Student Profile: Basil Kuok

From now on, this blog will start featuring some of the excellent students studying at the centre so that parents and students alike can learn from them. This is by no means an attempt to glorify these particular students. Rather, it is hoped that through observing these excellent students, we can learn from them so that we can nurture more excellent students.

The first student on the list is Basil, aged 7. Basil joined Kumon in May 2007 when he was only a Kindergarten 1 student. He joined Kumon Maths at Level 6A because he had problems with reading numbers after 11 in English. In the beginning, he was a timid boy who preferred to look at his feet when he walked into the centre. Today, 2 years and 3 months later, he's one of the Gold students at the centre. He's currently a Primary 1 student studying Level D in Kumon Maths. He's also a bronze English student, doing Level BII. He has become more confident and outspoken. He is also very disciplined and enthusiastic about taking on new challenges.

Lately, Basil has been stuck doing the same worksheets (D81-120) for almost two months since he achieved ASHR Gold in June. His completion time was long (over 25 mins for 5 sheets) and he no longer looked happy when he came to the centre. He found D101 & D111 to be difficult. AS a result, he didn't like doing them. Observing this, the Instructor told his mother that she would ask him to start from D81 as sometimes children pick up momentum and motivation when they are asked to start from an easier set. The mother agreed. Two hours after the Parent Meeting, Basil's mother called up the Instructor to tell her that Basil objected going back to D81, stating that he was sick of doing the same worksheets again and again. He told the mother he already knew how to do them. Upon hearing this, the Instructor gave Basil a challenge: She'll assign D101-105 as classwork the next day and if Basil could finish it within 20 mins, she would not repeat the set. Basil agreed.

So on Friday (14 Aug), when Basil came to the class, he was asked to do D101-105 in front of the Instructor. He was told that he would get D106-110, D111-115 & D116-120 as his homework for the next three days. If he could do all four sets within 20 mins, he could proceed to D121. Basil agreed and sat down to work on the worksheets. His last attempt on the same worksheets was 25 mins with 3 perfect scores.

He looked quite happy and confident to be doing the worksheets. Even though the Instructor was showering him with praises while he was doing the worksheets, he didn't get distracted at all. He completed question by question without pausing, as if he had memorised the answers. Below is a video showing how he attempted the questions:

Amazing, isn't it? Basil managed to complete the worksheets in 11 minutes with 5 perfect scores.

He looked a little shocked when the Instructor told him this. After that, he was all smiles as he went off to do his English class work. That day, the Instructor learned a very good lesson: It is very important to observe the students to discover their real potential. She discovered that Basil has been craving for attention. She had thought that he was independent enough to do his work without close supervision so she had not been paying him too much attention. That day, she learned that even an excellent and confident student such as Basil needed attention and encouragement once in a while. Although she needs to pay attention to the weaker students, she still needs to look after students like Basil so that they have the confidence to go on.

So well done, Basil! We are very proud of you. Keep up the good work and we look forward to seeing you complete Kumon one day!