South School moves to Odyssey finals
Published on March 24th, 2004
STONEHAM, MA - Seven South School students transfigured into mythological beasts, rocks and murder victims will travel nearly halfway to Disney World after emerging the victors of this year's Odyssey of the Mind tournament.
Edging out the competition's regular Division I powerhouses in Stoneham's second year of involvement in the extracurricular academic program, the seven state champions earned their right to compete in the contest's world finals held this Memorial Day at the University of Maryland.
"I don't even know what to say. We were in total shock. This was only our second year participating and last year we were just blown out of the water. The kids went out on Saturday and they were all business and performed their best," said Tammy Ford, the winning group's volunteer coach.
"We were thrilled and they [the students] were thrilled as well. After they listened to the second and third place teams, I think they thought that they didn't win anything," added South School Principal Nick Leonardos. "We're very proud of them and they just did a fantastic job."
With the annual participation of over 25 countries including the United States, the Odyssey of the Mind is a non-profit educational program that focuses on fostering creativeness and imagination in students from kindergarten to college.
Asking students to create innovative solutions to problems in five categories including mechanical/vehicle, classical arts, performance, structure and technical groupings, students must stay within a preset budget limit and act out their solution within an eight-minute time span.
Allowed to solve one of five challenges within those categories, the students must also answer an unknown "spontaneous" question asked by judges.
Choosing this year's "featured creature" problem, Stoneham's winning team created their own mythological being and then acted out a legend explaining the creature's special powers.
So how exactly did the students choose their alicorna, a hybrid mix of an alligator, zebra, and rhino that can resurrect the dead?
"A lot of fighting," jokes Ford. "They got a list of about 13 mythological creatures and they had to chose one and make a costume for it. Then they had to create their own creature and it took a lot of griping about what they wanted and what type of powers it had," she added.
In the student's skit, the Sphinx, a lion-like beast, terrorizes unsuspecting wanderers by killing them if they are unable to solve a riddle.
"I wake up in the morning, rahhhh! I go to bed at night, meow! You want me close, but not too close; you want me far but not too far. What am I?" challenges the ill-intentioned creature, played by Jamie McDermott.
After murdering a blind man played by Colleen O'Quinn, an old couple played by Monica Canova and Jeffrey Siegel and a young woman played by Suzanne Colangeli, the Alicorna, played by Taylor Nicholson, revives the victimized villagers after stumbling upon the beast and solving the riddle.
"Why it's the sun of course," the Alicorna answers to the Sphinx's horror before resurrecting the dead.
Throughout the whole play, Michael Ford explains the tale as both narrator and set prop (a rock).
"The talking rock was the last character added. He didn't want to wear anything, he just wanted to be in the background. So this just gave him the opportunity to do what he does best by allowing him to just sit there and talk," laughed Ford, who is Michael's mother.
While they didn't fare as well in the award ceremonies, a second group of South School students also participated in the state contest, solving a problem entitled the "envirover".
Asked to create a human-powered vehicle and to create a treasure or merchandise product out of trash, the group's presentation focused on selling their product in a humorous sales pitch.
Creating five pin-wheel anemometers or wind speed indicators out of pizza boxes, coffee cans and paper cups, the student group also used props that included a factory sign that read, "Danger. Work Area-Sweaty Men."
"Their sales pitch was that the anemometer was so difficult to pronounce," said Peter Vegen-Portnoy one of the group's two coaches. "One of the judges noted that they had an excellent understanding of the question and the problem. I was very satisfied that the kids understood what they were trying to resolve," he added, focusing on the positives of the experience.
According to Vegen-Portnoy, he was extremely impressed by the friendly and non-competitive atmosphere of the event, and boasted that despite not winning any awards, the group's participants walked away with an understanding of several critical life-skills.
"Too many times, I've seen competitions where people feel the only way to promote themselves was to belittle somebody else and I didn't see any of that," he explained.
"This was just a fantastic program. It fosters enormous creativity and forces the kids to think outside the box. What pleased me the most was seeing the four kids come together," Vegen-Portnoy added.
According to Vegen-Portnoy and Ford, Odyssey of the Mind sets strict rules governing the role of a coach that prohibits the facilitators from offering any types of solutions, a restriction that proved challenging at times as their team members fought and bickered over the direction of their projects.
"I remember that [co-coach] Steve Kelly and I had a conversation when I asked him, 'are you willing to let the kids fail?' because we couldn't do the project for them. We decided that if they couldn't do it, it just wasn't going to happen," Vegen-Portnoy recalled.
"I think that really underscores what the kids were able to do. And I would like to support more parents getting their kids involved in this program. This teaches really valuable stuff, a lot of great skills that our society really needs," he asserted.
Subscribe and get Home Delivery of The Independent
Save 36% off the newstand price — that's like 18 FREE issues!