Academic Decathlon team at Waukesha West: As dedicated as any athletes
It’s 8:45 on a weeknight and five students are gathered in a dimly lighted corridor of Waukesha West High School. They’re dedicated. They’re energized. They’re getting ready to compete for a national championship. They’re part of what may well be the most dominating high school team in Wisconsin.
They’re reading out loud parts of essays they have written about the impact of British colonialism in Africa and Asia between 1800 and 1900. They’re critiquing each other. You spent much time lately interpreting Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella, “Heart of Darkness?” These kids have.
They’ve been doing activities like this almost every night after school since last fall. Last week, school was out for spring break, but they and their teammates were at school from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day.
This is the Waukesha West Academic Decathlon team. State champions 11 years in a row – can any sports team claim a run like that? They’re getting ready to go to Albuquerque, N.M., at the end of this month for another shot at the national championship. The school won once, in 2002, and has finished in the top five repeatedly.
If this were a sports team, we would have heard about this long ago. Each week’s game would be reviewed in the newspaper, so we’d have known about it before they became a dynasty. It is interesting to me how much lip service we give to valuing education, but we appear (based on media attention) to value only those students who excel in sports. Thanks for this refreshing change!