Seth Roberts has been coaching
World Scholar's Cup since 2011. IBSH is the 3rd school that Mr.
Roberts has coached World Scholar's Cup, (WSC) for after
coaching in Indonesia at the Surabaya International School and
in Maryland for Linganore High School. He thinks that WSC is the
most wonderful celebration of knowledge that he has ever had the
privilege to be a part of. This competition consists of 4 events
(Team Debate, Team Writing, Scholar's Bowl, and Scholar's
Challenge) that is dedicated to exploring 6 different topics in
science, literature, history, social studies, the arts, and a
special area each year. Every year has a theme, and this year's
theme is "An Unlikely World."
Mr. Roberts began working with IBSH
WSC students even before he arrived in Hsinchu and the
camaraderie of the students in this group made him and Mrs.
Roberts feel instantly welcomed at IBSH. He feels that he gets
to work with the brightest and hardest working kids in the
school because WSC is like taking an additional class with
research, writing, and debate done almost every week. The IBSH
students have reached heights they never knew before with Mr.
Roberts as coach. One student finished first place in the senior
division at the global round in Capetown South Africa and
another team finished in 9th place in the junior division in the
much more competitive global round in Hanoi Vietnam.
Additionally, IBSH dominated the nation of Taiwan with an
overwhelming majority of the awards at the regional round in
Kaohsiung in April of 2017. Every IBSH student there qualified
to compete at the global round and every student from IBSH wh
chose to compete at the global round qualified to compete at the
Tournament of Champions held at Yale University this November.
Mr. Roberts is proud of the students' success, but he is more
proud of how they have become a true team that watches out for
each other. The club has grown in numbers of students and the
level of success since Mr. Roberts joined the IBSH team.
At the global round in Hanoi, there
were over 5,000 scholars present, and Mr. Roberts was selected
as one of the four coaches of the year. The founder of WSC, Mr.
Daniel Berdichevsky, literally jumped into Mr. Roberts arms when
he handed out the award. Mr. Roberts was given this award not
just because of the success of the IBSH teams, but also for
years of dedication to the activity at multiple schools. He
considers receiving this award one of the most important career
milestones he has achieved. His trophy is proudly displayed in
the IBSH trophy case.
