random anecdote from english hakwon
in our hakwon, we do an essay competition twice a year. they usually group the levels into two or three and make each group compete with different topics. it was 2023 when me and my class first came into the hakwon (most of us were from the hakwon in the same organization for younger students) and the teachers told us we were going to have an persuasive essay competition. they didn't tell us the topic, but they told us each group of levels would have a different theme for the topic, and our group was 'fairness'. we didn't think much of that. the teacher also told us since we're the youngest kids out of everyone in the same level, and the kids in the level higher than us (the ones in the same group) suck at writing, so we're going to win. i was like 'ok whatevs'.
and then it was competition day, word says even the teachers didn't know the topic until 2 minutes before the competition. our topic was 'should transgender people be allowed to compete in sports?'. remember we were fifth graders, so none of us had any idea what transgender was. i think the teachers weren't allowed to tell us any additional things about the topic, but our teacher knew transgender wasn't a concept we knew a lot about, so she just told us transgender means someone who changed their gender. turned out the other levels didn't have much luck either, because their topic was 'what is happiness?'
after that the topics got way easier, and this year i won first in campus!