I missed it. I MISSED it!

I completely forgot to watch the Scripps Spelling Bee last night!

Check out this link to read about the winner, Anamika Veeramani, an Indian-American.

The article points out that the Bee has been won by Indian-Americans quite frequently. I have taught several Indian immigrants, and let me say all of them highly valued education and hard work. Many of my Indian students worked from 4-10 after school, then came home to a couple of hours of homework before crashing for, on a good night, six hours of sleep before getting up for school. They handed most of the money they earned over to their parents as their families adjusted to the American economy. These kids typically made high grades in all their academic classes with little assistance from me. Some of them have even taken honors classes and excelled. They always loved school, came into class with a smile, and worked hard.

I am so proud of all of my Indian students (not to say I’m not proud of my other students, but just sticking to the topic of this post) and am thrilled to see many of them succeeding in college.

Congratulations to Anamika and to all the spellers in the bee! 🙂

(Brief walk down memory lane: in elementary school, I qualified to be in a big spelling bee, and in the preliminary contest, I accidentally spelled arena wrong. I said A-R-A, and realized my mistake. I was devastated. Well, sort of. I hadn’t really studied my lists as hard as a should, so it was probably for the best. I just wish I’d been eliminated on a harder word!)