Spelling Bee in US: Indians cast a spell

[varun]

So much for those Indians with bad English....

:eyes:


http://www.rediff.com/news/report/2009/may/29/spelling-bee-contest-indian-americans-cast-a-spell.htm

If ever there was any doubt that during the past few years, Indian American kids have come to virtually own the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee competition, it was erased with a vengeance on Thursday morning when of the 11 championship finalists, seven or more than 60 percent were Indian Americans, belonging to a minority population that is less than one percent of the total US population.

The day started with 41 spellers in the semi-finals, of which 14 were Indian Americans, and when the fourth and final semi-final round was completed, the Indian-American dominance was amply manifest with seven spellers surviving to make their bid in the finals which will be telecast at prime time by ABC with Tom Bergeron, the host of Dancing With the Stars, returning to host the 82nd Scripps National Spelling Bee.

And, among the seven in the championship finals, were Siddarth Chand,13, of Beverly Hills, Michigan and Kavya Shivashankar, also 13,of Olathe, Kansas, both eighth grade students and each of whom were strongly tipped to capture the title and make history repeat itself and ensure a third back-to-back taking of the championship by an Indian American, after Sameer Mishra became last year's top speller.

Chand finished second last year, and Shivashankar, who has finished among the top 10 for the last three years, tied for the fourth place last year, and in her fourth and final appearance this year, was a crowd favorite for the gold trophy and the cash prize of $35,000, in addition to several other prizes...

[varun]

1. 13-year-old Kansas girl wins National Spelling Bee

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090529/ap_on_re_us/us_spelling_bee

WASHINGTON – Cool and collected, Kavya Shivashankar wrote out every word on her palm and always ended with a smile. The 13-year-old Kansas girl saved the biggest smile for last, when she rattled off the letters to "Laodicean" to become the nation's spelling champion.

The budding neurosurgeon from Olathe, Kan., outlasted 11 finalists Thursday night to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee, taking home more than $40,000 in cash and prizes and, of course, the huge champion's trophy.

"I can't believe it happened," Kavya said. "It feels kind of unreal."

After spelling the winning word, which means lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics, Kavya got huge hugs from father Mirle, mother Sandy and little sister Vanya.

"The competitiveness is in her," Mirle Shivashankar said. "But she doesn't show that. She still has that smile. That's her quality."...

[cbc5g]

2. Kind of like Russia/China dominating gymnastics

Every culture has some thing that they force their kids to do instead of actually..being kids.

And what is the use of knowing and memorizing words that no one uses except to maybe win a prize? It can't be healthy in terms of social development for the children.

[ZombieNixon]

3. Umm...some people find it fun?

This isn't a "cultural" thing by any stretch of the word. There are kids of all ethnicities who participate in the Spelling Bee. It just so happens that this year, Indian kids did well until the very end. For some kids, doing these academic competitions is what is means to be a kid. I did spelling bee when I was 13 because I wanted to do it, not because my parents forced me. I'm sure these kids will have a fabulous social development.

[cherokeeprogressive]

5. Um, Otay.

I HATED spelling. Now I'm good at it. Find a misspellleled word in any one of my postes and I'll give ya fifety bukks.

YOU GOOF! Yer just havin' fun with us ain't ya?

[WolverineDG]

7. There's one in every crowd

did you get beat up at school by a national spelling bee winner or something? jeez, maybe this is something the kids actually like to do & they are :gasp: having fun while learning & getting edumacated & stuff. being a kid who's good at spelling & social development are not mutually exclusive concepts.

dg

[La Lioness Priyanka]

24. i used to read a lot. hence my vocabulary and spelling were stellar

i am sure my mother is very ashamed of herself

[JI7]

4. these Indian Kids are Americans, they go to school in America and most are born here

[varun]

6. The point is

that Indians (whether in America or anywhere else in the world) can spell and speak good English. Some posters on DU (especially the anti-outsourcing ones) tend not to think so.

[Karenina]

9. Lemme paraphrase an old joke based in fact...

Indian "diplomat" speaks at a high society gathering and is subsequently approached by an "aristocrat" who gushed, "You speak our language so well!' He replied, "Of course I do, Madame. I LEARNED it."

