Week 23: We talking about practice
not a game not a game
Apologies to Mr. Iverson.
Hopefully this weekend will see the first drafts of a plan for guidelines for conducting quizbowl competition online. While I've participated a little in Zoom practices with colleges, I'm staying out of the discussion because my real experience with telephony has been dominated by corporate meetings through Google Hangouts, Teams, and a little work with Slack, none of which is useful. I have worked to debug Zoom behavior while Catie yells at me to get her back in the classroom, but even that's not really working with Zoom as much as tweaking my shaky home internet connection.
Whatever the guidelines or best practices that are considered and published, they will be serving a more important purpose that no one seems to be noting: they can also be the guidelines used by teams to run their online practices.
Personally, I like to have practice time for a team resemble game conditions. That gives you not only the pressure of game conditions, but it also enables you to see strategies that might need to be applied in a game situation.
When schools closed down in March, some were able to successfully transition to online practices. But a large percentage of teams were either stopped dead by restrictions, or had already shut down for the year. This is especially true for teams which hadn't qualified for a nationals or even a state event, and for those who didn't have year-round coaching or strong organized coaching. If those teams have never done online practice, they will either never consider it, or it will resemble distance learning in classes. A set of guidelines would help them to build an effective practice, even if the guidelines are for competition.
Without having some guidelines in place, or an understanding of best practices for competition, the typical team's practice will resemble what they have the most experience with right now: distance learning in a classroom. While that's a good starting point, quiz bowl is not necessarily a class, and may not be best prepared for by a class.
A fairly significant portion of schools will be using remote learning when they'd rather be in school. In such situations, classes are a priority, but student activities are not. Some schools are going to not have activities as a general policy, some are just going to activities as an afterthought. There's a great advantage in an activity having best practices that both allow efficient running of practices, and serve as evidence to those who control whether activities can continue, that quiz bowl has their stuff together, even under adverse circumstances. If we don't show that, we leave open the possibility of teams not even getting started this year, a fate the circuit can't afford.
It would behoove us to make sure that everyone we know is at least aware of the guidelines being developed, so that they can use our best practices to build their practices. So if you know of teams which are still trying to find their way into this school year, make sure they see the guidelines, so they can take guidance.
Stuff to Look at
The Great Square in the night sky — The article in the week to come about the Teapot is also worth reading.
Stuff to Read
Hoover Dam and its construction
The International Vladimir Nabokov Society--I stumbled across this website when I went looking for listings of Russian literary characters and was amused to find this listing rich in background characters and almost nothing I expected to see.
The Articles I Learned From This Week
This history of the Essex, the ship whose battle with a whale inspired Moby-Dick, is pretty interesting, though I’ve always just buzzed on Essex, without any other details.
The Muses 1 2 -- A mention of an antique my mother has with the image of "Pan and the Seven Muses" came by me this week, and I resolved to remember to look it up when I had the chance. Didn't find anything conclusive about the odd numbering for them, seven and not nine, but I pass the gathered information on to you.
Nonsuch House, which I only knew as an XTC album
The Articles You Can Learn From This Week
I had made a mindmap for Alma Mahler's life when I was recuperating, and this article reminded me of a couple of things I chose not to include on it.
We mentioned the Lost Colony in last week's articles, and this week the longstanding theory that the colony simply moved in with the nearby Croatan tribe was bolstered by new evidence. It’s not so much a new theory, I remember this as a possible explanation in stories about this published in my grade school text books, but it’s nice to get some resolution, and that resolution will mean it will appear again.
I had a longtime theory that the quality of Crab Rangoon was inversely proportional to proximity to Myanmar. People called that theory "preposterous."
Didn’t You Learn Anything From the Last Time?
1
After the death of Henry I of England, she was supposed to rule, but the barons backed another claimant who said Henry changed his mind on his deathbed.
A. Name this queen who refused to accept this decision, sparking a period in English history known as the Anarchy.
answer: Matilda or Maud
B. This nephew of Henry I fought Matilda for control, and was captured by her allies at the Battle of Lincoln. His reign was the beginning and end of the dynastic house of Blois.
answer: Stephen
C. Matilda brokered the Treaty of Westminster with Stephen to have this man, her son, rule after Stephen, which began the Plantagenet royal line.
answer: Henry II
2
Years after working on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he was commissioned to work on a wall of the same room.
A. Name this artist who used the space to paint The Last Judgement.
answer: Michelangelo Buonarotti
B. In The Last Judgement Michelangelo depicted his own face distorted in the flayed skin of this martyred apostle.
answer: Bartholomew
C. Another unusual touch in the painting is the depiction of this Greco-Roman mythological figure ferrying souls into Hell.
answer: Charon
3
Honey is remarkably shelf stable, capable of lasting for thousands of years and still being edible.
A. Part of this is the fact that like most sugars, honey is able to absorb water from the surrounding air. This name is given to substances with that property.
answer: hygroscopy
B. Honey has a value between 3 and 4.5 on this scale which measures the concentration of hydrogen ions in a substance.
answer: pH
C. Bees produce an enzyme called glucose oxidase, which when present in honey, breaks down into gluconic acid and this tetratomic antiseptic.
answer: hydrogen peroxide or H2O2
4
Members of this class of subatomic particles are all made up of three quarks, which gives them a value of +1 for their namesake number.
A. Name this class of subatomic particles which include protons and neutrons
answer: baryons
B. While still being fermions, baryons differ from leptons by interacting with this fundamental force.
answer: strong nuclear force
C. This class of subatomic particles has a baryon number of zero, because they are composed of a quark and an anti-quark.
answer: mesons
5
A team from this city won four Stanley Cups before 1934 but moved the next season.
A. Name this city which revived the name Senators for a team in 1992.
answer: Ottawa
B. Ottawa's original senators became the Eagles in this city for the 1934-35 season before folding. Today this city hosts the Blues.
answer: St. Louis
C. Ottawa's 1920 Stanley Cup victory was over the Metropolitans, a team from this city which in 2020 was awarded an NHL franchise.
answer: Seattle