Am I the only one that doesn’t applaud the intellectual value of spelling bees? I was always good at them (because I’m Indian), but what’s the point in memorizing things and regurgitating them? I understand there’s some strategy and some working-out of prefixes, etc., but it’s not by any stretch a creative enterprise. Is this the kind of thing we should be idolizing? And yes, this is really the only ‘academic’ enterprise that we come close to idolizing.
Well, you’re a computer science major who values innovation, reasoning, etc… if you were a med student I bet the “memorizing things and regurgitating them” coupled with the ability to quickly deduce based on that large databank of examples would be a far more attractive skill set.
For the record, I sucked at these things. I lost to white people, asians, black people… I even lost to girls.
There was an episode of “Roseanne” where DJ became a spelling bee champ. Darlene made fun of him, and was accused of being jealous. “Yeah, I wanted to be Rain Man,” was her retort.
I don’t think spelling bees are necessarily applauded for intellectual value; they’re just much better spectator television than other academic competitions. Spellbound gets some credit for that. It’s all totally obscure information, but anyone watching can theoretically guess along with them, and at least come close. The Geography Bee has less arbitrary, and more relevant information, but watching kids answer questions about rain patterns and natural resources is amazingly boring.
Other compelling factors:
- robotic obligatory questions - “Can I get country of origin? Is there a root word?”
- asthma
- family Spelling Bee dynasties
- Khaki cargo pants
Also, for the record, in my last spelling bee effort, like Omar, I lost to a girl. However, she was Indian.
