SHILOH TODAY PROGRAMS & ACTIVITIES Quiz Bowl At the high school level, Quiz Bowl is a competitive, academic, interscholastic activity for which players attend weekly practices and then represent their school at varsity tournaments. The Arkansas Governor's Quiz Bowl Association is an organization working for a competition that operates under the umbrella of the Arkansas Activity Association (AAA). This means that academic competitions are regulated in much the same way as athletic events. This includes school classification, eligibility, sanctioning of events, and certification. Shiloh’s quiz bowl team is coached by Mark Tyler, who has trained teams for over a decade. Both of his children were captains of their school teams, and his love Youth and Government Youth and Government™ is a national program of the YMCA that involves thousands of teens nationwide in state-organized, model-government programs. Students from every corner of the U.S. have the opportunity to immerse themselves in experiential civic engagement and to, quite literally, practice democracy. Teens from across every state meet in their local Youth and Government groups throughout the year to discuss and debate issues that affect citizens of their state and to propose legislation. The program culminates with teens serving as delegates at their state conference, debating bills on the floor of the legislature. The 2018–2019 school year was the first year that the state of Arkansas was involved with this program. A student at the University of Arkansas who is a part of the Campus YMCA Congress (which is a student-run national model government program that engages college students by developing their public service skills) reached out to several schools in Northwest Arkansas about starting the program. 10 PROGRAMS Shiloh responded and a small group started meeting on campus at Shiloh once a week from January until May. In April of 2018, seven students attended the first State Conference at the U of A, and six of the students who participated were from Shiloh. Four who ran for and won elected positions that allowed them to attend the YMCA Youth Conference of National Affairs (CONA) in North Carolina, including the following: Cooper Young (Pro Tempore), Jack Hertzberg (Youth Governor), Eli Schulz (Secretary of State), and Breanna Mapes (Speaker of the House). Six hundred students from 35 states were in attendance. This senior-led group has meets once a month to write bills and debate about them in mock parliamentary procedure. They have also brainstormed about solutions for problems in AR and what they would like to see changed. In the spring semester they typically start meeting weekly to prepare the bill they will present at the State Conference. for quiz bowl came from his involvement first as a parent. Debra Houser serves as co-coach for both teams. Shiloh’s inaugural junior high team competed last year; this year was the first competitive season for the senior high team. Quiz bowl questions range over the entire spectrum of high school curriculum and also includes current events, sports, and popular culture. The matches feature a blend of individual competition and team collaboration since no individual player is likely to be an expert in all subject areas. Quiz bowl can reinforce classroom lessons and also encourage players to go beyond their assignments to master other areas as well. Competitors are challenged with 50+ questions per match. According to Mr. Tyler, one of the primary benefits of quiz bowl at Shiloh is that it “gives students who may not be athletically gifted a chance to compete at a high level." To find out more about quiz bowl or to get involved email markt@ shilohsaints.org.
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