Home Schooling? How Do You Spell That?

When I did spelling bees, we had lists to memorize, but at regionals, after only a few rounds, they started pulling them from the dictionary.

That's when it got scary.

 

I happened to catch a few words in the later rounds of the finals and I was very impressed with the way they use the available clues to solve the spelling for difficult words that they had obviously never heard before. They are allowed to ask for definitions, alternate pronunciations, use in a sentence, and word origin and that is all they have to go on. I did some spelling bees in elementary, and I know how difficult it is to stand in front of a bunch of people and try to spell words. These kids are awesome!

 

...with an "H."


I believe I even heard Robin Roberts (an ABC anchor I am not fond of) make some comment during the event like "Only 3 previous winners have been home-schooled." It made me want to ask:

- What percentage of these kids have been home-schooled and how does that compare with the percentage of home-schooled kids in the country?
- How do the success rates of home-schoolers compare with those of other kids?

 

Perhaps it's "ignored" as you say because it really isn't that big of a story on the level of say Iraq, healthcare, security. Who really cares? I guess if one needs to feed the national media against poor little home school children and their dedicated parents it can be slanted that way.

 

I wouldn't call having it on a major network in prime time exactly being ignored.

 

Have to say I wonder what the big deal is every year. It seems kind of arbitrary.

Let's take some people....maybe...kids...yeah, that's it...no older than say....15...wait, no....14 is better...and let's make them do stuff....like cartwheels....or spelling....and then we can watch them...and listen, too...and show their anxious but supportive parents a lot....

 

We really enjoyed watching the Spelling Bee and were excited to see him win.



:thumbs::thumbs: