On March 30, History Teacher Mr. John Degree hosted the annual History Faire Joust in the quad during lunchtime.  Students completed against other students in different kingdoms, a kingdom representing a section of seventh grade history.  First place won 100 lucre points, second place won 75, and third place won 50.

This year the kingdom of France, which is De Gree’s first period class, took first place.  Scotland was second, which is History Teacher Ms. Sandi Palmer’s fifth period, and Sweden finished third, which is Palmer’s sixth period class.

The joust is all about learning medieval history. De Gree said, “The purpose is to learn history in a fun and engaging way.” De Gree himself has made a card game that is similar to the game, Goldfish. The first ever joust was about four to five years ago.

The joust is only for seventh graders who study the Middle Ages as part of their course.  Each year the seventh grade classes have a day called History Faire.  This is the day when students get to dress-up in similar clothing worn in the Middle Ages and participate in a number of Medieval themed activities.  Each seventh grade history classroom gets to be a ‘kingdom’, and they also have a royal court that contains a queen, king, knight, lords, etc.

Workshops are held in the weeks before the History Faire in order for the kingdoms to earn lucre.  Lucre is a type of currency that was used before, but the students use it as points.  All teachers give out lucre as rewards for their seventh grade students.

Each royal court has an archbishop.  For the joust, the archbishop gets to choose four students to represent their kingdom. The students get chosen depending on the archbishop. Whether it’s a raffle, being chosen, or volunteering.  In total, 55 students end up competing against other kingdoms, except their own, in order to win lucre. Ten questions are asked on what the students have studied on.

Other than De Gree, Palmer and the CJSF students helped to organize and run the joust. De Gree said, “The CJSF students run the whole thing and without them it wouldn’t have happened. They’re a huge help!”

The archbishop from each class has to attend one meeting about the joust. Seventh-grader Andres Fernandez said, “Mr. De Gree explained about the competition and how we have to memorize the cards.”

To compete in the joust the four students that were chosen to compete in the beginning go in the quad and sit at the lunch tables in a row. Then they receive scantrons in order to answer the questions asked.  

Afterwards, someone walks up and down the rows of tables checking to see that no one cheats or to see how many students from each kingdom got the questions correct.

At the end of the joust, the helpers count up the points. Then the winners are announced.