Despite the health, social, and economic toll Covid-19 has taken on China’s citizenry, it has likewise led to some truly creative and inspiring endeavors.

At Beijing International Bilingual Academy (BIBA), a student-led initiative called Life is Fascinating (LIF), saw the Coronavirus not as a blow to education as we know it, but as an opportunity for collaboration and community learning.

LIF’s mission is to “improve student life on campus”, however given that students aren’t on campus, the group of nine had to come up with new and innovative ways to serve their peers.

As such, they instituted a program called English is Fascinating (EIF), an online platform through which student-tutors can give their peers English lessons.

We spoke with Edward O., LIF’s founder and Chairman, about how EIF got started, and what LIF has planned for the future.

Edward O.

Please introduce yourself!

Nice to meet you! My name is Edward O., age 15, and I’m from Korea. I’m currently a Grade 9 student in BIBA. I started the LIF club last year with several students, and I currently lead the club as its Chairman.

LIF’s English is Fascinating initiative is a really cool concept! Can you tell us a little bit about how you developed the idea?

As a Life is Fascinating Club project, it was made to fit with LIF’s mission: to help improve students’ school lives and the school environment the best we could. LIF does this by starting projects that last for a certain period of time. For example, as an idea I had, LIF started a school-wide Plastic Bottle Recycling competition to lighten the load of our plastic-burdened school community in a fun and interesting way. (Each homeroom class competed to recycle as much bottles as possible, with a pizza party being given to the winning homeroom. About 12,000 bottles were recycled, just over two months!). The Online English classrooms were an idea to help students out when everyone was staying home due to the COVID-19 epidemic. I, along with LIF members, thought it a good idea to share our English abilities by giving online lessons to other students.

LIF members stand with the recyclables they collected

What other ideas for initiatives inspired by Coronavirus did LIF have?

The current COVID-19 epidemic was a situation that inspired this project. This project was started to take the current situation where everyone was staying home as an advantage. The October-December Plastic Bottle Recycling Competition was initiated as I saw our school community overburdened with plastic use, and LIF wanted to lighten that load in order to make a nicer and greener school community. An in-school debate tournament that we planned got going as to provide students with an opportunity to practice and hone their debating skills in a friendly environment. The current epidemic was a situation that LIF saw as an opportunity to help in a way we can.

LIF is entirely student-driven, from logo design to event organization

How many students are currently participating, both learners and instructors?

About forty to fifty students and instructors are participating, with lessons on weekends.

What is the age and grade range of students participating in the online classes?

The majority of the students participating are Middle School students, with some in lower grade levels.

Edward and Sherwin conduct online lessons

What kind of technology platform are you using to conduct classes? How did you figure out all the necessary technical requirements to accomplish this?

The classes are conducted through a video-conferencing platform called ‘Zoom’. Other platforms such as Skype were considered, but we chose to use the former simply due to its simplicity of use. 

Do you think English is Fascinating will stick around, even after normal school operations resume and everyone returns to in-class learning?

Well, as a LIF project that started in correspondence with our mission, we have it planned to last until we can go back to school. We love working on our projects, and after this, we plan on moving ahead with a separate planned project. However, even after when we go back to school, we might hold online classes once every few weeks depending on the case.

What does LIF have planned for the future?

Well, although we like surprises, we’ve been working on organizing a Teacher Lip-Sync Competition to raise funds for charity so that we can make more students’ lives fascinating. Since this is a big event, it is going to take quite a lot of effort, but regardless, we’re going to be working on it. It’s very important to emphasize that our projects should be in line with LIF’s mission, to provide our students with beneficial experiences and to help our school community. Besides the Lip-Sync Battle, we’re planning on finishing up the Debate Tournament for this school year.

Anything else you’d like to share…

I have to be honest that I’m really happy and honored to be leading the BIBA LIF Club. We work well with each other cooperatively while also having fun. It’s really satisfying seeing the results of a project that we were working on for the previous several months. (It was hard work moving around thousands of plastic bottles every week!) I’m also happy to be able to make even a little effect in people’s lives and the community that we share. Lastly, I’d like to thank our members and our school community for creating such great experiences and opportunities. I’m looking to keep LIF running for the next couple of years left in my High School life.

Photos: courtesy of BIBA