IB

First place for IB students at World Scholar’s Cup

13.03.2019

Five students from the Audentes IB Program volunteered to take part in the much anticipated World Scholar’s Cup held at Tallinn Jewish School on March 5th–6th. IB student Nataly wrote about their experience at the competition:

When going to the competition, we had very little ambitions to win, it all seemed like something we were not quite prepared for. As we approached the school, the entrance door was locked and other students could not open it. It was then when we managed to open it in front of everyone and tell each other: „Well, If we were the ONLY ones who were capable of opening the door, we must win the competition. They all seem to struggle with opening doors- we can definitely do better than that.” Who would have ever thought that this phrase would sum up the whole 2-day experience, as we managed to win the first place? Definitely not us.

Although we did our best during the activities- arguing for strange statements during the debates, trying to come up with a coherent, unusual, and sometimes even humorous pieces during the collaborative writing, and brainstorming the possible answer during the Scholars Bowl – it never became monotonous. I would even argue that we spent most of our time there laughing (at our own jokes, the hosts had a terrible sense of humour) and having fun, rather than being stressed or feeling bored because of the tasks. We possibly sometimes laughed too much (or at least some of us did), but even that can not be called wrong because it was too good to be called something negative.

Packing the tall trophies, medals, and fluffy alpacas into the backpacks we were already thinking about our, hopefully, upcoming time at the Global Round, and that was not just because of the victory. Winning was, indeed, awesome and incredibly surprising, however, we could all agree that it was the experience and the time we had together that truly mattered.

Overall, the Cup was a positive experience for all of us and taught us the importance of teamwork alongside individual knowledge.