Why are so many Indians good at spelling bees?

[Svnla]

I bet those that were in the contest and those won, they spent countless hours to study and study and even more study. They don't hang out with their buddies on da street and keep it real in their hood.

"Practice makes perfect" - old proverb.

 

[Maximilian]

Thought this was an indian...

 

[Zeze]

I never understood why they send their kids to spelling bee in the first place.

What the fvck does spelling bee have anything to do with success later in life?

I'm Asian. I want my kid to enjoy a similar childhood - play outside all day, seize the streets of big cities, go to mountains and catch frogs, and make lots of friends. I want him to be a well-rounded kid who will also excel in academia.

The last thing I want is winning some snoozefest spelling bee by studying 24/7 cooped up in the room. Poor bastards.

 

[SheHateMe]

I never understood why they send their kids to spelling bee in the first place.

What the fvck does spelling bee have anything to do with success later in life?

I'm Asian. I want my kid to enjoy a similar childhood - play outside all day, seize the streets of big cities, go to mountains and catch frogs, and make lots of friends. I want him to be a well-rounded kid who will also excel in academia.

The last thing I want is winning some snoozefest spelling bee by studying 24/7 cooped up in the room. Poor bastards.

It all starts out as a simple school spelling bee...which is actually fun...until you realize that the price for winning is a Pencil and a certificate (and $5 for the scholastic book fair..which was awesome).


In 6th grade, the school district sent home a packet of words for the district spelling bee that they wanted students to study.

It was actually pretty cool...at first, until my mom started randomly quizzing me all the time and being a prude when I misspelled a word.

That was when it stopped being fun for me.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Hrm, not that I really care about the Spelling Bee, but it's a spelling bee. Not the Dictionary Bee.

then maybe there should be a "Dictionary Bee"

 

[Scarpozzi]

Don't they cane kids in India for getting stuff wrong? Maybe that's why?

 

[HumblePie]

My personal opinion from experience is that it's a cultural thing. The cultures there beat in rote memorization and skills. I find this to be both good. It leads them to be better worker bee's and not so create on the creativity and critical thinking side sometimes. Not saying that everyone turns out that way from cultures that way, but when you train many kids in a certain fashion, the way they are trained is going to stick in some of them.

 

[DrPizza]

I think many of the kids are American, born here. It's the parent's culture being flown through them. Being born in America but having parents born elsewhere shows you two cultures.

My parents being from Bangladesh have a driven to succeed attitude that is unmatched by many people I meet here in America, we are lackadaisical in our approach to work, inefficient, and overall kind of lazy. We take for granted simple things that 3rd world countries would do anything for.

Their driven attitude is to a fault though, they don't know how to stop, when to stop, or why they should stop. It breeds a level of competition where people will compete against themselves if there's no outer competition.

I think this sums it up the best. There needs to be some drive, some memorization, but you have to know when it goes too far. For "pi day" (March 14: 3.14... ) I let students know we'll have a contest to see who memorizes the most digits of pi. 10 digits, and you get extra credit. Then, I'll offer prizes for things up to 100 digits. I always tell the class that they do this contest all over the country, in a lot of classes. There was a kid in Minnesota who memorized 4000 digits, "and do you know what I'd say if I ever got to meet him?" <random guesses from kids in my class.> "No, I'd tell him, 'GET A LIFE!'"

As a teacher, sometimes it's pretty difficult to balance these things. I had a student yesterday, who instead of using the binomial expansion theorem (or using Pascal's triangle), she expanded (x+2y)^9, by hand, by multiplying the whole thing out. And, when she multiplied it out, (x+2y)(x+2y) became x^2 + 2xy + 2xy + 4y^2, before it became x^2 + 4xy + 4y^2. Every single step was written down. It was 3 pages long.

What do you tell a student who does that? How do you balance not discouraging a student who wants to work so hard, along with re-directing that effort into something a little more productive? Meanwhile, there are bunches of "typical" American kids who can't be bothered to do 20 problems for homework where they simply have to multiply two binomials together.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I always laugh at how serious business the spelling bee is. It's suppose to be something fun for kids, perhaps equivalent to a play, but more on the academy side, but people will take it so seriously, like they're training for war or something. When someone is up there at the mic you can tell they have the look on their face "My parents will kill me if I don't get this right".

