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“Our First Responsibility is to Our Students.”
Interview with Dr. Luo, founder of YES Education Center
First report: Canadian Metropolitan Newspaper
Text: Reporter Tan Wenwen
Re-edited by: YES Education Center
"It is deeply rooted in Chinese culture that they want their sons and daughters to become successful, so we also want to truly help children become successful." Luo Yaoguang, founder of YES Education Institution, said that teachers with strong academic backgrounds and a strong sense of responsibility are the characteristics of YES, and they hope to push children to the top platform through their own efforts.
At 12 noon, the reporter met Dr. Luo Yaoguang in a classroom at the YES Education Center where the get out of class had just ended. The boys who walked out of his classroom had bright eyes, as if they had just gone through a very sparking conversation.
"This child is in the 7th grade and will be promoted to the 8th grade at the beginning of the school year. He has studied chemistry with me for a year." Luo Yaoguang said with a smile: "We were just discussing the chemical problems in traditional Chinese medicine. His mother asked him to study chemistry before, but now he has a great interest in chemistry." At this point, Luo Yaoguang's eyes lit up: "As a chemistry teacher, I hope that there will be more and more talents in this industry. I have told him many times: Maybe one day you can win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry."
Working with Nobel Prize winners for five years
Luo Yaoguang is the founder and person in charge of YES Education Institution, and also a chemistry teacher in this school. Dr. Luo said that he entered the Department of Chemistry of Xiamen University in 1977, and was determined to study abroad on a government scholarship before graduation, so he came to Canada in 1982 and went to the University of Regina in Saskatchewan to conduct nitrogen transformation research. In 1989, after graduation, Luo Yaoguang went to the United States as a postdoctoral fellow, and returned to UBC in 1991 to work at the Canadian Protein Engineering Center of Dr. Michael Smith, the 1993 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry.
"I worked under Dr. Michael Smith until 1996," Luo Yaoguang said. At that time, a Chinese immigrant investor opened an international middle school in Dalian and wanted to connect with a Canadian university. He needed someone who knew more about Canadian education, so he found him. From then on, Luo Yaoguang began to work in the education industry.
A talented child has grown up in the family
Luo Yaoguang's son was born in Canada in 1989. He studied all the way to Yale University and now works at Goldman Sachs. Luo Yaoguang and his wife accompanied their child along the way, including applying for prestigious schools. Dr. Luo went through it all by himself without seeking help from intermediaries or consulting agencies.
"To be honest, I was also helpless when my child was applying for university. I had never been through this before. Wouldn't it be great if I could consult with someone with experience and discuss it with him?" Luo Yaoguang recalled. He also researched some institutions at the time, but felt that they were not professional enough, so he had to do everything himself.
After their children went to Yale, friends around them often found Dr. Luo and asked him to share his experience and help their children get into prestigious schools. "I have been here for 30 years since I graduated, and have been in colleges for more than ten years. Later, I worked in universities. If I can share my experience and help students apply to prestigious schools, it would be great." By 2012, Luo Yaoguang founded the YES Education Institution, which provides tutoring in AP, IB, competitions and other courses to children in need, and also helps them apply for schools.
Putting Responsibility Before Enrollment.
During the interview, the word Dr. Luo mentioned most often was "responsibility."
He admitted that the education industry seems to be in great demand, but also highly competitive, and even mixed, "Everyone wants to do it, but it is not easy to do it responsibly." Dr. Luo said that to teach children well, knowledge alone is not enough, experience is also required, but the most important thing is responsibility.
"In Greater Vancouver, I dare to compete with anyone in teaching chemistry. But when students come, I never guarantee a score of 5. If someone says, you have to guarantee that I will get a score of 5, I will not accept such a student." Dr. Luo said that he has pushed away many students, most of them because their parents were too utilitarian and asked him to guarantee a score of 5 in two months, but he would not make such a promise.
