Best Of
Links
Categories
Archives
Search
Subscribe
Amelia won her school spelling bee last Friday. It was exciting for everyone who watched. The students were much better prepared than they were last year and the bee ended with three spellers who were able to go round after round after round with each other, spelling the hardest words on the list and repeatedly not missing. I was impressed with the elementary student audience. They were quiet, they paid attention, and they broke their silence to give a satisfying gasp each time a particularly difficult or unusual word was correctly spelled.
Last year, Amelia studied moderately and ended up in 3rd place. As she was only a 3rd grader at the time, it was an impressive showing. But I think this may have made this year’s bee all the more tense for her. Her success at last year’s bee made her a more serious speller-—-someone dreaming more about what it would be like to qualify for D.C. than to win the school bee.
Her teacher gave her permission to follow her own spelling program this fall during word study time and she started up on an ambitious program of Latin and Greek root study, etc (sometimes burning out and learning nothing in the process, but ambition has its price). Suffice it to say that she was much, much, much better prepared for the bee this year. But I think that made the school bee a little (too?) high stakes. If you study moderately and achieve 3rd place, can you study tons and tons and be happy with a 5th place showing? Will anything other than first do?
Amelia was lucky (and don’t be mistaken, spelling bees involve a lot of luck) not to discover her own answer to that question this year. After several rounds of the threesome spelling word after word after word, the judges concluded that they would have to leave the list to end the contest. After that, it was over quickly.
For reasons unknown, they chose to ask words off last year’s list. Unfortunately, this meant that they did not have a good pronounciation guide. Amelia got the word “ambiguity” (incorrectly pronounced as to emphasize the wrong syllable, but in a way that just made spelling it easier). She spelled it correctly. The 6th grade boy got the word “nauseous” and spelled it incorrectly. The 6th grade girl got the word “conciliatory,” which was pronounced incorrectly as “con-SEAL-eatory” and spelled it incorrectly. Amelia was asked to spell “forfeit” to become the champion and she did.
I regretted the problem with the pronunciations at the end. We had prayed that morning that there would be no end-game messiness/judging problems of this sort (as there often is at spelling bees), but it was not to be. I like to believe that Amelia would have won no matter what because she was prepared, but it was a shame that the pronunciation was botched at such a critical juncture. We will never know whether that girl could have spelled “conciliatory” if correctly pronounced. Probably not, but maybe? There is a lot of luck in spelling bees.
The aftermath of the bee was a bit funny, kind of anticlimactic. The principal and other teachers were so eager to honor the threesome as a threesome and to say that they were all winners (nothing wrong with this, mind you) that they never actually said that Amelia had won the bee, never announced that she would be representing the school at the next contest.
It was funny because I was a bit torn. I also thought that all three of them deserved recognition and praise. And I also remembered how last year when Amelia was third they had showered praise on the top two spellers and I thought she perhaps could have been included in that. Also, the pronunciation problem with conciliatory was starting to bother me as I slowly came to realize that it may have been a big deal. But, ultimately, I am Amelia’s mother. I also wanted them to say: “You three were great, and you, Amelia, were best of all! Amelia is the champion! You spelled every word we gave you! Hip, hip hooray for Amelia!”
Anyway, I have more thoughts on child achievement and parent angst than one post can hold, so watch this spot.
Comments
10 Responses to “The Spelling Bee”
Leave a Reply
Congratulations, Amelia. Darling photograph.
Way to go Amelia!
It is interesting to read your blog because I think our parenting styles are quite different but we share the same values. It’s interesting to see how we approach the same parenting issues in different ways with (I hope) good results.
I agree that congratulations are in order. It is odd to congratulate someone for something that was a foregone conclusion, but since it is only odd and not impossible, it seems right.
Christian,
Your comment made me so curious as to what aspects of our parenting styles you are thinking of. I had to read and reread my post looking for clues. I don’t see much here. I assume your comment is more about the blog in total, not just this one post. I think my recent experiences with Amelia (including the spelling bee) say a lot about my parenting style, but I haven’t said much about that yet.
I certainly hope it’s true that different approaches to parenting issues can yield good results or I am probably in big trouble!
My comment was pretty vague, wasn’t it? Sorry about that. I guess I’m reading into this post and probably other posts on your blog but this post in particular made me think about how differently we approach something like a spelling bee. Here are a couple of things I read between the lines that illustrate what I believe are differences in our parenting styles:
1. You seem to care whether or not Amelia wins the spelling bee. Though I would be proud of my children if they won the spelling bee, I don’t think I would even hope that they won. In fact, I was sort of relieved when both of my children who are old enough to participate told me that they didn’t want to do it. You could argue that your result is better than mine since my children didn’t even enter the bee and yours won it. Maybe there’s something to your system.
2. You worked with a teacher to setup an alternative word study program for Amelia. This is an example of a difference that obviously worked for you. Like you, I am very involved in the education of my children but we approach it differently (or at least I am assuming that we do). I haven’t ever setup special study programs with our teachers during regular school time. My preference is to let the teacher manage the at-school schedule. I also never request a teacher (this isn’t something that you mentioned in the post, but it explains my approach). Instead, Kacy and I always talk to the principal about our children and ask the principal to select the teacher that is the best fit. I think that to some our strategy seems too passive but it works for us. I think we get a better result when the teacher feels like we trust them with our children.
