Social science in high school quizbowl
- DumbJaques
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Social science in high school quizbowl
Split from the search for a housewrite to use in Missouri thread --Mgmt.
That makes sense, although it's difficult for me to imagine that overall set quality would be less important than .5/.5 fewer SS. . . hopefully the other sets are serviceable.
I actually really disagree that there's a problem with 1/1 social science in high school - psych and econ are major AP courses and have a good answer space, and the most famous things from sociology/anthro/etc. are covered in history or bio classes. I think the problem with what's happened to the high school SS distribution is that people have tried to import answer space from college, and that's always a bad idea. One of the nice thing about SS is that you can actually use it to write on atypical answerlines incorporating general academic knowledge that tends to draw from history, geography, current events, science, and philosophy - I tried to do that with the SS distribution for this year's NSC, and I think it worked reasonably well even at that higher difficulty level. At lower levels, it's probably even easier to do that; I'd think by definition a field that categorically couldn't handle tossups on Levi-Strauss or Malinowski would not find the most basic tossups on "the Incas" (using cultural practice clues) or "neanderthals" overly easy.
I'd say the better solution to this problem is to just reevaluate how we think of "SS" (which we really ought to do in general), and stop writing tossups about increasingly-obscure segments of Raw and the Cooked or whatever. It's also worth considering that for areas where people don't have access to many SS topics, playing those questions are one of the better ways to expose kids to that material, which serves a broader social purpose than just quizbowl.
That makes sense, although it's difficult for me to imagine that overall set quality would be less important than .5/.5 fewer SS. . . hopefully the other sets are serviceable.
I actually really disagree that there's a problem with 1/1 social science in high school - psych and econ are major AP courses and have a good answer space, and the most famous things from sociology/anthro/etc. are covered in history or bio classes. I think the problem with what's happened to the high school SS distribution is that people have tried to import answer space from college, and that's always a bad idea. One of the nice thing about SS is that you can actually use it to write on atypical answerlines incorporating general academic knowledge that tends to draw from history, geography, current events, science, and philosophy - I tried to do that with the SS distribution for this year's NSC, and I think it worked reasonably well even at that higher difficulty level. At lower levels, it's probably even easier to do that; I'd think by definition a field that categorically couldn't handle tossups on Levi-Strauss or Malinowski would not find the most basic tossups on "the Incas" (using cultural practice clues) or "neanderthals" overly easy.
I'd say the better solution to this problem is to just reevaluate how we think of "SS" (which we really ought to do in general), and stop writing tossups about increasingly-obscure segments of Raw and the Cooked or whatever. It's also worth considering that for areas where people don't have access to many SS topics, playing those questions are one of the better ways to expose kids to that material, which serves a broader social purpose than just quizbowl.
Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
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Re: Looking for a good housewrite to mirror in November
I agree with both Chris and Charlie, here. I think SS needs to be a smaller part of the distro AND we need to rethink how we write it and putting some of Chris's suggestions to practice.
The biggest difference for me between college SS and high school SS is all of the gen eds people take right when they start college that fall into the SS distro. (I took at least four gen eds in those categories.) The much greater exposure warrants the larger portion of the distro. Chris's argument that a lot of SS that could be asked in high school might be encountered in history or bio, while true, also means that some of those clues and answers could be appearing in those parts of the distro instead of being designated SS.
That said, SS has become a rather boring topic at the high school level because of a lack of creativity in answer selection. Even though it makes my job easier, I am unsatisfied that I, having no real training in anthro whatsoever, can teach my players the anthro canon in an hour.
The biggest difference for me between college SS and high school SS is all of the gen eds people take right when they start college that fall into the SS distro. (I took at least four gen eds in those categories.) The much greater exposure warrants the larger portion of the distro. Chris's argument that a lot of SS that could be asked in high school might be encountered in history or bio, while true, also means that some of those clues and answers could be appearing in those parts of the distro instead of being designated SS.
That said, SS has become a rather boring topic at the high school level because of a lack of creativity in answer selection. Even though it makes my job easier, I am unsatisfied that I, having no real training in anthro whatsoever, can teach my players the anthro canon in an hour.
Dr. Noah Prince
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Re: Looking for a good housewrite to mirror in November
Your suggestions have the added advantage of dealing with things more social scientists actually think about and do, by which I mean not reading Malinowski.DumbJaques wrote:One of the nice thing about SS is that you can actually use it to write on atypical answerlines incorporating general academic knowledge that tends to draw from history, geography, current events, science, and philosophy - I tried to do that with the SS distribution for this year's NSC, and I think it worked reasonably well even at that higher difficulty level. At lower levels, it's probably even easier to do that; I'd think by definition a field that categorically couldn't handle tossups on Levi-Strauss or Malinowski would not find the most basic tossups on "the Incas" (using cultural practice clues) or "neanderthals" overly easy.
I'd say the better solution to this problem is to just reevaluate how we think of "SS" (which we really ought to do in general), and stop writing tossups about increasingly-obscure segments of Raw and the Cooked or whatever. It's also worth considering that for areas where people don't have access to many SS topics, playing those questions are one of the better ways to expose kids to that material, which serves a broader social purpose than just quizbowl.
