We once had a poster competition in our fifth grade art class.

    “You could win prizes,'' our teacher told us as she wrote the poster information on the blackboard. She passed out sheets of construction paper while continuing, “The first prize is ten dollars. You just have to make sure that the words on the blackboard appear somewhere on your poster.”

    We studied the board critically. Some of us looked with one eye and held up certain colors against the blackboard, rocking the sheets to the right or left while we conjured up our designs. Others twisted their hair around their fingers or chewed their erasers while deep in thought. We had plans for that ten-dollar grand prize, each and every one of us. I'm going to spend mine on candies, one hopeful would announce, while another practiced looking serious, wise and rich.

    Everyone in the class made a poster. Some of us used parts of those fancy paper napkins, while others used nothing but colored construction paper. Some of us used big designs, and some of us preferred to gather our art tidily down in one corner of our poster and let the space draw the viewer's attention to it. Some of us would wander past the good students' desks and then return to our own projects with a growing sense of hopelessness. It was yet another grown-up trick of the sort they seemed especially fond of, making all of us believe we had a fair chance, and then always — always — rewarding the same old winners.

    I believe I drew a sailboat, but I can't say that with any certainty. I made it. I admired it. I determined it to be the very best of all of the posters I had seen, and then I turned it in.

    Minutes passed.

    No one came along to give me the grand prize, and then someone distracted me, and I probably never would have thought about that poster again.

    I was still sitting at my desk, thinking, What poster? when the teacher gave me an envelope with a ten-dollar bill in it and everyone in the class applauded for me.

    Several years ago, my parents, my wife, my son and I ate at one of those restaurants where the menu is written on a blackboard. After a wonderful dinner, the waiter set the check in the middle of the table. That's when it happened：my father did not reach for the check.

    Conversation continued. Finally I realized that I should pick up the check! After hundreds of restaurant meals with my parents, after a lifetime of thinking of my father as the one with dollars, it had all changed. I reached for the check, and my view of myself suddenly changed. I was an adult. I was no longer a kid (child).

Some people mark off (区分) their lives in years, I measure mine in small events. I didn't become a young man at a particular age, like 16, but rather when a kid who wandered in the streets called me "mister". These events in my life are called "milestones"(里程碑).

    There have been other milestones. The cops (policemen) of my youth always seemed big, even huge, and of course they were older than I was. Then one day they were suddenly neither. The day came when I suddenly realized that all the football players in the game I was watching were younger than I was. They were just big kids. With that milestone gone was the dream that someday, maybe I, too, could be a football player. Without ever having reached the hill, I was over it.

    I never thought that I would fall asleep in front of the TV set as my father did. Now it's what I do best. I never thought that I would go to the beach and not swim, yet I spent all of August at the shore and never once went into the ocean. I never thought that I would appreciate opera, but now the combination of voice and orchestra attracts me. I never thought that I would prefer to stay home in the evenings, but now I find myself passing up parties. I used to think that people who watched birds were strange, but this summer I found myself watching them, and maybe I'll get a book on the subject. I feel a strong desire for a religious belief that I never thought I'd want, feel close to my ancestors long gone, and echo my father in arguments with my son. I'll still lose….

    One day I bought a house. One day－What a day!－I became a father, and not too long after that I picked up the check for my own father. I thought then it was a milestone for me. One day, when I was a little older, I realized it was one for him too, another milestone．

    From childhood, Moira loved to write. Throughout school she enjoyed writing, but pursuing it professionally was never a possibility. Her father was a doctor, her mother a nurse. “Medicine was a fairly safe choice,” Moira says, “and writing was a career where it wasn't a certainty that you'd have high income.”

    She became a doctor but still wanted to write something. However, being a doctor was so demanding that she didn't take up writing until her thirties. She produced a novel—a fictionalized version of her travel in China after university. She got excellent reviews. Moira sent it off to as many agents as she could find, and found one who wanted to represent her. Suddenly, it seemed she was on her way as an author.

    “I had one lengthy phone call with the agent where we went through all possible areas that she thought needed polishing. I worked on those and sent it back to her but didn't hear anything.” It wasn't long before Moira found another agent who was interested if she was willing to rewrite it from the first person to the third person. She did the hard work and sent it off again. “I got back a really brief letter: 'Thank you, I'm no longer interested.' It was really disappointing.”

    A decade went by, and Moira found herself eager to write again, this time purely for her own enjoyment. She set herself the challenge of creating a thriller and chose Western Australia as her setting.

    As she was writing just for herself, something surprising began to happen. “The characters took on a life of their own; they started doing things I hadn't thought about. It just flew.” One day, an agent called from Australia. Three weeks later, Moira had a publication deal. Her novel, Cicada, was published in March.

    “Even if it hadn't been published I still gained so much from the process,” says Moira.

    The Broadcom MASTERS competition aims to find a balance between celebrating individual accomplishments and acknowledging that science seldom happens alone. The competition takes off when students from around the country are teamed up and have to solve a series of hands—on challenges in the spotlight.

    Nowadays, kids are fed with “the myth of the lone scientist”, so placing such challenges in the middle school period has a huge potential for impact. The focus on teambuilding skills gets students excited before more fears and stereotypes(成见)set in.

    The initial pool of qualified students comes from the participants in nation-wide science fairs. Those who score in the top 10％(about 10, 000 kids)have the qualification to apply. The judges select the top 300 young scientists, and that group is finally narrowed to 30 finalists.

    Selection at this stage is clearly an honor in itself, but it counts as step one for the finalists. They are then flown to Washington, D. C. and placed into teams of five for the hands-on part of the competition. Each team is made up of students with different talents and skills, including academic focus and experience.

    Unlike the science fairs, where most of the work takes place behind the scenes and students share a polished outcome, the hands-on challenges create a space where the work is the competition itself. The students take up a range of challenges in science, technology, engineering, math and so on. Each of the challenges will need the insight and skills of multiple team members.

    Judges observing the challenges aren't just looking for outcomes but also for leadership, teamwork and problem solving.

    The Broadcom MASTERS attracts increasing numbers of passionate and talented young people who are eager to take part in a program that helps them grow as scientists, engineers and inventors. It lets the students experience a sense of coming together with true peers. More importantly, it provides them with new skills to tackle future challenges.

    Anyone who has ever volunteered for any cause can tell you that in the end, they felt that they gained more from the experience than they gave. This is true for most examples of reaching out to help others. We find that we gain new understanding about not only those we help, but ourselves as well. Stressing the importance of helping others in martial arts students will benefit them both inside and outside of the class.

    Helping others strengthens families. Families that practice the belief of working together and helping each other prepare their children for the concept of teamwork outside of the home environment. By learning to help around the house through activities such as household jobs, baby-sitting and keeping a tidy bedroom, children learn valuable lessons that they carry with them to their future relationships.

    By helping others outside of the home environment, valuable friendships can be developed. When we learn to reach out to others and give off our time and talents we find that our friendships grow, which in turn is a benefit to our lives. Martial arts training supports this by exposing students to people of various backgrounds and beliefs that gather for a common goal and to help each other. Any time a group of people are working toward a common goal, team spirit surely forms. When we help each other in the martial arts setting and in every area of our lives, a friendship is formed that promotes teamwork.

    The most important thing to realize is that it does not take a lot to make a lot happen. Little things can make a big difference in the area of helping others. Simple gestures of kindness and support given frequently can build a strong base for the growth and development of each individual which leads to the success of all.