By Elise Goitia '18

Knox College junior Charlie Harned, and other Knox students spent part of the summer of 2014 in China, where they led an English-language camp for young people. Harned '16, who is from St. Louis, Missouri, is a political science major with Spanish and economics minors. Here, he explains more about the experience in China.

Who else was involved in this trip?

I, along with five other teachers, represented the Anything Is Possible Education Foundation as an English teacher in He Yang, Shaanxi, China. (Harned founded Anything Is Possible, a nonprofit organization that aims to help high school students by providing free tutoring and college scholarships.)

We ran a nine-day English camp for kids between the ages 7-17. The other teachers were (Knox students and AIPEF members) Victor Schultz '16, Nils Leitz '16, Srichandra Masabathula '16, Peiwen Ding '17, and Annie Cutting from University of Mary Washington. We were in China for two weeks.

What were your day-to-day experiences there?

We would wake up at 7:30 for breakfast and start teaching at 8:30. The morning session went from 8:30 to 11:30. During this session, we would focus more on having fun with the kids through the English language rather than lessons. We taught American games (duck, duck, goose was a big hit) and American culture. The afternoon session was from 3 to 6. In the afternoon, we split the kids into two groups and taught lessons. We talked about everything, from how to get directions in English to American holidays.

How did this opportunity happen?

Ben Greuter '12 is a full-time teacher at Bob English Training School, the school we taught at in China. He reached out to us and invited us to teach because he heard some Knox students had founded a charity. Travel was paid for by the Richter Funds and the Stellyes Center. Room and board in China were paid for by Bob English Training School.

How do you think this experience influenced your future career?

The trip really solidified in my mind that whatever my career may be, its main component must be service to others. Whether that be through politics or further work with non-profits, this trip really showed that there will always be people to help.

What was the most memorable part for you?

Without a doubt, the most memorable part was on the last day. Paul, one of our friendliest but worst English-speaking students, usually just smiled and wanted to play games. During the entire 30-minute closing ceremony, he was crying. I didn't notice it until all the students had left, and he was sitting alone in his chair. Peiwen, who is fluent in Chinese and English, asked what was wrong and found out he was crying because he was going to miss us so much. That story will certainly stick with me my entire life.

What inspired you to pursue this trip and Anything Is Possible?

The movie Good Will Hunting explains why I wanted to pursue AIPEF and the China trip. One of the main lessons I took from the movie is to not let someone's potential go unfulfilled. Though the students we taught in China are not connected to AIPEF's mission, they all have a personal connection with the AIPEF members who went and they'll certainly remember the charity. I knew that we all had the potential to create AIPEF and follow through with it. More importantly though, there is a tremendous amount of potential that we believe shouldn't remain untapped.