The Importance Of Spelling Bees In High School

The national school spelling bee of 2012 was coming up in exactly 7 weeks. Part of me had a feeling that it’s not even that important for me to study, but another part of me said that since I was selected, I should take this seriously. As time passed, I actually became interested in the spelling bee and could find myself spelling any other word on the given list with ease. Although I continued to stumble upon the same word repeatedly. “It’s easy, you’re not even trying your best“ is what my dad told me after trying to spell Pulchritude for the 7th time. Each time all that came out my mouth was “ p – u – l – c – r “ before he could say wrong in an instant. I had a whole 3 months to study, yet I chose to do everything else but that. There’s not even any way that I can back out of the competition. I’ve asked the question why, but all I kept being told was that it is mandatory.

I felt pressured now that I had to expect my whole family to be there. “ Now there’s definitely no way I’m able to back out now” I thought to myself. For the remaining days and nights, I practiced and practiced, but I never seemed to be able to memorize the word without looking at it. Pulchritude, pulchritude, pulchritude. I said to myself numerous times before spelling it, but I still continued to make the same error of forgetting the “ H “ after the “ C “. It was kind of a challenge for me being the age of 10 but I had a lot of perseverance to get it right. Studying to spell becomes a workout for me. Determined, I tried methods that I had been seeing in movies like jumping rope while spelling, chunking words and reading them multiple times before spelling them on my