Zaila Avant-garde is the first Black American student to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee

The champion of the national spelling bee this year is a young woman (in 8th grade, I presume) an African American, the first ever to be the national champion. I have confidence there will be many more.

There are many languages around the world, and many of them use alphabets. Of all the languages that use alphabets, English is the one which requires students to study spelling up through 8th grade. It's because our spelling is more complex and inconsistent than in any other language.

Many successful people never become good spellers, but that doesn't mean being good at spelling is useless. You will find it to be useful to become as proficient at spelling as you can, even though many find it hard, and no one can possibly be perfect at it.


NY Times Story, July 8, 2021



Comments

  1. Tom ReingoldJuly 12, 2021 at 1:01 PM

    And in May, this story came out, where Avant-Garde earned the world record for the most basketball dribble bounces in one minute. She is a determined young woman.

    https://norfolkdailynews.com/zaila-avant-garde---guinness-world-records/video_68bf1414-6d79-11ea-940d-07abfc70c8ce.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ms ReingoldSeptember 11, 2021 at 6:23 PM

    spelling certainly helps if you want to do crossword puzzles.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bittersweet subway commute

Image
    Commuting to my job as a teacher's assistant in a 4th grade English classroom. I got a seat, and the man across from me in the subway car looked at me directly. His face looked threatening. Such is life in the City. Of course, I didn't engage in eye contact. Later I saw that I had misjudged: his face was a face of pain. He cried out asking if anyone could help him with some money. When I hand over cash on the subway, I prefer to do it when I or the person is leaving. The woman to my right was leaving and gave him a dollar, so I leaned over and gave him a bit, too. I saw his face was full of pain. He soon got off. I pulled a textbook (for one of my courses) out of my bag, titled The Social Studies Teacher's Toolbox. The woman to my left said, "Oh, you're a social studies teacher? I thought you look like a Science Teacher." The “teacher look” comes from wearing a tie, and I was the only tie-wearer in the train car. I laughed and told her I'm
Read more

The Girl in the Dark

Image
  Life with children is bittersweet. Yesterday, I boiled over at a couple of students. Lesson learned, but I’m glad it wasn’t too terrible. I spoke too harshly with a girl named BD because she spoke out of turn when the class was trying to organize to get to lunch. I had a power struggle with a girl named NI. She panicked about losing something, and I told her where to sit, and she refused. Her refusal made me too angry. I was able to mend both situations by sleeping on it last night and then apologizing to each of them today. It’s possible that they don’t often have adults apologize to them, and they accepted it readily. A boy named PH, who has no friends, asked me if there is a way to make friends. I gave him the best advice I could which is to tell someone about things you like and ask them about what they like. I’ll check in on him and make sure he knows how to articulate things like this. I notice his enunciation is very poor, and I have trouble understanding him. This year’s four
Read more

Teacher’s Assistant

Image
  I have very good news. After three months of searching, I started a job in late November as a long-term teacher’s assistant at a charter elementary school in the Bronx. The assistant principal (AP) who hired me told me that my primary responsibility is to help one student. Eventually, this student won’t need my help, and the AP said there’s plenty of work for me here as a roving substitute or tutor. The student has had some severe behavioral problems, occasionally violent and often defiant. She has wide emotional swings, sometimes breaking out crying spontaneously. I enjoy the work very much. I feel honored that the school expects me to be capable of doing this. I don’t even understand how they knew anything about me. In my work with the student, I’m getting results that none of the other teachers has gotten. My student is improving in reading, writing, math, and in her behavior. I’ve developed a relationship with her, and she trusts me and listens to me. I don’t know her story, but
Read more