Shan Kothari
Plymouth High School '10
Michigan State University '14
University of Minnesota '20
Plymouth High School '10
Michigan State University '14
University of Minnesota '20
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Re: Social science in high school quizbowl
Why is geography, which is considered a social science by plenty of people, a separate part of the quizbowl distribution?
Nicholas C
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Re: Social science in high school quizbowl
I would assume just because geography tends to be something people write more questions about and sometimes want to occupy a large enough part of a packet to have its own place in its distribution (for example, while some tournaments may have had .5/.5 or 1/1 geography, I don't think anyone has written/wanted a set with .5/.5 or 1/1 anthropology or economics)Sulawesi Myzomela wrote:Why is geography, which is considered a social science by plenty of people, a separate part of the quizbowl distribution?
Also, I second the opinions that SS is not an "evil" in and of its self, but I think it could certainly be done better, I know many players who have been put off by anthropology questions (especially B/C team players from my high school), as its not something too many people get exposed to. Economics and Psychology (and possibly certain things from Sociology) are, I think, far more accessible, both in a "its taught in schools" sense and just a "people are likely to know it" sense, and also writing anthropology questions in accessible ways (like with the history/bio-ish type clues people have mentioned) would be good. Social Studies isn't bad, just in high school it needs less Mead and Milanowski and more other stuff.
Samuel Donow
Irvington High School '12
Williams College '16
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Re: Social science in high school quizbowl
Geography is separate from social science because quizbowl geography questions are about knowing the important places of the world, where they are, and what's notable about them. That's something you learn independent of the social sciences; to be clearer, they aren't questions on the kinds of concepts, theories, methods, etc. that professional geographers and geography students handle outside the layperson's sense of the term.
My thoughts about 1/1 social science in high school sets, from my Further Thoughts on BHSAT:
My thoughts about 1/1 social science in high school sets, from my Further Thoughts on BHSAT:
Me wrote:Filling 1/1 each of Philosophy and Social Science with appropriate material was an exceedingly difficult task for this tournament, in part because I didn't just want to toss up things which were only appropriate for Nationals-caliber teams or have easy bonus parts on philosophers such as Hegel or Schopenhauer who most teams don't actually come across. I strongly encourage writers of future independent high school tournaments to not blindly copy this aspect of the ACF college distribution, which was devised for an age range with more exposure to these subjects, and reduce both subjects’ representation in their sets. HSAPQ and NAQT already do this, and I encourage future writers of independent high school tournaments to do so as well.
Me wrote:While psychology and economics both seem to be fillable with 3/3 to 5/5 of repeatable material per tournament, as they were [at BHSAT], it really seems as though outside those subjects the askable material is very, very limited (as we’ve gone over about anthro on these boards often) and should be minimized and kept accessible at all costs.
Matt Jackson
University of Chicago '24
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Re: Social science in high school quizbowl
Would questions that are about the things professional geographers study be (at least sometimes) appropriate for the SS distribution?RyuAqua wrote:they aren't questions on the kinds of concepts, theories, methods, etc. that professional geographers and geography students handle outside the layperson's sense of the term.
Shan Kothari
Plymouth High School '10
Michigan State University '14
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Re: Social science in high school quizbowl
Depends on the thing, I guess. A lot of the geology/climate/weather type stuff is probably already finding a home in quizbowl Other Science, whereas stuff about demography, agriculture, politics, and the like could be worked into geography questions on specific examples (by mentioning important exports from regions of a country in your country tossup, e.g.) or into history or social sciences like econ where relevant. Questions on GIS/mapping software and infographics/data analysis, which college programs spend a ton of time on, probably aren't a good idea in general. Most stuff geographers do is not very known by high schoolers in any case.
Matt Jackson
University of Chicago '24
Yale '14, Georgetown Day School '10
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Re: Social science in high school quizbowl
This is a pretty accurate description. Meteorology, oceanography, and to at least some extent, climatology, all belong in other physical science rather the social science/geography realm. Many of the topics we covered in my non-meteorology geography classes are synthesized from other fields, and are probably better asked about in those contexts or as part of a more traditional quizbowl geography question.RyuAqua wrote:Depends on the thing, I guess. A lot of the geology/climate/weather type stuff is probably already finding a home in quizbowl Other Science, whereas stuff about demography, agriculture, politics, and the like could be worked into geography questions on specific examples (by mentioning important exports from regions of a country in your country tossup, e.g.) or into history or social sciences like econ where relevant. Questions on GIS/mapping software and infographics/data analysis, which college programs spend a ton of time on, probably aren't a good idea in general. Most stuff geographers do is not very known by high schoolers in any case.
Probably the one space with the most unique answerlines would be in remote sensing and phenology, and I seriously doubt many people would do well on tossups about tasseled cap transformations or vegetation indices.
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Re: Social science in high school quizbowl
Any move in the quizbowl metagame allowing me to write questions from my high school science olympiad binders are probably not welcome changes.The Motley Eye wrote:remote sensing
Andrew Watkins