“The word is ‘schtickle’.”
“Could you use it in a sentence?”
“‘Could I get a schtickle of flouride?’”
“And this offends you as a Jewish person?”
“It offends me as a comedian!”
Perhaps back East, but in the West, and especially in Arizona, all of them call themselves Indians. I have several Navajo friends, none of whom ever use Native American. Indian tribe, Indian casino, Indian Nation are used all the time.
One Navajo friend with whom I correspond via eamil calls himself “An old injun from the rez.” He left the reservation when young, got a good education, works as a computer programmer, yet went back to the rez in mid-life, as he just missed the strong bonds of family and friends there.
Those aren’t buoys!
I’ll stop now.
And they’re still doing it!
Kavya Shivashankar just won the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Ignorance fought.
I propose that, rather than changing the name for the group, we just retcon the word into an abbreviation of “Indigenous Americans”.
I love it when they use Yiddish loanwords in the Spelling Bee. In this year’s championship round one of the words was kichel.
“Can you use it in a sentence?”
“The thought of somebody kvetching about her kichel gave Mary the shpilkes.”
That’s a darned good idea.
For the record, every academic I know who works in American Indian history uses “Indian”, mostly because the Indians themselves never bought into “Native American”.
Being something of a speller myself, in the days where it was something you did in school and that was it, I’ve had an interest in the Scripps competition and of course the documentary Spellbound. And my reaction was the same - what’s the point of this? Spelling well is a great parlor trick, but it has absolutely no application in the real world. I imagine an admissions officer might think of it as a nice “plus,” but no-one’s getting into Harvard, or earning a scholarship (unless it’s from Scripps) because you were a great speller. You pretty much have to win the damn thing to get any mileage out of it.
So why on earth do parents invest time, money, and energy into this? Manda JO I think has it sussed, for the most part. When I look at the spellers, there is this overwhelming preponderance of recent immigrants, home-schooled kids - groups that tend not to know what activities are truly beneficial for their kids in the world of competitive academics. And I’m not bagging on Asian parents, but there does seem to be a certain amount of mileage that they earn socially if their kid is the best at something. (A lot of parents play this game too, but I’ve seen it at fairly obnoxious levels, and one of my students, who is an Indian mom, constantly shakes her head at the dick-measuring that some of the parents in her social circle engage in.)
Between my wife and I, we have five degrees, three from Ivy League schools… and I couldn’t be less interested in spelling bees and science competitions and the like. Well, science competitions actually have an application. But I’m more concerned that my kid take the most challenging courses across the curriculum, and find an engaging interest or two that he enjoys (and perhaps excels at). The rest will take care of itself. That being said, if my kid wants to be a speller, I’ll do what I can to encourage it, but honestly, the skills it takes to be a top speller might be better applied to an endeavor of worth (studying history, other languages, etc).
" They are misfits and other, less brilliant students are living lives they should envy. "
Should they? Indian Americans have the highest median income among all the ethnic groups (including mainstream “white” Americans). (Source: wikipedia, U.S. Census)
Yeah, but we are so fucked if socialized medicine catches on here…
Winning (or even being a finalist) a spelling bee competition helps you a lot in getting college-scholarships. How is it a high-risk low-yield strategy ?? I think Indians have figured it out alright. How can you, being a teacher, not understand this?
I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. Having participated in the national bee myself, I’ve been acquainted with a few champions and plenty of top-ten finalists. For the most part, they are perfectly well-adjusted teenagers, who, for a few years, got good at something and had the dedication to excel.
There are the misfits, of course, but even for them, the Bee is giving them a chance to excel and be recognized for talent that might otherwise go unnoticed. Spelling bees do not cause kids to hole themselves up for days on end learning their Latin declensions (or whatever). They study with their parents, with their friends online. They make inside jokes about the words they learn. They’re brilliant, but still utterly normal kids.
And if you think these kids are starved of “other endeavors” - definitely not true. They compete in the Geography Bee, win music competitions, write novels, play sports, do traditional Indian dance (like the winner this year). It’s easy to label the kids as freaks, but they are anything but.
Bingo - American education has been moving away from rote memorization since the '70s at least, while much of the rest of the world has favored rote memorization. Indians just happen to be a fairly common minority with a strong work ethic and commitment to education.
I think Manda JO understands it correctly and I agree with her. The eastern cultures (Indian, Asian, ) have a tendency to over-emphasize academic achievement at the expense of a well-rounded socialized life.
It’s a wonderful mindset for churning out obedient white-collar worker bees but not so good at generating business leaders (CEO or entrepreneur) with aggressive creative talents.
This is not a slight against Asian aspirations because many parents do not strive for their kids to become the big CEO. Therefore, their philosophy on education matches the type of adults their children become.
The energy devoted to a spelling bee is a low-yield strategy. If the child has natural tendency for memorization and has fun learning words, then of course it makes sense to support his training. But to go beyond that and think that a spelling bee championship as a definitive stepping stone to future success? No, it’s a waste of time.
The spelling bee isn’t only about rote memorization though. A lot of is about understanding the origins of words and applying the relevant rules. And maths is certainly not about rote learning and neither are science competitions.
And anyway rote learning is an important part of learning. You need an adequate stock of knowledge thoroughly memorized before you do all the fancy creative thinking. Frankly you are over-generalizing here. China and India are economic dynamos which would hardly be possible without innumerable entrepreneurs. In fact they have entrepreneurial traditions going back thousands of years. And in the US Asian immigrants have been very active for example in creating startups in Silicon Valley.I agree with you that there is no point on pushing a child who cannot memorize or not motivated to do it. But, if the child has the drive for it, then it is a definitive stepping stone for future success (as I explained before, it helps you getting the college-funds).
They could do worse. They could spend endless hours and lots of money trying to get good enough at sports to win a college scholarship in football, basketball or ice hockey. Lots of kids in the US do that, and the chance of succeeding with that strategy are even poorer. I think the spelling bee competitors have a better chance of success.