The spelling bees

[soumya ravindranath]

Spelling bee

I watched this contest once long back and was indeed impressed. Personally, to me, it looks more like a not-so-useful craze led by some need to prove oneself. Or is it just like any other 'normal' craze ? Do any of you have first hand information about anyone preparing/participating in these events ? I suspect it would be very stressful and there would be a lot of parental pressure involved.
[ June 06, 2005: Message edited by: soumya ravindranath ]

[Arjunkumar Shastry]

Why this contest is so popular? How much worth prizes are given to winners?
It seems like rat race is everywhere

[soumya ravindranath]

No idea about that ...

The utter disappointment on the faces of the parents when their child falters is all I can remember.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

It's not really a "craze"; it's not a recent invention. "Spelling bees" have been held for many, many years in the U.S. The word "bee" as used here is an old-fashioned usage that means a sort of working party.

There is some renewed interest in spelling bees in recent years, probably mostly because of a recent award-winning documentary film about them.

It takes an enormous amount of work to become one of these champions. A large percentage of them are home-schooled (i.e., their parent(s) teach them at home full-time). Many of the words in the advanced rounds are words that most well-educated English-speakers may never have even heard of.

[fred rosenberger]

a Spelling Bee is also the topic of a Tony award winning (as of last night) Braodway musical...

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

[soumya ravindranath]

Originally posted by Ernest Friedman-Hill:
It's not really a "craze"; it's not a recent invention. "Spelling bees" have been held for many, many years in the U.S. The word "bee" as used here is an old-fashioned usage that means a sort of working party.

There is some renewed interest in spelling bees in recent years, probably mostly because of a recent award-winning documentary film about them.

It takes an enormous amount of work to become one of these champions. A large percentage of them are home-schooled (i.e., their parent(s) teach them at home full-time). Many of the words in the advanced rounds are words that most well-educated English-speakers may never have even heard of.

yes Ernest, I have heard about these too and the one I watched was about 8 years ago. Recently I heard from my relative in the US about home schooling their children and about the emphasis given to reading (which is in fact, good) etc. With this background, when I came across the spelling bees again, I thought of what I mentioned above. I don't mean to deride anyone.
[ June 06, 2005: Message edited by: soumya ravindranath ]

[Stan James]

"The Bee Season" is a neat book, only partly about spelling bees, soon to be a movie, part of the recent craze. But they've been going on for a long, long time. In 6th grade I won one on Admiral "Farragut", the "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" guy. The winner this year was decided by getting one of my favorite "music major" words: Appoggiatura. You see a fair smattering of Italian in music but I don't know if this has meaning outside music. A note not in the chord (usually on a strong beat) that resolves to a note in the chord.

[Jeroen Wenting]

I've always seen it as a weird way for parents to show off their kids more than anything.
Similar to beauty contests for babies, the ones that seem most competitive aren't the kids but the parents (and sometimes other coaches).

[Dave Lenton]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
I've always seen it as a weird way for parents to show off their kids more than anything.
Similar to beauty contests for babies, the ones that seem most competitive aren't the kids but the parents (and sometimes other coaches).

I often feel a bit sorry for the kids. They are under tremendous pressure from their parents, which can't be a good thing for the kids, especially as all but one of them will end up not winning. Also, what happens to the kids in five year's time? Yes, they're going to be good at spelling, but they could also have mental problems from spending all of their spare time learning strange technical, medical and musical terms, instead of doing what most kids do like playing, relaxing and socialising.

Makes you wonder what the parents are thinking when they are pushing their kids into extremely stressful situations, just to pander to their (the parents) vanity by being able to show the kids off in front of the other parents. I'm not saying that all the parents in these competitions are the same, but there's probably a hard core of nut cases involved in them.