AGazine, December 2012

Events across the AGLOA leagues during the next month:

• Jan. 7: Western Pennsylvania Academic Games League On-Sets Tournament @ Heinz History Center
• Jan. 8: Palm Beach Academic Games League Social Studies Training (Teachers only) @ John Leonard High
• Jan. 11: St. Bernard Parish Presidents Tournament
• Jan. 12: Michigan League of Academic Games Regional Tournaments
  Regions A & D: Plymouth Educational Center, Detroit
  Region B: Adler Elementary School, Southfield
  Region C: Amerman Elementary School, Northville
  Region E: Pearson Education Center, Redford Charter Township
  Region F: Lansing Christian School, Lansing
• Jan. 15: Martin County (FL) World Events & Presidents Practice Round, Rounds 1 & 2 (El/Mid only)

If your league’s events are not listed, please send us your schedule.

Nationals Qualifying Rules – III

The AGLOA Board has asked leagues to submit their rules—all within the AGLOA guidelines—for determining their Nationals qualifiers. Over the course of this year, we will share their procedures with you. Then, you can compare your league’s rules to others.

Indian River (FL) – provided by Lorrie Scott

“Indian River uses the all-star model for qualifying students for Nationals. The following are our general guidelines:

1. The student must play all the games locally – Equations, LinguiSHTIK, Presidents, and World Events.
2. The student must qualify for State in at least one game. Indian River brings the top ten Elementary Division students in each game and the top five Middle Division students.
3. The student should be in the top twenty if Elementary, top ten if Middle, in the game(s) that they didn’t qualify for State.

“We do make exceptions and take students who do not meet all these criteria if they do well at State in a particular game. Generally, that student’s school did not play a game so the student couldn’t meet the criteria. Also, Indian River only does sweepstakes when I feel that I have a group that is strong in all the games. Usually, we put our strongest players in each game on one team. I often take an uneven amount of students, so some players are not on a full Indian River team.

A Coach’s Tribute

The following tribute to Peg Brody of Palm Beach County (FL) is the story of most of our Academic Games coaches and players. All the coaches share this good news for the efforts they make as leaders of our young people. Under them, our future is in good hands.

Peg Brody & John McCabe

Our family wanted to take a moment to thank you for your generosity to our son, John McCabe. You gave John an opportunity which he will remember throughout his entire life. As parents, we will never forget what you did for our son.

When John was in 3rd grade, Mrs. Nancy Bourne mentioned he might be interested in a club called Academic Games and took John to meet a 5th grade teacher named Mrs. Peggy Brody. This meeting had such an impression on John. He counted the days until 5th grade.

Once 5th grade rolled around, John tried out for the club, and the teacher he met two years prior, Mrs. Brody, would be his coach. Each week, the team competed against other Elementary schools in the county. John did well at county, his team came in 3rd place in the State competition, and John would be the only student to represent Beacon Cove for the National Competition to be held in West Virginia.

With deep appreciation, our family would like to thank SACC for paying for John to attend Nationals. Your support made the journey to West Virginia extra special for John, as he wanted to bring home a medal for the you and the school!

Upon returning from Nationals, where John received a medal for 9th place, Mrs. Williams welcomed John into the school (by name). The look of surprise in John’s eyes was not to be missed. The cafeteria staff congratulated him by name. John had NO IDEA any of these individuals even KNEW who he was, let alone HIS NAME!

When John walked into Mrs. Brody’s classroom to present his medal, he received a standing ovation. Any parent would be brought to tears. We were astonished at the kindness, appreciation, and dedication Mrs. Brody was displaying to our son. Mrs. Brody had John speak to the class regarding the games, the competition, and had a question/answer session. It was a powerful and wonderful experience.

Thank you for your dedication to the children at Beacon Cove. Your generosity allowed John to achieve a personal goal. The support, effort, and special acknowledgement made by Mrs. Hukill, the staff, and the teachers at Beacon made his goal become, and remain, a solid memory.

Very Sincerely,
The McCabe Family

Down Memory Lane

At the 1976 Olympics in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the Equations coaches discussed a “4+ Scoring” system that gave bonus points for using certain operations in Solutions. The idea came from the inventor of the game, Dr. Layman Allen.

Examples for Junior Division:
1 point for ÷ or *
2 points for √ or division by a fraction
3 points for 0*x or x*0

The Senior Division chart included possibilities for up to 5 bonus points.
Examples:
4 points for a fraction raised to a power or the root of a fraction or a double radical
5 points for a negative or fractional exponent or a negative or fractional root index

The reaction of the teachers was that the system would be useful for practice when you push players to use more complicated strategies; however, the system never received approval for tournament play.