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"Reagan beats Obama easily, but can he take Dalai Lama in the next round?"

While most of us know our new President likes to play ball, he was no match for Ronald Reagan in the first round of this years’ tournament. Not exactly the headline most will expect to see grace the pages of our sports sections over the next few weeks! But in classrooms, workplaces and homes around the US this is exactly the type of question and debate we expect to happen as students, teachers, parents and others participate in the annual “Tournament of Champions” presented each year by Performance Education, a leading developer of supplemental teaching materials for teachers and students of social studies.

Building on the hype surrounding March Madness, the company offers a tournament of it’s own that based on last years’ results can create an equally high level of excitement, and no less heated discussion.

The Tournament of Champions was the brainchild of George Shirey, President and CEO and though an avid basketball fan himself, saw the opportunity to provide teachers with a fun, educational activity for their students.

The tournament matches famous, and in some cases, infamous characters that have all had a profound influence on the world we live in today, and invites students to debate and vote on who they believe had greater influence in a series of match-ups and brackets that will eventually lead to a final pairing just like in the NCAA…………….but with perhaps even more upsets!

"We ran this for the first time last year" says Shirey, "and received an overwhelmingly positive response." Teachers and students around the country asked us to run it again, and this year we are adding the opportunity for schools to win a free subscription of our entire collection of Toolbooks. Not only is it a lot of fun, but by participating students will learn about many of the characters that are sure to show up in their end-of-year tests. Ever heard of Jomo Kenyatta, Lech Walesa or Deng Xiaoping? No, well students will need to and this tournament will help them do just that."
Here is what Kelly from NY had to say: "I absolutely love this activity. I am using it for both teaching and reviewing with my Global Studies and AP World Classes.

And Jane, a middle school teacher from Kansas just loves the tournament, but even she was surprised at how into it, the kids got. “The level of debate over who was more influential was just astounding, and when it came time to vote the energy level in the class was incredible. I wish all my lessons got the same response”.

So will it be Reagan or the Dalai Lama, Stalin or Hitler, Homer or Socrates?

Click on www.performance-education.com/tourney/ and find out.

Performance Education was founded over 10 years ago by social study teachers with a passion for education and who recognized the dire need for better designed materials to help teach their beloved subject. Since then the company has grown to where it offers a very wide range of social study materials based on Blooms taxonomy that are effective, affordable and comprehensive. To learn more contact us at www.performance-education.com