Our son is 11 years old, and is scheduled to start high school next Fall [*]. He has been the State Geo Bee finals three times, and was fortunate enough to finish in the top ten the last two years. He has been a geography buff since he was three. He loves it more than oxygen and especially loves the Geography Bee. The Bee is a wonderful undertaking that sparks the passions of thousands of kids across the country. And it is very well run. Except for one thing: it discriminates against grade-accelerated kids who are not being home-schooled. The fact that he will be in high school, even though only 11 years old, means that he is done. Talk about Genius Denied!
Discrimination Based on Grade Level Acceleration
If you are a student in a brick and mortar school and are grade-accelerated past the eighth grade, you cannot participate in the Geo Bee. You can be 11 years old, a full four years below the age cutoff, but National Geographic excludes you. Here is the eligibilty rule, as it stands presently:
| Bee registration is open to schools and homeschool associations with students in grades four through eight who are not over the age of 15 by the time of the national level. A student must be enrolled in a school or homeschool association that is registered with the Bee. Also, students of the eligible grade levels must be following a school schedule and academic course load comparable to the majority of the student's grade-mates and age-mates. A student may not be enrolled in more than three academic courses at the high school and/or college level during each school year of the competition. We reserve the right to disqualify a student if we believe the rules have not been followed. |
How About Logistics?
National Geographic does not fear excellence. Their concern no doubt is that servicing high schools is prohibitive. There are few kids under 15 in grades above the eighth, and by rule any participating school must have at least six competitors. After all, NG already has maybe 10,000 elementary schools, middle schools, and home-school associations participating. And because NG relies on those official entities for administration and compliance, they can't just let families self-administer some kind of ad hoc qualifying brackets. No, they need reliable institutional partners.
True. And the solution is simple:
Have the child continue to compete through his former middle school!
Keep the first sentence in the eligibility rule above and remove the rest. As long as he is still age-eligible, make the rule that any matriculating student is still able to compete at middle school level, under the auspices of that middle school. The middle school is required to accommodate and the parent is required to arrange the participation with the school. This is in practice what participating home school associations have been doing for years.
If you agree and want to add your voice, call National Geographic at 202-828-6659, or email NGBee@ngs.org.
If you don't agree and think this whiny, I would just say: these are not adults battling day-to-day adulthood. These are kids. Don't deny them their passion.
[*]
And if you say that, "well, you should not have accelerated him", just give the benefit of the doubt to the truth that for certain kids there really is no choice. We are not pushing him; he is pulling us. And sadly, he is paying a big price for that precocity and ambition.
