![]() ![]() There’s less time and less money for lots of important things: creativity, the arts, reading for pleasure, play - or simply doing nothing, something today’s kids rarely get to experience.Bee part of the buzz Sunday, March 6 at 2:00 pm Doors open at 1:30 pm Ithaca High School Wellness Center Teachers, as well, are more strapped than ever before, sometimes barely able to fit all the required standards into their day. She has more to learn and more to do, both during and after school. In a typical day, more is expected of Clara than it was of me 32 years ago. More than likely, neither do yours.įor me, what it really boils down to is this: We just can’t do it all. Of course, none of my kids have the kind of focus, drive, attention span and spelling talent to compete at that level, either. Opinion This school's parental dress code teaches kids sexism and elitism, not respectīut while the savant-level competitors who can make it to the national stage are impressive, to say the least, I can’t say I’d encourage any of my kids to take on that level of stress - especially considering all the free time they’d be giving up to make it. Memorization may be a useful skill, but in the world in which our kids are growing up, is a competition that puts rote memorization above all else relevant enough to our daily lives to make the spectacle worthwhile? But as I walked away from Clara’s spelling bee, feeling just as rotten for the kids who won as for the kids who lost (the winners would be advancing to the district level, so they were going to have to do it all over again!), I reflected on the fact that I held a device in my hand, a “smartphone,” that would literally not allow me to misspell a word. Yes, these are all important, character-developing things to learn. That it’s not always enough to be “naturally” good at something. The comments on my Instagram post about Clara’s spelling bee loss illustrate this: 20, 30, 40 years later, we still remember the moment we learned that you can study really hard at something and still fail. Just ask any room full of adults if they remember their school spelling bee, and I bet you that most, if not all, can recall not just the experience, but also the very word that brought them down. As it turns out, in a high-stakes, high-stress situation like a spelling bee, “knowing” doesn’t always save you.Īnd I’m hardly alone. There I was defeated by the word “trapeze,” one I’d seen dozens of times and really knew how to spell, I swear. Thirty-two years earlier, I’d snagged one of the top two spots in my school to advance to the district bee. I still remember excruciatingly well the moment I was ousted from my own fourth-grade spelling bee. But memorization is not the same as communication, and spelling word after word (that she’d rather be inserting in a juicy story) didn’t exactly light her up.īut that was a lie. She loves words, as anyone who has held a conversation with her knows. A dreamy child, Clara spends her after-school hours sketching and painting, writing stories and talking to friends. ![]() Her dad and I did our best to prepare her, but it wasn’t easy for our daughter to stay focused. In the weeks leading up to the contest, Clara had come home with study lists and strategies for success. ![]() But that was nothing compared to the tension in the audience: We parents squirmed in our seats, sighing and gasping and holding our breaths as our kids slowly spelled their words. Most of the fourth- and fifth-grade competitors surrounding her in the combination gym/cafeteria/auditorium sat rigidly, their faces set in grim concentration. My 10-year-old daughter Clara shifted nervously as she sat on stage waiting her turn in her elementary school’s spelling bee this January. ![]()
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