Posted on 05/31/2007 7:46:53 PM PDT by gobucks
Evan O'Dorney always eats fish before his spelling bees. The brain food apparently has served him well: He's the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion.
The 13-year-old from Danville, Calif., aced "serrefine" Thursday night to become the last youngster standing at the 80th annual bee. He won a tense duel with Nate Gartke of Spruce Grove, Alberta, who was trying to become the first Canadian to win the bee.
Evan won a trophy and a $35,000 prize, plus a $5,000 scholarship, a $2,500 savings bond and a set of reference works. He said he knew how to spell the winning word - a noun describing small forceps - as soon as the pronouncer said it.
Evan said he wasn't surprised to win, but he confessed that spelling isn't his top interest.
"My favorite things to do were math and music, and with the math I really like the way the numbers fit together," he said. "And with the music I like to let out ideas by composing notes - and the spelling is just a bunch of memorization."
Nah, it's just "winning life's lottery!" </sarcasm>People who emigrate from their home countries and immigrate to America tend very strongly toward success, at least as success is defined in their home country. And they succeed for the reason that they can't really go home until they do, without risk of ridicule.
And that can happen inside the country, too - my brother-in-law dropped out of school to work for his father. His father agreed to let him - but warned him, "You'll never wear a white shirt." So by making that decision, he was deciding that he had to succeed in his career. And he did.
By and large, the people who become millionaires are people who, in their own minds, have to. The rest of us don't try hard enough. Simple as that.
Hooray for homeschoolers! He sounds like a fine young man and somewhat of a genius.
Wow. How impressive is that? His mother must also be a fine teacher, but he IS a genius.
Jeez, another obscure reference.
Not everyone went to your high school, Mr. Smarty-pants.
English has more shadings on words than most languages. The differences between run, trot, jog, dash, scamper, hurtle, lope, and hustle are subtle - until you want exactly the right one to convey your meaning.
The spelling of the words is what gives us a clue to their source and therefore, meaning. It allows vocabulary to be something other than rote memorization. As it is, if you learn two hundred greek and latin root words, you’ll be able to understand most complicated words.
I’m a software engineer. I look at things with both an engineering perspective - is this useful, how could it be more useful - and an artist’s - is this beautiful, could it be more gracious. My hobby is writing and as such I pay attention to the utility of my medium, the English language. It seems to me that writing in Spanish would be like painting with three colors which you are not allowed to blend. Writing in English is like painting with a million shades. If it means kids take a while to learn proper spelling, fine, but giving up our rich heritage for ease of spelling just isn’t worth it.
One of the most brilliant teachers I've ever sat under. Stanley S. Ward PhD, explained why English poetry is the best in the world. English, you see, is a shotgun wedding of two contrasting linguistic streams -- the germanic (Anglo Saxon -- that 20% of our vocabulary used 80% of the time) and romantic (French). You can dip from either pool, depending on the effect you wish to convey. And the antagonism/tension between these strands makes it very hard to write good poetry -- but the results, when you succeed, are indeed noteworthy.
LOL!
If she (Anna, 11) makes it, she makes it. But we're not going to push her or put pressure on her.
Anna is an excellent speller by "natural" means: she reads voraciously, she is learning Latin, etc. But to be a national champion speller, most of those kids have to spend a lot of time in "unnatural" means: just boning up on lists of odd words for hours and hours on end. That seems a bit artificial. Frankly, I don't care if Anna can spell "cyclazocine," "serrefine," "coryza," and "beccafico"--all words that came up in the contest but which even a well-educated person would never use in real life.
“Also,,,are you admitting that homeschoolers have less wasted time?”
I simply don’t know. Homeschool curricula widely vary, and the proficiency of parents involved varies widely. Clearly you’ve had success, but I don’t think it automatically translates to homeschooling in general, based on my experience with friends and neighbors who homeschooled - with differing levels of success.
“wasted time” is also a subjective term that would depend on the individual student.
“Simply put, the homeschoolers do well because most of them honor the Lord and the Lord honors their efforts.”
I do not think this kid won the spelling be because the Lord wanted him to.
I do not think the Lord frowns upon public school kids in favor of homeschooled kids.
But kindly start a thread on which kids God’s favor is bestowed upon, and see where that goes.
And I laugh at the notion of things being assigned a male or female identify in the language.
The article states that he was homeschooled. The Scripps bio for him says “Venture School, San Ramon, Calif.” but it also says he is homeschooled. What is Venture School? Is that an umbrella school?
“I never said that. I said that the Lord bestows blessings on those who honor Him.”
I got it the first time. Why bring it up at all then, if that isn’t what you meant? Ridiculous.
Speller:”Can you please use the word in a sentence”
Judge” Hillary Clinton uses a “serrafine” to pull the ingrown hairs out of her cankles.”
Speller: Seraffine....bwahhahahahahahahaha oh THAT serrafine.
me bad,
Lex
This assumes all or most homeschoolers are Christians and live their lives in a way that honors God. There is an additional implication that public school students are the opposite. Nothing could be further from the truth. God honors those who give honor to Him, no matter how they are educated.
This young man in his bio openly declares his Christianity and indeed, the Lord may have bestowed his honor upon him. That is not something we, with our human minds, can determine.
Our homeschool has a name as well, but this seemed different because it isn’t where he lives. Venture School of San Ramon - not Danville or Walnut Creek (where the Contra Costa Times newspaper is located I am guessing).
I guess we should ask where is he from? Danville, San Ramon, or Walnut Creek? I am not arguing that he isn’t homeschooled. I am just wondering what Venture School represents. If it is his homeschool, should it not be located the same place he is? Is it an umbrella school? Did he have to be affiliated with a local school?
Old English had genders in nouns. So do all Romance languages (and many non-Romance languages like German). English does as well but to a much smaller degree: for example, steward vs. stewardess are essentially the same noun but written differently based on the gender. A large amount of the gender specific nouns in English have been purged by the feminist movement: fireman vs firefighter, policeman vs. police officer, etc. Spanish is better than most languages that specify gender in that the gender of a noun is almost always determined by its spelling: la guerra, el mundo, las calles, etc. In reality, paying attention to the gender is a trivial act in Spanish. When I studied German I wanted to burn my dictionaries due to the arbitrariness of genders.
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