Seattle Area Knowlege Bowl startup....help??

[KristianaCH]

Hello,
I work at a high school in the Seattle area and I am looking to start up a chapter of Knowledge Bowl for us. I have been to the WA State website (official?) for Knowledge Bowl (http://statekb.esd123.net/)but don't otherwise know where to begin otherwise.

How do I officially start a chapter? What is the cost? What are some of the up-front expectations? Is there anyone also around the King or Pierce County Areas who could direct me better about these kinds of events?
Thanks a lot to any/all who post :)

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[Matt Weiner]

There aren't a lot of people who post here about the Knowledge Bowl competition because it's terrible. The questions are very poorly written, the rules make no sense, and so on. I would suggest that you direct your school to participate in the quizbowl tournaments run by the University of Washington instead. They can be contacted at [email protected] and I'm sure will be happy to tell you about the many events they run and how to participate.

[Important Bird Area]

Welcome to the forums!

Please note that quizbowl and knowledge bowl have different formats and use different kinds of questions and buzzers.

Since you're in Seattle, you should contact Mike Bentley at the University of Washington ([email protected]). He and his team will be hosting NAQT's Washington state championship on Saturday, April 20th; the full announcement (with fee structure and logistics details) is available here.

[KristianaCH]

Thank you all!!! I'll look into it now :)

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[Kyle]

I just wanted to chime in here because I'm still probably the only regular user of this board who actually played Washington State Knowledge Bowl (and, indeed, I am a two-time state champion!). Matt is totally correct that Knowledge Bowl is "terrible," but it is worth expanding on that idea so that you will know what he means.

The fundamental problem is that the format is unfair. Having non-pyramidal questions with no negs asked simultaneously to three teams means that every question is a buzzer race -- there is no way for the team that knows more to buzz in first and score more points consistently. It's a format that also requires players to guess rather than to know the correct answer.

But the most frustrating thing about Knowledge Bowl is actually how much it limits the students who participate in it. For starters, there are only two tournaments a year -- district and state -- which means that your average team only plays about four or five games in an entire school year. And the vast majority of coaches don't take their teams to any other kind of event. By contrast, if you were to go to all of the UW's Saturday tournaments over the course of the year, your team would probably get to play 40-50 games. They would thus have much more opportunity to work together as a team, learn from previous mistakes, develop friendships and rivalries with other schools, achieve long-term goals, prepare for national tournaments, and develop a sustained commitment to the activity.

Second, and this may be the most significant thing, Knowledge Bowl questions fail at the most basic goal of exposing students to new ideas. It's a format with barely any literature (and certainly no literature from outside the US or the UK), no questions about anything outside Europe and the United States, no mythology, no religion, no philosophy, and no arts of any kind. Quizbowl is a fun and meaningful activity because it introduces players to new things. The Knowledge Bowl format, simply put, doesn't do that.

So I assure you, as somebody who has played both Knowledge Bowl and NAQT tournaments, that your students will have a much better experience if you go to the tournaments that Mike has worked so hard to organize at the UW.