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February 03, 2006
Academic Decathlon
For those of you not in the know about the world of high school, this weekend is the Academic Decathlon. This event happens all over the country in high schools on the first Saturday in February. The students involved compete in math, science, social studies, Language Arts, speech, oral interviews, music, and off the top of my head I can't remember what else. They take various tests all day until the culminating event-The Super Quiz.
That's where I come in. For the last 15 years or so, I've given the questions for the Super Quiz to the teams competing in Glenn County. Each team of students at three different proficiency levels gets 10 questions in front of a live audience. When the competition is really tight, this last event can be the deciding factor for which team wins as well as which individual will win the overall competion.
This year, as in past years, I received the Super Quiz questions a week or so before the event. Our coordinator gives them to me so I can look up any hard to pronounce words. I am very grateful especially when the questions are esoteric science or learned literary greats with tongue twister names. When she told me the topic was the Renaissance, I wasn't too worried-until I saw the questions.
I don't speak French, Italian, or German. I speak English and Spanish. The key players during the Renassaince seemed to speak neither. I found myself looking up what seemed like every third word. I know for sure it was every third name. Even those in English seemed to be more difficult this year. Is this a perverse happening just because it's the last one I will be doing?
Oh well, I've done my homework. All the names are reviewed and practiced. I just hope the kids have done their's. Today will be fun and exciting as usual, and, as much as I like sports, it's really nice to see the academic group get some recognition too.
Posted by Dr Joni at February 3, 2006 08:22 PM