Certainly, twenty years is not an age to rest on one's laurels. However, when this anniversary is celebrated by the annual republican intellectual quiz for young students, the "PROvinces Cup," with prizes from the Chairman of the District Executive Committee, Boris Efremov, it is high time to recall past victories.
Certainly, twenty years is not an age to rest on one's laurels. However, when this anniversary is celebrated by the annual republican intellectual quiz for young students, the "PROvinces Cup," with prizes from the Chairman of the District Executive Committee, Boris Efremov, it is high time to recall past victories.
- The Belarusian League of Intellectual Teams was formed in 1996; we organized ourselves on a voluntary basis in 1997, not yet knowing about the BLITs (Belarusian League of Intellectual Teams). – says Viktor Radko, head of the "Ra" intellectual club. -- For several years, we played by reading about similar tournaments in Minsk, Gomel, and other cities. However, this allowed us to develop our own vision for the tournament, which has no analogues in the country. The "Provinces Cup" has acquired aesthetics and spectacle without losing any of its sporting component. In December 1997, there was a sharp start – we held a regional tournament, and teams from seven cities came to us. The first champions were the intellectuals from Beshenkovichi; the Lepel team took third place. Sergey Kukhto, who at that time was the head of the folk theatre of stage miniatures "Balagan," helped organize the first tournament. The current Chairman of the Vitebsk Regional Council of Deputies, Vladimir Terentyev, was also present at the first tournament. It was a time of great enthusiasm, and our initiatives were supported by Petr Shikshnyan, Nikolay Nikitin, and Vera Zakrevskaya.
The district House of Culture hall accommodated the maximum number of participants – thirty-nine. We hosted teams from all corners of the country – Minsk, Gomel, Vitebsk, Braslav, Baran, and others. Intellectual work is carried out everywhere in our region; however, tournaments are held in six cities. Tournaments in Gorodok and Miory were organized relatively recently, after visits to our project.
The "Intellect-ring Provincial Cup" has been constantly growing, and today we are the most media-savvy project. We have original games "Pin-code" and "More-less," which have already gained republican reach. Currently, the club includes children from the third to the eleventh grade. We filmed our own show "Galaktika" and took fourth place among professional TV channels in the "Children's Show" nomination at the National Television Competition "Televershina." Now, with the advent of the multiboard, there are plans to return to this theme. We participated in an international environmental project, within the framework of which we repaired three wells in the city. We involved employees of the hygiene and epidemiology center, city residents in the issue and received a grant from the international educational center IBB. We were then invited to Berlin for ten days at the expense of the German side.
Practically all club members are participants in various Olympiads, both at the district and regional levels. We have won medals, including at republican competitions. We occupy the niche of organizing interdisciplinary connections; the classes resemble a mix of the Finnish methodology and the Montessori method. The main thing is to neutralize children's fear of new information, to create conditions for them to compete not with their peers, but with themselves. "Become better than you were yesterday" is the club's motto.
Country champions in acrobatic cheerleading visited Lepel. At one of the tournaments, children from different countries, including the USA, Germany, and France, asked questions. There were years when a respected person from the city was invited to each block and asked a question. In recent years, games between the team of coaches and the team of children have become traditional. There were also video questions from musicians Alexey Khlestov and the band "Bez bileta."
I played against experts on the TV version of "What? Where? When?", attended the filming many times, and won. By my own example, I try to prove that one should not be afraid to express oneself. Children now independently create educational videos, and sometimes conduct "intellect-rings" in class themselves," notes Viktor Radko.
…The main word of the jubilee "Cup of the Province" was "thank you", as it was on the day of the tournament that the World "Thank You" Day was celebrated. Gratitude was loudly echoed towards the Chairman of the District Executive Committee, Boris Efremov, who opened the intellectual tournament. Boris Sergeevich presented the intellectual club "Ra" with a gift – the interactive panel RioTouch.
Unfortunately, the capabilities of the assembly hall of the agricultural and technical college are not limitless, and it is not possible to accommodate everyone who wishes. However, despite this, thirty teams started the intellectual competition. Among them were both recognized leaders and complete newcomers. These are two teams of young participants – "Rapira" and "Lider" from the gymnasium named after I. M. Erashov. And, looking ahead, "Rapira" performed in line with its name, painfully "stinging" and bypassing several older teams.
The very first game "Media Alphabet" in the "Erudition" block forced participants to switch on their "grey matter" without delay. In media drawings, participants had to guess one of the main attractions of Brussels, the "Atomium", the Finnish hockey "Jokers", the Indian festival of colors "Holi", and the founder of theoretical cosmonautics, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. "Kaleidoscope" – a blitz with a penalty. A point is deducted for an incorrect answer. "Kaleidoscope" turned out to be very informative. For example, it revealed that the Belarusian biathlete Nadezhda Skardino has an unsurpassed achievement – she completed 22 shooting ranges without misses, hitting 110 targets in a row, and that the Congo River is the deepest in the world.
"Pin-code" is an author's game, and it was not easy to form the sought-after "code". After all, to do this, one needs to know how many active volcanoes there are in Australia or at what age Van Gogh started painting. There are no active volcanoes on the Australian continent, and Van Gogh started painting at the age of twenty-seven. This is further proof for each of us that one can start creating at absolutely any age.
…However, besides all the joyful events, there was also a slight touch of sadness. For some, the "Cup" became one of their last in the club's game jersey. They are graduating, and many on stage did not hide their tears. And they also prepared a gift.
-- We are gifting you coins from five continents, -- the graduates intrigued. -- Africa is the Egyptian pound, where you will look at a pride of lions and remember "In-Pride". "Niagara" -- our successors and coins with a denomination of one dollar you must throw into the famous waterfall. We hope that the "Ra" club will never run aground on the reefs of failure, and the Australian dollar will be useful when visiting the Great Barrier Reef. The Mexican peso represents South America, and we will complete our numismatic journey in Sweden. The krona will help you in Stockholm, as it is there that the Nobel Prize is awarded. And even if there isn't a separate prize for work on child development yet. When it appears, we will definitely nominate you, -- the graduates noted.
… "Three" in Japanese is "san", nine is "kyu". What does the number "39" mean in Japanese SMS slang? This is the final question in "What? Where? When?". After a minute of thought, many of the teams said "thank you" to the tournament again on their game sheets. Let us also say it, and we look forward to the next "Cup of the Province".
In the final standings among juniors, the pupils of the "Ra" club "In-Pride" celebrated victory. In second place were "Anti-Utopia" (Gorodok) and "Red Hunters" (Miory). Lepel's "Niagara" took first place among juveniles, while Novopolotsk's "Fact of the Emergency" and "NEW GENERATION" (Gorodok) completed the top three prize-winners. In the "mini" category, a fierce confrontation between the teams "Piranhas" (Lepel) and "NEXT" (Polotsk) led the Polotsk intellectuals to first place. Their compatriots, the "FSB" team, are third.
Yevgeny NIKOLAEV