I would suck at spelling bees, I need to write a word down to spell it, I can't spell it verbally unless it's a short simple word. Heck even written half the time I get it wrong. I rely too much on spell check. ^_^

 

[DukeN]

But a lot of these kids are born and raised in the Western world.

My guess is you're seeing a much disproportionately higher emphasis on academics (which includes spelling) in younger grades than non-immigrants.

In countries like India, Japan the kids are studying a lot more than here in young ages and the parents are accustomed to hyper-focusing on academics.

Which would explain why a country of a billion people doesn't even have 10 individual Olympic medals til date (sports are frowned upon, and seen as a distraction from studies).

 

[Imp]

Asian emphasis on studying and grades.

Me no white, but hab I see da white people with da pourer langage skills dan me.

 

[exdeath]

Plenty of competition in the US. Problem is its not in education and development, but a new demographic that only cares about who has the newest iPhone or biggest rims.

 

[Jeffg010]

Curry there 4000 scientific publications out there on the effects it has on the brain. Indians eat that stuff like crazy.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-farmacy/201301/eat-more-curry-brain-boost

 

[Train]

GIF of the winner, friggin hilarious. Be sure to read the comments:

http://imgur.com/gallery/vIf0lAD

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Curry there 4000 scientific publications out there on the effects it has on the brain. Indians eat that stuff like crazy.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-farmacy/201301/eat-more-curry-brain-boost

may be on the verge or racism, but yes they do eat it a lot.

Some kids honestly enjoy the spelling bee, they think its fun and awesome.

Some are more or less forced into doing it.

But thats just the Asians culture

 

[OinkBoink]

I think this sums it up the best. There needs to be some drive, some memorization, but you have to know when it goes too far. For "pi day" (March 14: 3.14... ) I let students know we'll have a contest to see who memorizes the most digits of pi. 10 digits, and you get extra credit. Then, I'll offer prizes for things up to 100 digits. I always tell the class that they do this contest all over the country, in a lot of classes. There was a kid in Minnesota who memorized 4000 digits, "and do you know what I'd say if I ever got to meet him?" <random guesses from kids in my class.> "No, I'd tell him, 'GET A LIFE!'"

As a teacher, sometimes it's pretty difficult to balance these things. I had a student yesterday, who instead of using the binomial expansion theorem (or using Pascal's triangle), she expanded (x+2y)^9, by hand, by multiplying the whole thing out. And, when she multiplied it out, (x+2y)(x+2y) became x^2 + 2xy + 2xy + 4y^2, before it became x^2 + 4xy + 4y^2. Every single step was written down. It was 3 pages long.

What do you tell a student who does that? How do you balance not discouraging a student who wants to work so hard, along with re-directing that effort into something a little more productive? Meanwhile, there are bunches of "typical" American kids who can't be bothered to do 20 problems for homework where they simply have to multiply two binomials together.

Funny (well, not "funny" really) how people in India these days complain about how rigid the system is and how it doesn't promote holistic development whereas people in the US have the problem that their youngsters just don't study enough. I guess the right balance is needed everywhere.

 

[Legios]

What do you tell a student who does that? How do you balance not discouraging a student who wants to work so hard, along with re-directing that effort into something a little more productive? Meanwhile, there are bunches of "typical" American kids who can't be bothered to do 20 problems for homework where they simply have to multiply two binomials together.

That was boring then and still sounds boring now, I got achievements to get in my game bro.:ninja:

 

[Saint Nick]

 

[CountZero]

i actually heard on the radio yesterday that they are changing the rules of the spelling bee tournaments so that now they HAVE to use the word in a sentence or give the meaning of it as well (it was something like that, even the radio guy didn't know the details). they were discussing how the change was probably so that non-native english speakers won't totally own the americans in spelling bees.

That was this year but it only took place in the earlier rounds not the final round or maybe even semifinal round.

I think it is kind of dumb, it is a spelling bee not a vocab bee.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I never understood why they send their kids to spelling bee in the first place.

What the fvck does spelling bee have anything to do with success later in life?

I'm Asian. I want my kid to enjoy a similar childhood - play outside all day, seize the streets of big cities, go to mountains and catch frogs, and make lots of friends. I want him to be a well-rounded kid who will also excel in academia.

The last thing I want is winning some snoozefest spelling bee by studying 24/7 cooped up in the room. Poor bastards.

I'm Asian and I find anything that associates pure memorization with intelligence stupid.