"I studied chemistry myself, so I can't cheat on chemistry," Dr. Luo said. "I'm currently teaching AP Chemistry, and I definitely have to spend 150 hours on it. According to the syllabus, AP Chemistry requires 220-240 hours of teaching time. We have much more content than the syllabus, and we compress it into 150 hours to finish it. There's a lot of content in each class. Some students will say after class, 'Oh, teacher, you have too many notes in each class, too much content, and it takes a long time to digest.' That's right. But there's a very impetuous trend in the Chinese community, which is to learn faster, better, and cheaper. I want that, too, but it doesn't exist."
Dr. Luo said the biggest feature of YES School is its professional sense of responsibility. "Whether students can learn or not depends on how much you are willing to invest." Dr. Luo showed the reporter a set of test papers, all of which were marked and annotated with red pen. "Look at this set of test papers. These are the topics I will talk about this afternoon. I told the students that I will test you and myself. I have done every set of questions myself, and I made all these notes. Students are not here to check answers. I want to tell them why. So this responsibility is very, very important."
Responsibility is also the standard Dr. Luo uses to evaluate school teachers: "Without a sense of responsibility, no matter how knowledgeable and well-trained you are, you can't teach well. For responsible teachers working in my school, we will continue to increase their workload, and for irresponsible teachers, we will quickly ask them to leave and stop scheduling classes for them."
Many of his students are admitted to prestigious universities
Some people may think that it is a waste of talent for a PhD to teach seventh and eighth graders, but Dr. Luo does not think so. "Which is more interesting, publishing a few more papers or cultivating three or five experts in the field?" Dr. Luo remembers that when his children were studying the IB course, the biology and mathematics teachers were both PhDs, and they were loved by the children.
"One thing particularly touched me," Dr. Luo said, "My child participated in a science competition in British Columbia, and 12 children were selected to participate in the national competition. Eight of them were students of this teacher. They stood on the stage and shouted the teacher's name and said we love you. These teachers train several students from Harvard and Yale every year. How many talents must they have trained over the years!"
The teachers hired by Dr. Luo's school also have well-known academic backgrounds. "When I recruit teachers, I look for the most professional ones. One of our math teachers is Indian, who studied math from college to doctoral level. Another is Ukrainian, who did a postdoctoral degree in math at the University of Science and Technology of China. I feel confident that such people can teach math."
Dr. Luo's school also produces many students from prestigious universities every year. "Many go to Ivy League schools, including Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge," Dr. Luo said with a smile, "but no one has gone to Stanford yet, I hope there will be in the future."
Dr. Luo is always very interested when talking about students. "We have a child in West Vancouver who is very smart, but he didn't learn chemistry well. Later, he was conditionally admitted to Oxford with a total IB score of 39 points, and no single subject was less than 6 points. But at that time, his chemistry score was predicted to be 5 points. His mother was anxious to find a teacher and contacted us. I gave him a lesson, and he didn't leave. He studied with me for 20 hours. Two months later, he took the exam. He was 0.4% away from getting 7 points, but he got 6 points. So he got into Oxford. He was very happy, and I was happy too!"
Hope to see outstanding Chinese individuals in all fields
Regarding the development of the school, Dr. Luo said that the school has expanded some classrooms. While expanding the scale, it is also looking for ways to expand the school's influence so as to provide greater help to children. "Next month, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania will send representatives to our school to prepare for a cooperative project." Dr. Luo said that he hopes to help children go to prestigious schools through such cooperative projects, "but it is not limited to these two schools, all famous schools in the United States will be included."
Dr. Luo, who has been in Canada for more than 30 years, admits that he is still Chinese at heart. "It is deeply rooted in Chinese culture that we want our sons and daughters to be successful, so we also want to really help our children become successful." Dr. Luo said that he plans to continue to work in the education industry. "In the future, the development of the world will definitely be driven by technology. I hope I can help push the children to the top platform. I hope that in the future, no matter in which field, in the world's top fields, there will be a group of our Chinese descendants."