Selfish Mom

The Spelling Bee

Nov 24, 2009 Kids

I don’t remember ever competing in a spelling bee, which is good because I would totally suck.  Math was my thing (of course, we’re talking over half a lifetime ago – now I have trouble splitting a check in half).  But I love watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee on TV, maybe the same way I love watching dance competitions on TV: it’s fun watching people do things really really well when you know you’d have zero chance of competing.  Watching American Idol is more frustrating because I actually can sing better than some of them.  But spelling?  Dancing?  Forget it.  I can just watch and stop comparing myself to the people on TV.

Jake participated in his first spelling bee today, at school.  He’s super competitive, so I was a little worried about how he’s take it if he didn’t make it through today’s rounds.  We spent a lot of time yesterday talking about how important it was for him to behave well whether he won or lost, but he was tearing up even talking about the possibility that he wouldn’t make it.  Major foreshadowing of what was to happen today.

The kids all sat at the front of the stage with their feet dangling, and after a few minutes of everybody kicking their feet they settled down and started to focus.  They passed a microphone down the line as they spelled their first-round words.  A few kids were knocked out in the first round, more in the second.  But Jake sailed through “roar” and “handsome.”  A lot of kids got knocked out in the third round, but he got through just fine on “figure.”   I think that’s when he started to get just the teeniest bit cocky though.  He started counting how many kids were left and smiling to himself.  Those old lyrics started running through my head, “You never count your money, while you’re sittin’ at the table…”  I thought that’s what he was doing a little bit.

He got knocked out in the fourth round, the last round of the morning.  The word was “clarinet.”  He forgot the “i.”  He looked really sad but hopped off of the stage and went to his seat like he was supposed to.  I let out a sigh of relief.  I was sorry that he was out, but glad that he had handled it well.  A few minutes later it was over, with six kids left out of almost 30, and they got up to go back to their classroom.  I met up with Jake to say goodbye, and he refused a hug, a high five, anything coming close to a compliment.  He was near tears and refused to move unless he was put through to next week’s competition.  Dammit.

I reasoned with him for a minute, telling him that I was proud of how far he’d gotten (I was!) and how I’d help him study for the next bee in the spring (and I was feeling a tad guilty for not helping him study for this one).  He didn’t care.  He couldn’t see past not being one of those six proud kids.  I was starting to get embarrassed.  His entire class was out in the hall and he was going to be missed soon.  I told him I was really sorry he hadn’t won, but that was life and he had to get to class.  And I left.  When I got to the auditorium door I looked back and he was following me.  Thank God.

What I saw when I got to the hallway really surprised me.  I’m used to dealing with Jake and his losing issues.  But about a third of the class was in tears out in the hallway!  Even the teacher looked like she was going to start crying as she told the class about some experiences from her own childhood that she thought would help them.  So, we parents gave them another round of applause and they left, and so did we.  And it occurred to me that while he faces competition outside of school – in Tae Kwon Do class especially – he probably doesn’t get much in school.  There are no school sports.  I have no idea if they play winning-and-losing games in gym class.  He’s not old enough to run for the student government, where competition meets popularity – oy.

Those kids need more.  They need to lose and experience it enough to know that it’s not the end of the world.  And they need to win and deal with it gracefully.  The only way that will happen is with more competition, where there are definite winners and losers.  I applaud the third-grade teachers for having this spelling bee.  I hope the competitive spirit spreads.

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Tags: competition, spelling bee