Clever Kids' Odyssey Leads to World Finals

By Amber Lester Thursday, May 27, 2010

The world’s greatest problem-solvers are meeting in Michigan this week to offer solutions to complex problems, think creatively and share innovative ideas. They just happen to all be schoolchildren.

Several students from the Historic Triangle are competing in the Odyssey of the Mind world finals today through Saturday on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich. York County schools sent 21 students from teams at Dare Elementary, Yorktown Middle and Grafton High schools. Hampton Roads Academy sent a team of fourth- and fifth-graders.

Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program that challenges students from kindergarten through college to solve problems ranging in complexity. Groups choose a long-term problem to solve and work it out in competitions at the regional and state level. They also are asked to solve problems on the spot, using teamwork and quick thinking to impress the judges.

To qualify for the world competition, the teams had to take first place at the regional competition and first or second place at the state competition, held on March 27. This week, they’ll join 15,000 competitors from all over the world, including teams from Kazakhstan, Poland, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico.

York County sent a team to the finals last year, but didn’t place. For OM competitors, the regular season is focused on winning, but attending the finals is the reward, according to Yorktown’s OM coordinator Leeza Beazlie. She says the students practice three to four times a week as they prepare for the regional and state level competitions. “At the world’s level, we’re all about having fun and having the kids get the experience,” Beazlie says. “We back off on practices and it becomes more about fundraising.”

York County schools contributed to the cause, and teams were able to fundraise through Maggie Moo’s, selling T-shirts and sponsoring a dance at school. While the school system covered the registration and room costs, the students and their families had to pay for plane tickets, which ranged from $200 to $400 a person.

One of the other big expenses is an OM tradition: purchasing pins to trade at the competition. OM competitors from around the world engage in another, less official contest: seeing who can get the best, most coveted pins. Each team brings pins, typically state pins or flag pins, to trade and then affixes their pins to towels. The towels are pulled out at every turn for trading, which facilitates mingling among the international students.

“It’s a huge thing and every year as you begin trading, there becomes the popular pin that everyone’s out to find,” Beazlie says. “It’s always great to get international pins because those teams have traveled the farthest.”

At the competition, the students will act out their solutions to long-term problems and come up with answers to spontaneous problems. One long-term problem posed to the middle school teams was called “Food Court” and asked students to put items of food on trial. Yorktown Middle School’s team was inspired by “Fruit of the Loom” commercials and cast an orange as the accused. The other fruits say oranges are not healthy, and a full trial is acted out.

A spontaneous problem could be a question like, “Name things that are blue.” Beazlie says a common response would be the sky, while a creative response would be, “Me, because I’m so sad.” Students also get hands-on challenges that ask them to figure out how to move or build something. The same questions are asked of students at all age levels, but the expectations for creative answers are higher for the older students.

“It’s very interesting to see the way an elementary team solves a problem compared to a high school team,” Beazlie says, adding that sometimes the elementary students come up with simpler, less complex solutions.

Hampton Roads Academy sent a team to the World Finals in 2007 and returns this year after taking first place for Division I teams at the state finals. Co-coach Maribel Gendreau said of her seven competitors, “It was quite an emotional moment to see the joy and excitement on the faces of these children as they heard the results [at state]. It is more than we could ask for. It is why we do this for them.”