Beyond the field and stage, high school students are embracing new ways to compete and learn in a variety of academic clubs.
From Quiz Bowl, to mock trials to debate team, competitive clubs with a focus on intellect are attracting more students thanks to the success of teams currently competing at schools around the county.
Mississinewa High School’s Quiz Bowl hosted their first meeting on Thursday afternoon following a successful season that saw the team compete at a state-level.
“We went to a couple competitions, we actually took home an award for one competition,” said Tiffany Hehe, Quiz Bowl coach. “We were against some pretty good schools that had really strong academics that are actually outside of our league sports-wise. We were academically matched with them.”
Hehe is an English teacher at Mississinewa High and is a former Quiz Bowl kid herself.
“A lot of the students choose not to participate in clubs if they’re not athletically inclined, but we have a lot of kids that are very academic and this program gives them a chance to flex the brain muscles,” she said. “It’s trivia and it’s based strongly in academics, but there is also current events and pop culture and sports as well. It’s whoever is quickest on the buzzer.”
Alex Winter, a senior, said he has been on the Quiz Bowl team during all four years at Mississinewa High.
“My friends got me into it and my mom was always part of the program and I just thought it would be fun. It’s just always fun to go out to schools on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the questions are always interesting. You always learn new stuff,” he said. “It was really cool last year to make it to the state tournament. Just competing against the local schools is always fun too, since I have a lot of friends that go to the other schools and are on the teams.”
Hehe said there is a lot of interest in the club this year.
“There are a lot more bodies in this room than I was expecting to see,” she said.
Senior Alyssa Pavey was one of the students who joined the club for the first time this year because she had heard good things about the team.
“I thought it sounded like a really fun thing to try,” Pavey said. “I’ve seen a lot of my friends do it in the past years, so I thought in my last year I should just go ahead and give it a go.”
The Quiz Bowl team ran through a mock competition to show the newcomers how to work the buzzer system. Winter and Pavey faced off on opposite teams.
“It was really fun,” Pavey said. “Being put on the spot is more difficult than you think it would be.”
The Mississinewa Quiz Bowl team has their first competition on Sept. 30, with HeHe saying many students might find themselves benefiting from the practices in their normal classwork as well.
“Especially for the JV, being underclassmen, will be exposed to a lot of upperclassmen subjects like calculus or history they don’t have yet. They’ll be exposed to the information before they have it in class so they’ll be ahead of their classmates,” she said. “You get a lot of camaraderie and there’s a lot of healthy competition within the team. You have that going and there is just a strong friendship, they are like a Quiz Bowl family.”
Winter added, “Sometimes you learn new stuff or other people teach you things.”
Danielle Christenson, an English teacher at Marion High School, has also seen a growth in academic clubs at the school in recent years. She is the coach for several teams, including Spell Bowl, Quiz Bowl and the English Academic Bowl team.
Last year was a high point for Marion academic teams.
“Last year my English team, out of over 100 schools, we placed fifth at state,” Christenson said. “Marion had never even gone to state before, so for us to go to state and place fifth, I was very excited. My Spell Bowl team also went to state, which Marion has never done before so last year was a very good year for us.”
The Quiz Bowl also competed at the state-level, which has upped recruiting efforts at the school to get students interested.
“It’s helped recruiting, but what is really nice too is that the students that have been with me since they were freshmen have stayed. I have about five that are seniors now so they’ve been with me this whole way. Last year they won and had that taste, so now we hope to do even better,” Christenson said.
Quiz Bowl in particular, Christenson said, is helpful to students of all academic levels.
“That’s why I don’t just promote it with my honors students but with my general kids too,” she said. “Quiz Bowl, for example, is a lot like a Jeopardy-type setting where it’s trivia. They have many sports related questions, so those who are really into sports trivia, we need you too. Say you’re strong in math but you’re not so strong in current events, it doesn’t matter because it’s composed of four students per team and everyone’s special area can come together to answer questions.”
Spell Bowl is the first team Christenson coaches in the year, with 10 students competing at a time. Their first, and only, competition is on Nov. 3. If they place at that competition, the team can advance to state on Nov. 15.
“This year, there were over 3,000 words on the list. That’s 15 pages long so we meet once a week and I give our quizzes and we usually go over four pages per meeting,” Christenson said. “Even though it’s competitive, it’s close knit too because it takes the team to win. It’s such a neat thing. A lot of students don’t like spelling. With spell check it’s hard to get them motivated to spell, but we get into more than just that. We get into the etymology and the kids on the team love it, they enjoy it.”
Christenson said she enjoys sponsoring the academic clubs because it gives kids options beyond athletics or music to explore extracurricular activities.
“Not everyone is athletic and this gives the kids that aren’t athletic an after school activity opportunity to get involved in school functions,” she said. “We were recognized by the board for our accomplishments and I think the academic teams are being viewed as actually very competitive and worthwhile. I always tell the kids that on that college application there is a spot that asks, ‘What activities did you participate in?’ If you don’t do sports, this is something. I also have many students that are in sports and on academic teams, so it’s not one or the other.”
Pavey agreed with that sentiment, saying “I think that it is less appreciated but I think it will be very interesting to see how we can get academically. I think it’s a lot harder to be recognized for doing things for academics than it would be to do things for sports.”