Last Saturday I took 6 teams of students to a quiz bowl tournament. It was a huge endeavor one that I will not undertake again, at least on that scale. I absolutely love quiz bowl, but six teams 3 6th grade and 3 7/8th grade was just too many. That was the first lesson learned. There were a lot of tears when they lost a game, but parents were there to help with bruised egos and this made my day a lot easier. I could not get to every game, as three teams were playing at the same time. This made it challenging to give my all and to cheer on my teams. I did manage to see at least one game for each team but, I wish I had had more time to focus on individual students.
We practice three days a week, so I do know all of them and provide positive feedback and critiques for them, but they needed my support on Saturday and I was stretched to thin to do that. So lesson two learned. But they did have fun, learned a lot, and learned tons about losing graciously, humility, and determination, or lack thereof. All three of my 6th grade teams were there to learn and have fun not to get us another place in Nationals. They were motivated and tried their best but between them won only 3 games out of six each. This was their first ever competition and they did fantastic.
Two of my 7/8th grade teams made it into the playoffs, while one lost every game. Two teams did great and were organized and motivated and it showed. Coming in 8th and 16th out of 64 teams. The third team lost two games and then derailed because they were sore losers and were blaming everyone else for their loss. I had to speak with them about losing graciously and not giving up, but alas I had to move to another team and then they just derailed further and lost all 6 games. But in the end they learned a valuable lesson. They stayed after their defeat and supported the playoff teams and all of them understood what happened and how they could have been a stronger team.
A long day with 30 students and about 15 parents. I was also sick as a dog coughing, fever, runny nose. Lesson number three, get lots of sleep and stay healthy before a competition. I do work very hard balancing all six of my science competitions, 4 boys, teaching etc. Lesson four, let the little things go and focus on what is important. The one thing I always tell my students "Integrity, determination, responsibility." but most importantly "Have fun and losing is a stepping stone to winning."
Our next tournament is December 10th, less teams, more sleep, and just relax and have fun,
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