June 7: If you think the Scripps National Spelling Bee championship is only about memorizing words, you’re wrong. It’s also the more arduous process of familiarizing oneself with definition of words – like more than 400,000 words in a dictionary – if you want to be the champion that is, and not just a mere contender.
Harini Logan, the 2022 champion, from San Antonio, TX, had one of the most remarkable journeys ever to the title: she proved the judges wrong by actually giving the right definition of ‘pullulation’: ‘the nesting of mating birds’. She was reinstated after being ousted. Then the 14-year-old, with remarkable poise, rattled off 22 correct words out of 26 in a first-ever lightning round to ward off tween challenger Vikram Raju, 12, from Denver. Raju, of course, is now the favorite for the 2023 championship. He has time to learn the dictionary twice.
So, what does the brilliant and tenacious Logan want to do next in life, apart from living the life of a celebrity? Very simple: study for an MD and an MBA.
“In the future, Logan would like to earn an MD and MBA and work in the medical field. Apart from spelling, her hobbies include Indian classical music, choir, piano, creative writing, musical theater, and spending time with her family and puppy. So, where exactly is Logan going to put her newest trophy inside her home?
“We’re going to have to move some other trophies around to figure that out,” she said. “But it will definitely be the centerpiece”: Chron
Logan’s win, reinforcing the dominance of Indian Americans in the competition, reignited a debate that’s now almost taken for granted by most school districts in the country: that Indian American children are a cut above academically, from their peers. Over the past 20 years, Indian Americans have come to dominate the Scripps National Spelling Bee – with 21 of the past 23 champions coming from the South Asian community.
“The more than 100 Indian American parents I interviewed between 2011 and 2018 believed that to have a good shot at getting into a prominent university, their children would need an undeniably strong academic record to compensate for what they saw as weak networks and a lack of college legacy status.
“Parents also worried that college admission officers might hold their children, as Asian Americans, to a higher standard in expected test scores.
“We have to have 130 points above other groups,” one father of a spelling contestant said about the SAT college entrance exam. He assured me that tutoring centers and spelling bees would help his daughter get a higher score, an attitude echoed by other parents and children alike”, opined Pawan Dhingra, in The Conversation
“As Indian American children boost their test scores and other academics through studying words, mastering quadratic equations and other intellectual endeavors, they inadvertently contribute to what I see as a troubling trend: the widening educational gaps between higher-income and lower-income families.
“Achieving in these competitions often requires spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Hexco, a publisher specializing in contest preparation, sells word guides and packages of eight coaching sessions that cost US$1,725.
“According to its website, 94% of spellers who “advanced to the Scripps finals … were Hexco customers” in 2019.
“Indian Americans have a median household income of $119,000, well above the national median of $85,800. Many of them use this economic edge to advance their children’s grades and scores”, Dhingra argued, pointing out that, “The pursuit of after-school education, whether through competitions or tutoring centers, is increasingly common for middle-class families. I’m certain that it’s prone to grow even more. Online tutoring alone is expected to grow to an almost $3 billion industry worldwide by 2025,” noted Dhingra.
What Dhingra perhaps missed noting in all his excellent academic research is the sheer hard work and commitment of the Indian American competitors. It’s one thing for parents to provide dollars and resources for academic success. Quite another for children to put in unrelenting effort, and achieve spectacular goals which raises the bar a notch higher every year.