I watched the movie “Spellbound” on Pay-Per-View the other day and I was quite fascinated.
In Canada we don’t really have spelling bee’s (especially a national one) that I know of.
What I gathered from the documentary was that the US population as a whole took the whole spelling bee culture quite serious. Just the fact that 9 million students participated in 1999 is pretty crazy.
So first off, how many dopers have participated in a spelling bee, and how far did you go? Anyone make it to D.C.?
And finally is it as big of a deal as the documentary made it out to be?
Haven’t seen the movie so I can’t answer all of your questions, but when I was in middle school (grades 6-8) we had a spelling bee every year. I was always champ of my classroom (20-25 students) and made it in to the top 10 for my school, but always seemed to have strep throat during the school finals (all grades against each other). It was NOT a big deal–mostly we were excited to get out of classes for a day if we were in the ‘bee’. This was back in the mid 80s though, so perhaps times have changed. Don’t know anyone who ever made it to DC.
It’s not as big a deal to the majority of the population as the docu makes it out to be. It’s a big deal to the people involved, of course, and it is fascinating to watch.
My gues is that so many students compete because in many schools (mine included when I was a kid) participation in the school wide spelling bee was compulsory.
Hmm, I participated from 3rd to 8th grades. 6th grade, I won school and went to county, lost horribly. Out 2nd round. “Infuriated”. 7th through 8th, I got 2nd to the same girl, the one who had won county for 4 years straight, and always went high in states. The senior class of '03 of my school had a nat’l winner in it though: Nupur Lala. I think she won in '99 or '00 or '01 or something. Somewhere around there.
My sister came this close to going to DC in the 5th grade. It came down to her and just one other kid to win our area and she misspelled the word “sherbet.” A lot of people pronounce it “sherbert,” after all.
I was in school bees in 7th and 8th grade and made it to county. First time, I was eliminated in the 4th round due to nerves- my word was adjourn, which I knew how to spell, but I was terrified and spit it out too fast and left off the “n” -I just said"a-d-j-o-u-r-adjourn" and as soon as I said it, wanted to smack myself in the face. Second time, I can’t remember what round I was eliminated in, but I think the word was commiserate.
I went to public school in upstate NY in the 1970s and we never had formal spelling bees at any level. Maybe they thought it was discriminatory against kids who were bad spellers and might hurt their self esteem? I dunno. I definitely would have known about it if they had them, I was one of the smart kids.
The one exception was one teacher in 7th grade who made a spelling bee an optional project for the students in our team…four classrooms or something like 80-100 students. You got 5 points just for participating, and the winner would get 10 points.
Not all the kids opted to participate but from what I remember at least 30 did. It got down to me and one other kid, a Tom Dolan or Nolan, I don’t remember. We were the only two left long after all the other kids had been elimnated. The teacher kept asking us words and we kept getting them right…she finally exhausted whatever list she was using and had to break out the dictionary for more words.
I finally lost in on “separate” which I spelled “seperate”. I had never formally studied any spelling rules, I just knew how to spell because I read so much.
Tom Dolan got the 10 points, but she gave me 7 1/2 as a consolation prize.
I went to public school in upstate NY in the '90s and we had regular spelling bees, although not all homeroom teachers participated. I was only in it in 3rd and 8th grades (the youngest and oldest you could be, coincidentally). In 3rd grade I came in second in the district and fourth in the county, just missing a chance to go to the state finals. In 8th grade I won the district and county and came in third in the state finals, missing my chance to go to the nationals by one word. I don’t even remember what it was anymore.
My favorite spelling bee memory: 3rd grade school district bee, and it’s down to three people. I’m up. The principal gives me my word: “freckle.”
“Eff are ee see kay ell ee. Freckle.”
“I’m sorry, that’s incorrect - it’s eff are ee see kay ee ell.” beat
“No it’s not.”
“What?”
“It’s eff are ee see kay ell ee.”
::shuffling and whispers; principals from the other schools have just handed him the dictionary::
“Oh. So it is. Errrr… next student.”
I saw that principal at my high school graduation and asked him how to spell “freckle.”
I won my class spelling bee, then the school, then came in third in district but still got to go to county for some reason, then won county, then did very poorly in state.
I think I have erased the word I missed from my mind, because it was so easy. If I had stopped to think, I’m sure I would have gotten it right.
I made it up to county level the last year I was eligible (eighth grade) and lost on a word that I KNEW. I was just overconfident and didn’t take the time to think about the word I was spelling—“ebullient” (I missed the “i”). My charming father rubbed it in by clipping all the news articles about the girl who beat me and constantly reminded me that she was two years younger.
Perhaps this is a sign of some sort of neurosis, but to this day I flinch when I see or hear that word, and I certainly never use it.
Loved “Spellbound”—the whole time I was on the edge of my seat, spelling right along with the contestants. You should definitely read Bee Season, which is a great novel focusing on a girl who ends up going to the national bee.
For another interesting look at the Bee, check out Neil Steinberg’s book Complete and Utter Failure. He has a chapter on the Bee (where 8,999,999 of the participants will fail) and he contrasts it with a national science competition (the name of which escapes me) which was going on in DC at the same time as the Bee. The rest of the book is really good too.
I made it to, and choked at the state exam. The word was ‘agitator’ and I spelled it with ‘adjitator’. I remember distinctly being REALLY nervous (that kind of thing has not changed), but that I was at least not the first one out.
I don’t think that’s true at all. Few people pay attention, and really it’s a novelty thing. In other words, spelling bees are for nerds. (Oddly enough, the Spelling Bee finals are televised every year.) I think spelling is considered about as important as penmanship these days - that is, not very, because computers can do it for us. The people who are good at it probably take it very seriously, but the population as a whole definitely does not.
In sixth grade, I won my school spelling bee and the next level up (district or whatever). I came in around 12th in the Long Island bee… if I’d won that, next up was regional and then DC, I think. If I ever have a CV, that’ll be displayed prominently.
When I was in public school, we had spelling bees: half the class on one side the room and half on the other: all the way down the line, spell this word; wrong: sit down - correct; stay standing. Proud to announce I was usually the last one standing! Now, ask me about geography
From what I gather…they don’t have spelling bees here any more (Ontario, Canada). At least, I don’t think so…got a letter from my bank manager the other day and counted five spelling errors!
Bad spelling is my pet peeve…partially because it’s the one thing I did well with in school.
I was in a few spelling bees in grade school. I was a good speller, but I kept getting knocked out because I didn’t repeat the word before and after. I thought that kind of nitpicking was utter bullshit, so I quickly lost interest.
