Westminster Wins Academic Bronze (and seven other medals!)
The United States Academic Decathlon is the premier academic competition
in the United States. Each year students compete within their local high
schools throughout the USA and Canada, then regionally and again at the state
level to win an opportunity to compete at the national level. The national event
is televised with corporate sponsorship and the students competing are highly
recruited by universities in North America.
The actual competition is 10 events that are centred around a theme. This
year’s theme was the Civil War and the events where mathematics; creative
essay writing; language and literature focussing on the novel Red Badge of
Courage, other poetry and smaller literature pieces from the Civil War; history;
art; music; business and economics. There is also public speaking, personal
interviews and a super quiz competition.
This year for the first time the event was opened up to American International
Schools abroad. Southbank Westminster entered a team that was made up of
Ariel Sagalovsky, Olivia and Glen Tokola, Jack O’Connor, Devika Joshi and
Brian Fitzpatrick. We were actually three students short of the usual competing
groups of nine. The students competed online on 17th April and 1st and 2nd of
May for seven of the ten events (public speaking, super quiz and personal
interviews were excluded), taking part at the same time as students from
Hawaii to Taiwan. Our exams where proctored during school time by Ana Cob
and after school by Laken Randhawa and due to the time differences some of
our students where competing well into the night!
Achieving one medal in the United States Academic Decathlon is difficult
enough, but this year Southbank gained a team Bronze, plus seven individual
medals.
Ariel achieved the highest score at the event; Brian, Jack and Devika were the
first ninth graders to medal at the national level and Brian is the youngest
competitor to win at Honors level.
What’s more, we didn’t go about this scholastic competition like the other
competing schools did. The students didn’t meet weekly and prepare for the
entire academic year, instead Lisa Saleh asked for nominations from teachers
for the academic events in the competition. Students were then invited to
compete and given study material to cover at home.
Lisa explains: “I worked with each student individually towards their medal
goal. Each student really did a huge bulk of the preparation on their own,
especially Ariel, as I can’t review math curriculum at such an advanced level.
They prepared, studied and tested only for the subjects they had chosen.
Usually each student does all ten academic events and they study all year
including the summer in the hope of winning a medal in anything.
“I guess you could liken us to a tennis team – we did well as a whole because
each individual won their own match.”
The entire team scored the Bronze for overall highest average score. Individual
results were:
Bronze
Business and economics to Glen (Varsity)
Essay creative writing to Jack (Scholastic)
Silver
Science to Glen (Varsity) and Olivia (Honors)
Essay creative writing to Glen (Varsity) and Devika (Scholastic)
Language and Literature to Brian (Honors)
Gold
Mathematics to Ariel (Honors).
The United States Academic Decathlon provides students of all learning levels
the opportunity to excel academically through team competition.
“Many congratulations to all the students who took part, their teachers and
Lisa Saleh. This really is an outstanding achievement for Southbank,” adds
Terry Hedger.
