Jeopardy—a Game of Intelligence

　　Mr. Henrich's class usually went in this sort of a pattern: Discussion, project, another discussion and then a test. You might say that's a pretty methodical teaching, but once you saw some of the projects we did, the word "methodical" would be the last thing on your mind.

　　Teachers like to give projects to their class. Frankly, a project is a way for a teacher to relax for a week or two while their students created them. Instead of going home to grade homework or writing up a test, you just sit back and watch the students as they scurry about trying to finish their projects. That's the common way that most teachers look at projects. Actually, many students slack off during the projects and barely slip by. A little copying from the book is all it takes. Come to think of it, that's pretty much true. Not everyone is Noble Prize material; many will end up driving trucks or in the army. I would be more surprised if there were no copying.

　　Mr. Henrich saw it differently. The first week or so of 7th grade, he explained his philosophy on homework. He said, "Well, this is how I see it. When I read to you page after page from the book (our textbook), I get bored. And I'm the teacher! If the teacher gets bored, I don't see any reason students should have to. Especially gifted students such as you (All he teaches is SCOPE classes)." Mr. Henrich also criticized the normal idea of "homework". He said, "For most of you, I understand that you do the homework you have and still don't learn a thing, so I would rather have the entire class focus on something we can have fun doing and also learn at the same time. If you like reading, then please be my guest and read the book on your own, but for the most part we won't have much busy work (work that a teacher assigns just to keep his or her students busy, such as a worksheet or a chapter in a book)."

　　Mr. Henrich's teaching philosophy would make many teachers clueless as to how to do their job. Actually, if someone were to use Mr. Henrich's philosophy as the standard of teaching, the list of things a teacher would have to do would be quite lengthy.

　　As expected, the projects we did in Mr. Henrich's class were very dynamic. Jeopardy is a perfect example.

　　Jeopardy. Everyone has seen Jeopardy or some show with the Jeopardy likeness. It is an incredibly popular show here in America. We enjoy watching it very often. People from all over the country come on the show to compete with each other.

　　There are a total of 3 contestants in one game of Jeopardy. Contestants choose questions from a variety of different topics. Within each topic there are 5 questions. Every one of the questions represents a different value in money. The first person to answer, wins that amount of money. The person with the most money at the end wins the game.

　　The theme music from Jeopardy has become a symbol of thinking or thought. Jeopardy itself has almost become a national icon.

　　One day in 8th grade everyone walkedsintosMr. Henrich's class and on the board we saw a big grid of topics and money values. Everyone instantly said, "Jeopardy!"

　　As the bell rang, Mr. Henrich walked in and said in a very announcer like voice, "Today on Henrich Jeopardy, it's the guys versus the girls, in a battle of the sexes, to show who reigns as the supreme gender!!"

　　Everyone was giddy with excitement and we split upsintostwo groups, girls versus guys. And sure enough we started to play Jeopardy.

　　The topics included "Colonial America", "Patrick Henry", "Thomas Jefferson", "English Imposed Taxes" and so on. All of them dealt with historical facts from Revolutionary America.

　　Each team would go one by one, so one guy and one girl would go up to the front of the room and sit down on two chairs. The chairs were equal distance away from the board and each of them would have a piece of chalk. Whoever won the last question gets to choose the next question and the amount of money they want to bet. Mr. Henrich would then ask the appropriate question according to which topic and how much money was bet. Then the guy and the girl sitting in the chair would have to run up to the board and the first person to write their answer and circle it won that round. Whoever won the game would get 5 extra points on their next test.

　　We started and almost immediately the guys started to lose. Why? The girls got to pick questions first. This gave them a chance to discuss amongst themselves what they knew and chose topics accordingly, so they would always end up with the questions that they knew.

　　It was about 500 dollars for the girls to 0 for us.

　　It was my turn. I had had a little idea to swing the balance over to us.

　　Mr. Henrich had stated the rules earlier. No abbreviations, correct spelling, and if what you wrote wasn't legible, it didn't count. He never said anything about what I was about to do. I had found a loophole.

　　I went up against Erica Helton, whom I was sure, knew most of the answers so I couldn't rely on her missing the question.

　　She chose the topic "Famous people"

　　The question that Mr. Henrich gave was "This person was renowned for his quick wit and his 'silver tongue'."

　　I wasn't sure that I knew the answer, but I was sure that Erica knew it because they had picked the topic. I forgot to mention that our pieces of chalk were laid on the little stand in front of the board. We both instantly ran up to the board, I got there first and knocked her chalk across the room and started thinking.

　　Everyone started cracking up and falling out of his or her seats, laughing, as Erica ran after her chalk and I stood there thinking about the answer.

　　The problem was that I had only thought of throwing the chalk, I didn't think of what to do next. I couldn't think because of all the laughing and I saw that she had gotten her chalk and was running back to write her answer on the board. My mind was still blank as far as the answer was concerned. I had another idea. A line down the middle divided the board. The line separated the guy's side of the board and the girl's. I grabbed my chalk and started scribbling all over her side of the board so that the entire side was covered with scribble, which she would have to erase.

　　By now all the guys were cracking up and the girls were all complaining, but still laughing at the same time. Erica ran over and pushed me out of the way and started to erase the scribble and write in her answer. Suddenly after she had written "Pat". I remembered the answer, "Patrick Henry". I ran over, pushed her out of the way and started to write faster than she did. After I circled my answer "Patrick Henry". I acted faster than Patrick Henry himself at that moment. (Patrick Henry was a renowned lawyer who's most famous line "Give me liberty or give me death!" brought him fame throughout the country as a quick witted, tough talking individual.)

　　I looked over and she only had "Patrick Hen" written down.

　　I immediately ransintosmy own "territory" and celebrated with passion at our hard-earned first question.

　　Mr. Henrich was all red from laughing, but he finally collected himself and said, "Guys win their first question and are awarded 100 points, but because of the un-sportsmanlike way that Kuan won the point, I will deduct 99 points from their score." So the score was now 1 to 500 and everyone was still laughing.

　　It didn't matter, because we were already behind and had nothing to lose. So we gave chase to the 500-dollar leaders. Now we got to choose the topic and we slowly climbed back.

　　Before we could finish the game, the bell rang and the score of 1149 to 1100 meant that we had won the 5 points. The girls complained and whined almost immediately. The guys were all giving each other 5's and running around yelling, "We get 5 points!"

　　Maybe we celebrated a little too over zealous. The teacher hadn't made his decision yet.

　　Before we could leave Mr. Henrich said loudly, "Good class today guys, everyone gets 5 points on their test."

　　Did you hear that? He said everyone!

　　Maybe that wasn't really a "project", but it sure was different and maybe it wasn't a normal way a teacher conducts class, but it was very effective.

　　In fact, Mr. Henrich used that as a review for the test that took place a few days later. After being put in such a competitive atmosphere, the students actually wanted to win. And because they wanted to win, they wanted to get the questions right and that involved remembering and learning from missed questions. Not only was it a fun little activity that the entire class did, it is definitely something that more teachers should do to get the class to want to learn something. This feeling of competitiveness appeared in just about all of things we did that year. Everyone always wanted to out do everyone else.

　　This gave me a strange thought. In Mr. Henrich's class, it seemed that every one of the students wanted to learn and remember what they were learning. This started and continued for two whole years. If you are a teacher and you find that your students are this enthusiastic about learning, then you should give yourself a pat on the back and congratulate yourself.

　　You've done something really cool.