This weekend, ModernBrain Speech and Debate sent over 50 entries to the prestigious Jack Howe Invitational (an interscholastic public speaking contest hosted by CSU Long Beach). After three days of engaging in competition against over 170 teams (including nationally-ranked private schools and other academies), we emerged victorious: FIRST PLACE in Speech Team Sweepstakes.
This is a monumental achievement. An afterschool academy has never won this tournament’s team award. There are several reasons why.
- First, if our students can compete with a team under their school’s name, we encourage them to do so. When this happens, ModernBrain doesn’t earn any sweepstakes points (which is fine by us as long as our students are learning). In this case, despite many of our students competing under different banners, our ModernBrain squad still outperformed the competition.
- Second, it’s hard for students from so many schools across the country to develop a sense of teamwork and communal spirit. We can’t all meet in the same classrooms every day. Despite this, our systems engendered a sense of togetherness, even as we practiced and performed remotely.
- Finally, most academies are specialists. They might excel in a few forms of debate or speech, but rarely both. ModernBrain, thanks to our diverse group of excellent coaches, has no specialty. We exceed expectations across the board.