[redqueen]

11. So you're trying to tie

the spelling bee accomplishments of American-born/educated kids of Indian heritage to call center employees who speak broken English.

... ok.

[supernova]

15. +1

Yes, these are American kids, not outsourced kids brought in for the Bee to replace native-born kids, because gosh-darn it Scripps just can't afford American Spelling Bees anymore.

geez.

[OhioChick]

33. +2 n/t

[varun]

17. Not call center kids...but Indians in general

I hear DUers complain how they cannot understand Indians (even those who are born in US, and work with them), and how bad their work ethics are, ....blah blah...

[redqueen]

21. So?

I sometimes can't understand some people of various ethnicities. WTF does it matter? Is that a put down now?

Jesus.

[ZombieNixon]

20. No, I think the point is that the residual resentment over jobs being outsourced to India

builds among otherwise logical, liberal-minded people to a point where Indians, even those Americans of Indian ethnicity become the "other" to be vilified. I don't know if you remember some of the posts in the wake of Bobby Jindal's TV belly-flop, but it seemed like every other post was some kind of outsourcing/Slumdog Millionaire snark, and it was really offensive and not appropriate for a progressive site.

[redqueen]

22. So a few months ago there was a bunch of crap about Jindal...

so... this has what to do with it?

[Ohio Joe]

30. I think you are correct - nt

[Generic Other]

8. I had a national spelling bee champ in my class

He was an Alaska Native. I would come to class and find all the boards covered with words. He was a very bright guy. When he was ready to go on, he asked me to write letters of recommendation to 12 Ivy League schools plus Oxford. He was accepted at them all. Ended up at Dartmouth with a full-ride scholarship. Kind of unusual for a community college student.

[Catherine Vincent]

10. Women rule!

:evilgrin:

[hfojvt]

12. I think that is an unfair advantage

clearly, since you grow up learning and spelling words like "Shivashankar" you have an advantage over people named Olson, Jones, Smith or Williams.

The other complaint about immigrants, though, is not about their English, but about the fact that they seem to be taking over.

That seems to have been proven with a vengeance here.

[Catherine Vincent]

13. Taking over what?

[pampango]

18. Good question.

"The contest has been open to spellers from countries outside the US since 1978, and this year 28 children from the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, New Zealand and South Korea took part."

"Among the 9-15 year olds were 33 who speak English as their second language."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8073558.stm

[JI7]

26. how many of the kids were from India ?

[varun]

19. There's some truth to your statement

Indians are born in a country with multiple languages and most Indians speak at least 2-3 languages. Picking up languages is easier for them. That also explains them excelling in computer languages and programming. BTW, world's oldest grammar was in Sanskrit - the root of most Indian languages.

[hfojvt]

23. I am not sure if learning multiple languages helps you spell

I still think that German kinda hurt my spelling because German and English tend to flip their i's and e's - heim vs. hime.

[JI7]

25. or Sotomayor , maybe that's why she was able to do so well

her last name gave her an advantage that kids with names like Jones, Smith etc didn't have.

[JI7]

oh, wait, there is Tancredo also and that didn't seem to help him much

[Ezlivin]

14. `Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

[tjwash]

32. My loony bun is fine Benny Lava

Minor bun engine made Benny Lava

[Tommy_Carcetti]

16. (((Insert Slumdog Millionaire reference here)))

[NoodleyAppendage]

27. This proves what? There's no evidence that Indians are more intelligent than Caucasians.

Indian dominance in this "sport" is more a byproduct of hard, hard work (almost slavishly so) and not some racially-associated natural talent for spelling. This article is getting close to that racist line where people are going to start saying impolitic things like, "those Indians sure can spell," which in my mind is no different than, "those Blacks sure can play basketball."

J

[XemaSab]

29. I don't think there was any sort of assertion in the OP that Indians are "naturally" better

Why were most of the kids in the championship round of the Bee Indian?

Why are most kids at Berkeley Asian?

Hard work.

I think the interesting question here is why Indian kids are motivated to work hard towards that particular (narrow) goal?

[LWolf]

31. Their culture values learning. nt

[EFerrari]

28. That's amazing! I watched some clips of those kids.

They were great. :)