[we went to our state GeoBee this week and while my contestant did well, I felt things were not as fair as they might be. The state of Washington produces a lot of solid contenders in this competition: in the preliminary room we were in 7 of the 20 kids got perfect scores with 21 out of the 100 having to go to a tiebreaker round to get the final 10. My family doesn’t want me to make waves by sending this but I’m putting it here for reference.]
National Geographic Bee
1145 17th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
Good morning,
I have just returned from our state GeoBee (out here in the other Washington), our first experience. My son was the first ever from his school to make it to the state level, and we were quite pleased with the idea of him being one of 100 in the state to make it that far.
A couple of observations I would like to pass along, after some conversations with my son’s teacher as well. I think the range of ages and educational experience is too broad. There were pronunciation and procedural issues in the preliminary room I was in that should have been addressed in advance. Finally, locally-relevant questions should be examined to see if they are too easy.
• I was a little surprised to see the significant difference between the contestants. It seems a little odd to have 8th graders (some of whom were taller than my six feet and in addition, were already shaving) against 5th graders, none of whom were all that tall or shaving. Here in Washington, these kids would never see each other in any other context, as they would almost certainly go to different schools with different curricula and would never play on the same sports teams. Why would they compete in the same academic contests?
I suggest making two groups, one of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders (since 6th graders are still in elementary schools in this state as well as others) and another of 7th and 8th graders. I’ve heard it suggested that having them all in one group is all about getting experience, but I have to wonder if it’s good experience, given the different academic environments.
Since that the two finalists this year are 8th graders and last year’s winner, also from Washington, was an 8th grader, I’m not sure why 4th or 5th graders would expect to do very well, given that their schools probably don’t offer a geography specialty as middle and high schools often do. Much of what they learn is going to be in the context of other studies, like history or even reading for pleasure, rather as a core subject. Whether or not geography should be a core subject is a conversation for another times (I expect I agree with you that it should be).
• I would also like to ask for a pronunciation guide or more experienced presenters/moderators as well more clear instructions on when teachers can ask for clarification on questions. It seemed clear to me that teachers could ask for a pronunciation check or other clarification once the question was delivered, but we had an instance today when the moderator disagreed with that. It would make no sense to clarify the question after the answer has been given, and I found the way the teacher was treated to be very poor, with the timer (a middle-school student and former contestant) accusing her of arguing when she related the instructions we were all given. As it happens, the question was re-read correctly and I understand the teacher later received an apology, so there were no ramifications from this. But there were a few instances where pronunciation issues marred the proceedings, and these kids all deserve better than that. And teachers are what make this happen at the school level, as the local organizers know.
Alternatively, the preliminaries could be structured to accommodate auditory and visual learning styles, by asking all the contestants the same question orally as well as presenting it on some kind of display or posterboard and asking them to write down the answer. That would require fewer questions, take less time, and provide a more accurate assessment of their knowledge against the same material.
• And finally, I suggest that local organizers should be able to throw out questions that are obvious to anyone in a given geographic area. For example, here in the Pacific Northwest, no one would need a lot of time to answer a question of which the gist is “name the largest island off the west coast of Canada.” That was asked of a contestant today, and the next question was about the Bimiputras and where they live. (I had never heard of them, and the contestant wasn’t any better off.) So a kid in New York need not be asked about how many boroughs in New York City nor would a Floridian contestant be asked about the largest city in his state.
Thanks for your time and, overall, for a great experience for these 100 hard-working kids.