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For 15 years, Anne Hilton has been guiding teams of Cape Henlopen School District students to Odyssey of the Mind competitions. But in May her job as enrichment specialist ended, a casualty of last spring’s budget cuts. She returned to an elementary classroom.
As an enrichment specialist, along with classroom research projects and presentations using podcasting and other technology, Hilton served as a liaison between the state and the district on visual and performing arts and gifted and talented student programs.
She took the helm to organize Odyssey of the Mind 15 years ago, continuing a district tradition that had begun before she arrived. Many of her teams went to the world finals.
But, this year, the district didn’t even field a team. That raised serious concerns with Cape school board member Gary Wray. “How far we’ve fallen! Cape used to be one of the best in the state. We went to the national championships and now we have no team. If that’s not backward, I don’t know what is,” Wray said.
“This is very upsetting to me. I miss it tremendously. I really wish we could continue. It’s not that I wasn’t very busy in my other job, but this is a different kind of busy, and I have to concentrate on my kids,” he said.
Retiring Milton Elementary School principal Sheila Baumgardner said her teachers simply can’t take on something extra such as Odyssey of the Mind competitions. “There is so much impact on staff this year with new initiatives – my teachers are tired,” she said.
Mike Kelley, district supervisor of curriculum and instruction, said while Odyssey of the Mind is not a function of the school district, as a cadre, Hilton played an integral role in organizing teams for the competition. “It will be a while before those district-wide specialist positions come back,” Kelley said.
But, Cape school board member Allan Redden said before the cadre positions were created in the district Odyssey of the Mind teams were started through parent interest and organization.
Kelley said parents of interested students can organize and coach Odyssey of the Mind teams again. Hilton didn’t disagree that a parent or team of parents could organize and coach a single team, but said, “For the entire district, probably not.”
At Odyssey of the Mind competitions, teams face a variety of challenges from constructing mechanical devices and solving engineering questions to reinterpreting some of literature’s greatest classics. Teams compete in a friendly atmosphere with a focus on creativity in problem solving. There is no single correct answer to any Odyssey of the Mind problem.
Odyssey of the Mind is open to students from kindergarten through college. Teams work on long-term problem solving and the presentation of their solutions, but the competition also includes spontaneous problem solving. The program focuses on creativity above all as student teams apply knowledge, skills and talents to tackle challenges.
In this year’s competition, teams had to build road-rally vehicles and compete them in sports-related events; come up with and present an original theory of why the dinosaurs became extinct; develop a play based on two figures, one actual and on invented, inspired by one of the Greek muses; develop an Earth-related problem and eccentric characters to solve it; and put on a performance in which a character falls asleep and then wakes up in a different time and place.
Check out Odyssey of the Mind online at http://www.odysseyofthemind.com.
Contact Leah Hoenen at leah@capegazette.com
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