3. I don’t know if this is a parenting style issue or not, but I never want anybody to make a big deal about one of my children coming in first place. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of them when they do it but I want their satisfaction to come from the fact that they did their best work whether they earned first, second, third, or thanks-for-participating place.
The funny thing about all of this is that I am extremely competitive. I think that the only games I have thrown (even when playing with my children) are games of chance (like Candyland). So far, none of my children have my competitive drive. I suspect that if they had that drive I might care more about whether or not they won because it would mean more to them. But maybe they don’t have the drive because I don’t care whether or not they win. I don’t know which is the cause and which is the effect or even if there is a cause and effect relationship.
Anyway, I’m not trying to make a point here. Your post (and probably your blog) has given me insight into how you parent your wonderful children. I think my children are wonderful too, but it seems to me that we are achieving a similar goal in a different way. And now that I’ve written this, I realize that it isn’t even very insightful since every parent is different and so is every child.
I hope that makes sense.
Christian–Thanks for your thoughtful comment. You have touched on some of the very issues I have been hoping to write about here in the next few days. The way you organized your reply has helped me organize some of my stray thoughts about these things. Unfortunately, I have to go and do laundry now, but I hope we will be able to continue this conversation in conjunction with the forthcoming posts.
Christian, re your #3, this is an interesting one.
When I got back to work (I was almost late because it went on so long) I had to jump right on a conference call. I got on and I was first on the agenda and I said, “before I dive into this one I want to announce that my daughter just won the spelling bee at her school.” There were a few people on the phone that I knew well, but 5 or 6 others that I barely knew at all. I didn’t care…I was excited and I wanted to share the good news, with somebody. Then when it wasn’t my turn to speak and I could get away with usual multi-tasking I sent an e-mail out to 40 or so people on my team (some of whom, I shouldn’t admit, I can’t remember their names when I see them) announcing Amelia’s win. I did think for a minute about whether I should do it. Two of them have children about Amelia’s age–and I do think that changes a lot how such an e-mail will be interpretted. But I decided to send it anyway. The thing is, I want to be part of a team where I know everyone’s name (I need to work on that) and where where we do share (at least some) in the personal highs and lows of the other members of the team. I figured, if I’m going to share any personal highs, this one is a great one to share. And I was glad I did. Several people followed up with “Send Amelia my congrats” and “what was the winning word” and I also got a “congratulations from the 7th grade spelling school champ” and short-story about someone’s almost win at spelling in 6th grade and the gift their parents had promised them had they won (which they got anyway) and how important the contest had been for them later even though they didn’t win. So I bundled up all these good wishes into one e-mail and sent it on to Amelia’s e-mail account. Partly I wanted her to see all their well wishes. Partly I wanted her to know that her success is something I wanted to share with those people I spend so much time with at work.
But this is beginning to sound like a rebuttal. It shouldn’t be because I sort of agree with you. I think. I didn’t get up in Elder’s Quorum at church and announce it, though there is also some precedent for such. I don’t know why–it was just a different set of dynamics. I see your point. And, maybe it sounds like a cop out, but I do believe each case is different. It might have made a difference if I hadn’t received such personal accomplishments (including for children) in the past from others on my team, or if the environment at work were naturally more competitive so that my e-mail seemed to be an act of one-ups-manship. It may have made a difference that very few (as noted above only 2) have children this age. So, I think there are a lot of factors and no single right answer. But anyway, that’s what I did. Hopefully, in my situation is was a good thing.
I liked seeing the picture. It helps me imagine what the bee was like.
I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have helped urging my daughter to be a spelling champ because I enjoyed words and spelling so much myself, although we didn’t have anything but a couple little classroom bees when I was growing up (and I don’t even think I won one). I think there was a competitive gene there on both sides of the family.
I think studying for spelling bees has huge cognitive/academic rewards. You get familiar with so many fields and it spurs your curiosity. I think once you know the vocabulary, that’s half the battle in mastering any field. And once you’ve learned a lot of increasingly difficult vocabulary, you’ve primed the pump for learning increasingly difficult subjects.
This past weekend we enjoyed watching Healing Hands: The Ben Carson Story. (He’s the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, first surgeon to successfully separate twins joined at the head.) and it was interesting to see that he had enjoyed spelling bees too. I think spelling bees even have social rewards in that you learn interesting and sometimes fascinating trivia which are good conversation pieces. Interesting that Ben and his brother liked playing along with game shows which may be a common trait among people who enjoy spelling??
Oh congratulations to Amelia! That is such an awesome accomplishment! Our family always obsessed with the spelling bee. We would study beforehand for weeks, and we learned so much! We all participated and it just became a family event! I’m glad to see it’s still in the family!
Congratulations to her!
[...] in February, when Christian F and I were debating the merits of competition on this blog (see The Spelling Bee, Competition: Success and Struggle, and In Defense of Competition as well as the lengthy comments [...]