This year, HP Academic Decathlon returns for another season with a fresh group of participants. Decathlon is a non-profit academic organization that specializes in students competing and giving subjective performances. Students, called Decathletes or also shortened to ACADECA, are challenged in topics such as art, economics, literature, math, science and history. Decathletes have to create and perform a 4-minute speech about their chosen topic along with an interview and essay. This year’s participants at HP were, Andres Lopez-Chaves, Melisa Flores, Beatriz Gonzalez, Valeria Alejandre, Katherine Castellanos, Alejandra Munoz, Kiyond Heard, Mariana Mondragon, and Michelle Higuera.
Each high school enters a team of nine students to participate in a ten-event scholastic competition, their GPA categorizes them. The 3 categories are Honors with students who have A’s, Scholastic with students who have B’s, and Varsity with students who have C’s. Dr. Daniel Alamo is the coach who is in charge of guiding and informing students about decathlon. Dr. Alamo teaches for the Social Studies and the AVID department. He was asked what he enjoys most about being a decathlon teacher.
“I like that students are being able to compete across the district. I enjoy seeing them do so. I also enjoy seeing that students are challenging themselves to what they are capable of, and they push themselves to truly engage to be a successful presentation and candidate,” states Alamo.
Decathlon appears to be taught by a very well-educated and motivating teacher, which is great for having a successful decathlon team. Decathlon also consists of competing in three competitions with students across the states. The three competitions are SA, objective, and super quiz. The SA competition, which takes place at each competitor’s school, is essentially a friendly match. The Objective competition takes place at a different school. Decathletes must apply the knowledge they have gained from studying the seven distinct categories, presenting their pre-made speech, making an on-the-spot speech, and participating in interviews. The final competition is a super quiz in which competitors are divided into three groups of three members and assessed on various questions spanning several categories.
A decathlete, Valeria Alejandre stated, “For the SA competition I didn’t really feel nervous, it felt like I was typing the whole time and I was pretty comfortable. For the objective competition, I did feel less confident considering the way I studied, I felt sort of unprepared but it was decent. For the super quiz, I was very nervous, you are being recorded, and it’s sort of embarrassing because you’re in front of everyone.”
“Competitions take place at the end of January. Students prepare as soon as school starts, they start to cover content and prepare to work on their speech. Students rehearse their speech by doing activities to engage and be more comfortable with public speaking,” said Alamo.
Decathlon is not only about public speaking but it’s about demonstrating how good of a student you already are.
It dares students to push to their highest potential to master college-level material and to accomplish skills that students don’t think they can achieve.
“Procrastination is one of the biggest weaknesses I had while being in Decathlon, you do need lots of time management skills to handle all the work while handling your school work and your responsibilities. In Decathlon you need to be prepared and study at least once every day,” said Decathlete Alejandre.
“Students in decathlon are also really involved with other activities, such as sports so it’s hard for their focus to only be on decathlon, we can’t always practice as much as we should. Yet, I’m proud that the students can handle their activities and decathlon at the same time because it’s a lot of work, this also makes them weaker competitors.” Alamo stated.
The Academic Decathlon is a vibrant, demanding academic competition that puts high school students’ knowledge and abilities to the test as they compete against other school teams for gold, silver, and bronze medals. Decathlon is about more than just knowledge, it’s also about social skills and self-presentation. California has won the national championship 20 times in a row throughout the 41-year competition.
Written by Staff Writer, Yarely Escobar