BISB Hosts Boston Regional History Bee

BOSTON-- In a society often preoccupied with looking ahead to the latest technology or next best device, it was a rare sight last Saturday to see hundreds of middle school students and teachers looking to the past.

The Boston Regional competition of the National History Bee was held at the British International School of Boston (BISB) on Saturday, April 11, and brought together competitors from schools throughout Greater Boston to test their history knowledge.

But while looking back may not be the norm for today’s youth, among the History Bee competitors, it’s an important practice.

“Knowing history gives us the upper hand in understanding what’s going on around us and in making decisions,” said BISB Year 8 student Kasra von Andrian-Werburg.

Von Andrian-Werburg was one of five BISB middle school students who competed in the National History Bee Saturday. Shani de Silva (Year 7), Simon Risman (Year 9), Andrew Logue (Year 8) and Ilya Rudyak (Year 9) also competed.

The students said there was stiff competition at the event, particularly in the championship round. The students were entered into preliminary buzzer rounds, answering as many questions correctly as they could to move on to the championship round, in which the top 10 students competed.

“It was really amazing,” Logue said. “You could tell the level of dedication that people had to the competition. There was an air of determination among the students.”

Risman made it to the championship round, and said the questions, and the competition, grew more intense in that portion of the competition.

“There was a lot of adrenaline,” he said. “It was definitely nerve-wracking.”

While none of the BISB competitors made it to the National History Bee finals in Kentucky next month, they all said the Bee was a great experience that has inspired them to work harder in their history classes and has helped them see the value in looking to our past.

“It tells us about where we come from,” Logue said. “We can never make progress as a society if we don’t know what we’ve done in the past that went very badly and what we’ve done that went really well.”