Henderson?
Hew ye daen that to a right Born Scotsman?
Stop blaming the schools. I heard an interview with this kid and he studied for this for years. He studied the spelling of over 150,000 words on his own time. He had a family that encouraged him. It also helped that a few of the words were Asian place names and as he said himself, he used his knowledge of Asian (Indian) spelling and phonetics to figure the words out. That would have been almost impossible for a Henderson or Smith to do other than by pure luck.
ok, seriously, children of Anglo-Saxon (white American) origin do participate and win the Scripps National Spelling Bee, but the competition has been notably dominated by Indian-American children over the last few decades. Since 1999, the vast majority of champions have been of South Asian descent.
Indians have a deep reverence for academic achievement, they raised their children with a strong emphasis on intense, disciplined academic pursuits
Henderson and Smith dominate on the football or baseball fields over the Parikhs and Duttas
:: I look forward to the day that a Henderson or Smith wins this thing. ::
Why?
The Henderson’s and the Smith’s have some equatorial tribesmen to do that for them.
White Americans don’t care about excellence anymore. They just want their bread and circuses.
Retired now, so spelling contests have little meaning nowadays, the words are often meaningless to me....so, I guess...what’s the point? Some foreigners have a better chance of winning, while I have lost any interest in it whatsoever.