this past June. Close to 3,500 students from around the world were placed in two age divisions and competed in academic events debate, knowledge bowl, collaborative writing, etc. Students teams of three were formed and although the emphasis was on academic competition, there were also many team-building and collaborative activities. The students made a lot of friends and thoroughly enjoyed themselves for the five-day event.

In January, the year’s theme is revealed on the World Scholar’s Cup website (http://www.scholarscup.org/) and students are provided with resources to guide their study. Students then compete in a regional round. SOIS hosted the Kansai round in May.Teams qualified for the Global Round in June based on their results in the regional round. In addition to the OIS students, 13 SIS students also participated in the Global Round. The students said the resources chosen by WSC were relevant to their OIS classes and were at a very high academic level. It sparked interests for many of them in different topics. The events like debate, also gave them self confidence to present themselves and make logical arguments to convince the judges. Participants this year explored the complexities of the theme “An Imperfect World”. One topic that especially challenged them was to take the against stance on the goal that nations should provide free health care for their citizens. Topics for the collaborative writing included “Machiavelli would approve of modern world leaders” and “The woman in the art work, The Wait should give up” among others.

Skye Inada, Tyus Sheriff and Lilian Tsubaki placed 6th overall in the Junior Division (ages 10-14) that had over 500 teams and over 1,800 students. They finished second in the East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan) group. They also earned a fifth place trophy for their finish in the individual “challenge” round, a written test. Noah Izumi, Nanami Hasegawa and Minami Matsushima finished in 36th place. Several other teams qualified for the Tournament of Champions taking place on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut in November. Other members of the OIS delegation included Antonio Kogata, Lisa Yokoe, Hun Jong Ha, Ouka Maeda, Owen Kralovec, Eun Lewis, Sana Konishi, Malka Bobove, Emily Yoo, Virginia Hwang, Rena Kawasaki, Ayana Nakamae, Maurice Tokai, Sho Sakura and Irina Setoyama. SIS students attending were Kikka Okuda, Satoi Akeda, Sophia Smith, Mio Kodama, Mizuki Ito, Natsumi Kato, Chisato Suga, Shuri Kozu, Yuka Nakayama, Amy Skerly, Miki Fujito and Fumina Nakamae. Sophia Smith finished 8th place overall in debate. Congratulations to all the students for their hard work and representing the schools so well.

It took a lot of time from the faculties to make this event happen. Thanks go to Dawn Inada, Yuka Nakanishi, Steven Sheriff and Kaori Minakuchi among others.

The 2017 Kansai Round will once again be hosted by SOIS, April 29-30. We are looking forward to the continued growth of the program here at SOIS.