COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:

It’s Memorial Day weekend. Did you know that? Probably. This is the time we set aside to honor our nation’s veterans, which is an excellent thing to do in my opinion.

But I’d also like to put in a good word for some sixth-graders from Lincoln Elementary School in Corona del Mar. They’re not veterans. They’re too young. But they did emerge victorious in the 24th Annual Orange County Academic Pentathlon.

On May 10, 73 teams from county schools had at each other, synapse to synapse, at Katella High School in Anaheim. Team members work their way through a battery of essays and tests in literature, math, science and social science, then every team reports to the gym for a high-energy, noisy, crazy “Super Quiz,� in which each team has 30 seconds to answer some very tough questions.

When it was all over, Lincoln Elementary was the last team standing, or sitting, I’m not sure, but the point is, they won.

So two thumbs way up for Lincoln’s Super Sixth-grade pentathlon team and for Lincoln Elementary itself, which has not only a habit of teaching kids that it’s cool to be smart but also a history of collecting honors for doing it, statewide and nationally. By the way, are the teams made up of every super-smack they can find? They are not. Do they prowl the library and computer stations for the kids with the thickest glasses, or the kids who know that Thomas Alva Edison invented the cotton gin? They do not.

Each team has to include a cross-section of students determined by grade average. Academic pentathlons and decathlons are really exercises in studying and team work. The kids spend months and months and hundreds of hours studying and working together to get ready for their particular cerebral smack-down, including lunch hour and after school. In addition to their first-place team trophy, the Lincoln Elementary kids collected more individual medals than a South American dictator in his first pawnshop.

“We had 21 students that participated,� Lincoln Elementary teacher Judy Taylor said. “We took home 72 medals total.�

Why is this such a big deal? Let me tell you. Just my opinion of course, but I believe our educational system, public and private, has been on the slide for at least 30 years. In just one generation, we have slipped at least four years, maybe more, in terms of knowledge and performance at every level.

That is why we need to pump up the volume on every big and little educational activity we can cook up, like academic pentathlons and decathlons. Think of as Pilates for the brain. You pull and push and a little here and a little there, and before you know it, you are totally buff and gorgeous and if someone asks you what William Marconi invented, you can answer them just like that — Morse code. Do I have any evidence to back any of this up — a little data, some numbers maybe? Whaddaunutz?

I do have an interesting item that someone sent me years ago and I drag out and dust off as needed. You might keep it in mind the next time someone makes a snippy remark about someone else who has an “eighth-grade education.� As it turns out, it all depends on when you went through the eighth grade.

Do you know where Salina, Kansas is? Neither do I, other than in Kansas. But this is an 8th-grade final exam from a public school in Salina — in 1895 — which wasn’t yesterday. We don’t have enough time for the entire exam, which took about five hours to complete, but I’ll give you a few questions from each subject. Ready?

You may pick up your pencils and open your test booklets.

Grammar:

1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.

2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.

3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph.

Arithmetic:

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.

2. Find the interest on $512.60 for eight months and 18 days at 7%.

3. What is the cost of 40 boards 12-inches wide and 16-feet long at $20 per meter?

U.S. History:

1. Give the epochs into which U.S. history is divided.

2. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.

3. Show the territorial growth of the United States.

Orthography:

1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication.

2. What are elementary sounds? How are they classified?

3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals.

Geography:

1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?

2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?

3. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.

Time — put your pencils down, please.

How did you do? Personally, I blacked out right after trigraph and subvocals. What does it all mean? What it means is that if I had to pass that thing to get out of grade school, I would be the only eighth grader in Salina, Kansas with an AARP card. To the Lincoln Elementary School 6th grade Pentathlon Team, don’t stop now, we salute you, and if you figure out what the interest on $512.60 for eight months and 18 days at 7% is — call me. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at [email protected].