NC Academic Decathlon Winner to compete in National Competition
March 28, 2007 - On Feb. 24, the Enloe High Academic Decathlon Team won the North Carolina Academic Decathlon Championship and the right to represent North Carolina in the United States National Academic Decathlon ( http://usad.org ), the country’s premier scholastic competition.
Team members were Liyuan Yang, Haoyu Chen, Katrina Connor, Anish Sukumarin, Sarah Aldridge, Lizi Chen, Laura Morgan, Duncan Hardee, and Stephanie Hellweg-Brown.
To win a medal in the strongly contested US competition would be the culmination of years of hard work for senior team leader Liyuan Yang and the other eight members of the team. They must learn the extensive curriculum on their own to compete against teams whose schools teach Academic Decathlon as a class, and stake their school’s reputation on the outcome of the Nationals.
Years of hard work
Liyuan and seniors Haoyu Chen and Lizi Chen originally joined the team as freshmen, during a rebuilding period after the graduation of most of the previous team. Because their families were Chinese, Liyuan and Haoyu and Lizi had little cultural background to help them relate to the theme of “America: Growth of a Nation”, nor had they grown up with the songs and musical scale associated with that theme. Further, interviews, prepared speeches, and impromptu speeches were plagued by pesky cultural differences around eye contact, body language, and general mannerisms. But they could learn the history, economics, visual art, math, science and literature with the best of them, and they took second in the state competition behind an older and experienced Green Hope High School team. Amazingly, Liyuan, a ninth-grader, had the highest individual overall score in the state!
The next year, the team tackled “Exploring the Ancient World” as a theme (albeit limited to the western ancient world) and improved their speeches and interviews, but again took second to Green Hope. Last year, however, Enloe prevailed in the North Carolina competition and, with some help from the school system, a few local businesses, and supportive parents, they traveled to San Antonio, Texas for the National Competition. There, in spite of heroic efforts around a theme of “The European Renaissance”, the team was unable to garner a single medal.
The team emerged with a fervent commitment to go toe-to-toe with the big states and bring home some medals. And it seemed as though fate were on their side: the theme for this year is “China and Its’ Influence on the World”! Suddenly, the history, culture-even musical scales-were familiar. Liyuan heard music that had been played in her home since her infancy! The team devoured the curriculum with a passion, and handily won the North Carolina competition.
Competing in Hawaii
But a significant obstacle faced our North Carolina Champions: This year’s national competition is scheduled for Honolulu, Hawaii. As much fun as that sounds, it seemed an impossible dream for a team without funding, wealthy parents, or sponsors. The team sent out an appeal to the press and the greater Raleigh community, including the pounding of sidewalks and a frenzy of emails. Amazingly, with the help of some corporate donors, the Chinese American community, Wake County Public School System, and parents, the team has received pledges of enough funds to make the trip, and have registered for the United States Academic Decathlon National Competition.
The team is now heavily involved in intense preparation, with a vow to bring home some metal from Oahu. And they are thrilled to have the support of the greater Raleigh community.
Enloe teacher Vonnie Hicks is the team's Academic Decathlon Coach.
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