The Spring Harbor Middle School team is advancing to the National African American History Academic Challenge which will be held June 4-8 in New Orleans.
Eighth-graders Teresa Ketarkus and Makai Moore, along with seventh-grader Elias Ketchum, could not be more excited to be headed to the Big Easy to hopefully bring the national championship trophy back to Madison.
The African American History Academic Challenge is an annual contest for middle school and high school students in a quiz show format where students are asked questions from a prominent African-American history book. The AAHAC is an educational program designed to enhance the appreciation and study of African American history and culture. During the competition, students buzz in and must provide an answer to a question within a 10-second limit and compete in round-robin-style tournaments.
Spring Harbor bested 10 area middle schools at the Doyle Administration Building in downtown Madison back in March to advance to the regional competition where they would go on to beat Savannah Oaks Middle School of Verona in the finals at Verona High School to advance to the national competition. That final match-up was a nail-biter.
“It came down to the tie-breaker at the end. It was so close,” Teresa, who is in eighth grade at Spring Harbor, tells Madison365. “We were super-excited to be able to win.”
“It was quite an experience for sure,” adds Makai, also an eighth-grader. “It has been a lot of hard work and effort for us over many months, but it is all worth it now.”
The winning team was coached by Sara Leuthold, an 8th-grade U.S. history teacher at Spring Harbor. “In that final match-up, our team answered five of the questions, and their team answered five of the questions, so it was like a sudden death tiebreaker question to advance to the nationals,” Leuthold says. “It was very exciting.”
Back in 2018, Spring Harbor Middle School won the national competition for the African American History Challenge Bowl at the 100 Black Men of America, Inc. 32nd Annual International Conference and National Competition in Hollywood, Florida.
“We have our big trophy from that national championship in the trophy case over there,” says Leuthold, who was the coach of that team, too.
“Black History 365: An Inclusive Account of American History” is the book that the students have been studying all year. Questions for the African American History Academic Challenge come from that same book for the annual competitions but from different chapters each year.
“We really started to prepare for this competition way back in January,” Teresa says. “So usually we meet once a week every Thursday. And then as we started to get closer to the competition, we met more often during the week.”
“They read like over 100 pages, probably every week,” Leuthold says. “And at our practices, I make some study questions based on the text.”
The students split into teams and do a practice competition every week to help gear themselves up for competition. “I think the competitiveness helps them to study more because they want to win each week,” Leuthold adds.
“We have a paper with a section with questions like: What is a certain dance that people did from the 1940s to 1960s? And then the answer to that question would be like, ‘The Lindy Hop,’ and then we go back and forth, back and forth,” Makai says.
The annual African American History Academic Challenge is hosted by MMSD and The 100 Black Men of Madison in early spring every year. The 100 Black Men of America, Inc., works to improve the quality of life for communities throughout the United States. Mentoring is the core service delivery of The 100, the largest network of African-American male mentors in the nation. They work to influence and transform the lives of underrepresented and disenfranchised youth, with a focus on African-American youth.
For the Spring Harbor students advancing to the national finals competition, all of that reading and studying of Black history also gives them an advantage in history class at school. “Sometimes the history lessons will have mentioned something in the book, so then I know more, which is helpful,” Teresa says.
“The section we did this year is what they’re going to have a lot of in ninth grade U.S. history,” Leuthold says. “So I was telling them that they’re going to be extra prepared, compared to students just coming in who have not done this. They’re going to have a lot of background knowledge and be able to make connections and do really well next year in high school.”
Both students, Teresa and Makai, will be going to Memorial High School next year (teammate Elias will be back for eighth grade at Spring Harbor) and say they plan on participating in the high school competition next year. But, first things first. They have a national competition to win in Louisiana in June. Teresa says that she has been to New Orleans once, years ago. Makai has never been there.
“I’m excited about trying the food in New Orleans. It’s very delicious,” Teresa says.
The young people say that their families are so excited for them.
“My mom was so excited when we won, she was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, Makai, you’re going to New Orleans!'” Makai says.
“I’ve been working on this a lot at home around my parents so they know a lot more about history, too,” Teresa says, “and so they were so happy for me when they found out we were advancing.
“Overall, being involved in this competition has been such a positive experience for me,” Teresa adds. “It has been a lot of work for us, but going to New Orleans … and winning it all … that would be so cool.”
