Spelling Bee

From the way I see it, the Spelling Bee is a good way to discourage 90% of each classroom from being excited about spelling as we send 10% of each classroom off to compete with all the other ten percents. Then, in the school wide spelling bee, you have the unique opportunity to make 9 out of the 10 best spellers in the school go home crying.

Today was our school spelling bee for 2nd and 3rd graders. It left me wondering, “What are Spelling Bees supposed to do? Can someone tell me again?”

I am an amazingly good speller, as was my father before me, as was his mother before him. I am terrible at Spelling Bees, as was my father before me. I don’t know about his mother on that one. In 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, I always did well on the spelling bees, but made ridiculous errors near the end. In 7th grade, I was determined to win—not because I wanted the “gold” bee on a trophy, but because my teacher said she had never had a spelling bee winner in her three years of teaching. And, I was relatively in love with her. This would be my way to be her hero. I told her I would win the spelling bee for her.

In the classroom preliminaries, my first word was “park”.

“Park,” I said. “P-R-A-K. Park.” She corrected me, and I was immediately embarrassed. But, then she threw it out and gave me a new word. She was giving me a break! She liked me! That was my only mistake. After that, I was careful and ended up representing our class against 28 other contestants in 7th grade. Out of a grade level of nearly 1,000 students, I was pretty proud.

My dad came to watch the spelling bee contest, held in our spacious school library. I sailed through my first two words, as did everyone else. My third word was “historical”.

“Historical.” I took a deep breath; this would be easy. “H-I-S,” I breathed quickly. “T-O-R-I-C-A-L.” I sat down smugly. But, I was called back up. The word was judged to be incorrect. I challenged it. They played back the tape. I had started so quickly that the only thing anyone heard—including the tape recorder—was “H-S…T-O-R-I-C-A-L.” The “I” was absent; even I had to admit it.

My romantic prospects went down the drain. I sat next to my teacher for a few moments, and she offered no consolation. Then I asked if I could sit with my dad, and she said that would be OK.

After the Spelling Bee, dad said, “You know, in my seventh grade spelling bee, I went out on the word ‘park’. I spelled it P-R-A-K.”