The teacher vs. student Brain Bowl occurred on Feb. 27 in the idea center. Scholastic students and teachers split into cardinal and grey teams, with five students and teachers on each team. Both teams did their best, with a final score of 330 and 580. The cardinal team won the night, with a 250 difference.
The Brain Bowl: a competition of teachers vs. students who are a part of the scholastic bowl team to prepare for further competitions and fun; the competition has 22 trivia questions in which the first team to buzz in on said question gets to answer it first. Whichever team answers the question correctly first gets the first shot at bonus questions that want to win.
The Brain Bowl was created by math teacher William Zambole, after he realized the wait period between the last scholastic competition and regionals. The student-teacher competition was started 12 years ago, with a two-year break due to COVID-19. Now that the competition is back, Zambole has decided to put a twist on it. Instead of teachers vs. students, it will be students and teachers on the same team.
“After COVID I had been waiting for the right year to bring it back,” Zambole said. “This year turned out to be the right year, as [this year] is our first normal school year since the pandemic.”
Senior Justin Pedersen has been a part of the Scholastic Bowl team since his freshman year and is excited about the change in this year’s brain bowl. There should be around 20 participants in the brain bowl this year between the scholastic students and the teachers.
“We have never beat the teachers,” Pedersen said. “We’ve come close but there’s some teachers out there who know what the know what they’re doing.”
There are teachers that participate in the brain bowl from year to year, like Jackie Decaro and Michael Riggs.
“Mr. Riggs has a vast amount of knowledge in unexpected areas,” Pedersen said. “When it comes to things like current events and literature, he’s very strong.”
While the teachers only engage in one competition, they still seem to win every year. Teachers from all subjects join in for the teacher bowl, including scholastic coach and science teacher Tom Dieschel.
“Historically, we have had one teacher come in from every content area,” Dieschel said. “There are some teachers who have very exentric hobbies and tastes that give us some of the more obscure things.”
