Ouchilingous!

Winning Words

• 2010 Stromuhr (instrument for measuring velocity of blood flow) Anamika Veeramani
• 2009 Laodicean (indifferent or lukewarm especially in matters of religion) Kavya Shivashankar
• 2008 Guerdon (reward or payment) Sameer Mishra
• 2005 Appoggiatura (a type of musical note) Anurag Kashyap
• 2003 Pococurante (indifferent, apathetic) Sai R. Gunturi
• 2002 Prospicience (foresight) Pratyush Buddiga
• 2000 Demarche (diplomatic representation or protest) George A. Thampy

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How The Bee Works

• Eight-graders and below qualify for the National Spelling Bee  by winning local bees or spelloffs
• National contest held over three days in June in Washington D.C., most of it broadcast live
• Around 300 enter, only 50 chosen for the semis and finals
• Only 150 seconds allotted to spell a word. Definitions, languages of origin etc provided to speller on request.
• Winner gets $40,000 plus and White House meeting with the president.
• In the last 12 years, eight Indian Americans won though the community is only 1 per cent of the US population

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What critics see as a meaningless exercise focused on cramming arcane words (“All those hours spent on one narrow academic focus! All that rote-learning! All that stressful competition!”, deplores writer June Kronholz in the American journal, Education Next) is defended by supporters as a wonderful way of honing the mind and invigorating the spirit. With very heady rewards, besides, for those who succeed. Ask last year’s winner, Kavya Shivashankar, for whom victory tasted even sweeter after a “dreamlike” 15-minute meeting with Barack Obama at the White House this June, which she recounted in a breathless e-mail to Outlook: “A deep voice greeted me with ‘Hi Kavya’, and President Obama stepped out to shake my hand, congratulated me and turned to my parents to praise them on the way they had raised me.” Clearly, a proud speller to the core, the 14-year-old added: “I graciously accepted the gift bag (from Obama) as my sister and I profusely thanked him for his generosity and munificence.” Before that, there were neighbours lining the street with posters and banners, and calls from senators and congressmen.

With greater media attention and prestige every year, it’s no wonder that the Bee is attracting bright-eyed kids like bees to honey—an estimated 10 million children took part in the spelloffs this year. It’s safe to assume that a fair number were Indian Americans. Not just teenage contestants, but young children too, like Kavya’s sister Vanya, who at 8, was the youngest participant in the 2010 Bee; their dreams fuelled by the successes notched up by so many from the community in recent years. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that for thousands of Indian kids in the US, spelling rather than basketball or soccer “has become the sport of choice”. Spelling competitions, catering just to South Asians, have sprung up across the country, it said, some with big-name sponsors and hefty cash prizes.

So is there an Indian spelling gene? Nothing so exciting, say the winners—what it comes down to really is a strong and steadfast orientation towards academics and a belief in the power of learning. Nupur Lala, the daughter of an engineering professor, who won the 1999 Bee (winning word: logorrhea) and was featured in a documentary, Spellbound, on that contest, feels success has much to do with the fact that Indian kids are reared with a different educational philosophy from their American peers, in which learning large amounts of information is seen as part and parcel of education rather than a dreadful chore. “It takes a unique type of discipline and ability to focus that we accept as part of education,” she says.

There is no argument on one point: Indians are highly motivated to win. For one thing, it gives them a level of recognition often denied to the academically inclined in American culture. Says Nupur: “The Spelling Bee is certainly the most visible arena now in which young kids are rewarded for studying hard and working towards an academically oriented goal. Kids want recognition for having stayed inside and pursued academics when that is perhaps de-emphasised in American culture”. Many in the education field believe this is also a reason why fewer Caucasian and African American children are pursuing degrees in maths and science, while Asians and Asian-Americans are flocking to these fields.

It’s also clear that behind every Indian American Bee winner is, usually, an educated, English-speaking and determined family. “The individual person might win Scripps, but the whole effort put into it is definitely a family thing,” says Anamika. Mother Malar was her coach and spent hours helping Anamika learn word lists. “He was my coach since second grade,” says Kavya, about her father. However, while conceding that parents motivate and even push kids, Nupur says parental involvement can only go so far. “I think the kids who make it to the highest ranks at the national level have wanted it even more than their parents.”

For the parents who push, there are sometimes strong pragmatic reasons for producing spelling champs. The Mishras are a case in point. They moved to the US more than 15 years ago when Krishna Mishra got a job teaching microbiology at Ivy Tech Community College in Lafayette, Indiana. For seven years, he and his wife, Alka, travelled to Washington to watch their children participate in the Spelling Bee. Their daughter Shruti’s success in a math contest won her scholarships at top universities. It was the hope of similarly easing her son’s tuition burden that spurred Alka to push Sameer to participate in the Spelling Bee. Their perseverance eventually paid off. Sameer spelled his way to the coveted first prize—worth more than $40,000—in 2008.

So, is it mobility rather than mere victory that’s the desired outcome? Chester E. Finn, president of the Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a think tank dedicated to advancing academic excellence, contends Spelling Bees provide limited upward mobility in immigrant communities. But, he adds, it is “certainly no bad thing for immigrant youngsters seeking to vault into the highly competitive upper ranks of American education to have the credential of winning (or at least doing well in) Spelling Bees and such.”

And indeed, most Bee winners seem to have used their victory as a springboard to higher learning. After graduating from the University of Michigan in 2007 with a degree in brain, behaviour and cognitive science, Nupur worked at the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab at MIT for two years as a research assistant and is currently applying to medical school. Balu, a physician, is an internist and sports medicine specialist. George Abraham Thampy, the 2000 Bee winner, went to Harvard. The 2005 Muzaffarpur-born winner Anurag Kashyap also went on to study at MIT.

In an immigrant community that takes pride in its accomplishments in higher education, such stories are recounted with great pride. And they contribute in no small measure to its growing conviction that acing Bees can spell s-u-c-c-e-s-s in the longer journey of life.