Tournament of Minds

Tournament of Minds (TOM) was founded in Victoria, Australia, in 1987, as an initiative by the Victorian Association for Gifted and Talented children by Justice Michael Kirby. Its purpose was to foster creative and cognitive thinking, and collaborative problem solving in students. 

On Saturday 30 August, ten students from Years 7-9 participated in the Tournament of Minds. At the start of TOM, we got into two teams of five and chose a long term challenge from either: Language literature, Social Sciences, Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) or Arts. My team chose the Social Sciences. Each team for each task (long term) was given 6 weeks to prepare and complete. My task was called TOMunity Tackles Down Tensions. We had to create a recreational facility that people across all ages would enjoy and two sites where we could place this new facility. We also had to write a speech, telling the judges what and how we planned, created and thought of our design. On the day of the Tournament of Minds challenge, we are also given a short term spontaneous challenge, in which we are given four minutes to discuss, then one minute to present. The whole point of the challenge is to work collaboratively under a strict time limit, then finally present your ideas to the judges. 

Overall, this challenge was extremely fun. Although it did take lots of work, with six weeks to prepare and complete, I thought that it really boosted my collaboration skills, time management skills and cooperation skills. Within these 6 weeks, I learnt so much and gained so many new ideas, skills and this definitely helped push my boundaries even further. I feel like TOM was such an amazing experience and although it did take a lot of hard work, time and energy to put in, I would definitely do this next year!

Chelsea Serrano
Year 7