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Brains prepare for battle
By MARTÍN E. MARTÍNEZ / Vida En El Valle
(Published Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 09:28AM)
SACRAMENTO -- Óscar Espinosa, 17, focuses all his attention on the explanation given by his teacher on the French Revolution.
For Espinosa, and for the rest of his teammates, the subject is of great importance because they can better understand the current government systems in many countries, including the United States.
The French Revolution is the central theme of the Sacramento County Academic Decathlon, for which Espinosa and his fellow Natomas High School students are preparing for.
"It's fascinating, the subject of the French Revolution because I realize that it served to create a new system of government which was adopted by other countries and that up to date are still vibrant," said Espinosa, son of Mexican immigrants.
One of the most important things he has learned is that French Revolution helped to create the world's middle class, which did not exist until the arrival of this revolution.
"We are preparing on this topic very well because it will be the most important of the competition. But also we are preparing well in all other areas of study because we know we have the ability to achieve something good in this competition," said Espinoza, part of the school's eight-student team.
Of the eight students three are Latino. Natomas' enrollment is nearly 70 percent Latino.
Marcus Olivares-Pérez, another of the participating students, said the team's preparation has been very hard and that is why he is confident that his team will take several medals.
"This is the first time our school will participate in the decathlon and therefore we know the competition is very hard because there are schools that already have many years participating. But, our preparation has been steady and very hard, for which I have confidence to achieve something important," said Olivares-Pérez.
Students prepared every day after school for three hours over six months. They studied math, science, arts, economics, history, and other subjects.
"Where I feel more prepared is in mathematics but to participate in a decathlon one must know everything and for this reason I have to prepare myself better and learn things I did not know how such as the case of the French Revolution," said Olivares-Pérez, who recently won first place in the Mathematics, Engineering Science Achievement (MESA) contest at UC Davis.
Two weeks ago, participating students attended a mock competition to learn how to face other teams in the decathlon..
"It went very well," said Olivares-Pérez. "We got very good grades and more importantly, we knew the dynamics of this competition. After that, we are safer in achieving some prizes for our school."
Team coach Karen Kuy said the students have put their best effort to learn and is confident they will do a good job.
"We are a small but eager to do well. I trust in my students' ability to get our school's name high," Kuy said.
Sacramento will host the state Academic Decathlon March 12-15.
