Monday, November 22, 2010

Academic Risk Takers

On Friday, November 19 we hosted the 2010 Sioux Trail Spelling Bee.  We had 19 contestants and ended up with two finalists and an alternate.  We live in a culture that makes a big deal about athletes and athletic competitions, but does not draw the same level of attention to academic endeavors.  I doubt my blog post is going to get the attention that our competitors deserve, but I'm going to do my part to recognize their hard work.  I am very proud of these students for getting up in front of a large group of parents, staff and their peers to do their best with spelling words that got more and more challenging.  This is a terrific example of risk taking and they did an outstanding job. One of our jobs as educators is to encourage students to try new things, take risks and put their best foot forward.  During the day our classrooms provide a safe place to do this and then we set up opportunities for students to step forward and take a chance. Congratulations to all of our contestants and to Tania and Rachel who will serve as the Sioux Trail representatives at the ISD 191 district spelling bee.

Sioux Trail Spelling Bees stats:
Number of contestants: 19
Total Number of Words: 152
Total Time: 130 minutes
Words removed from the competition: Alumni (the contestant asked for a definition and we discovered a different spelling (Alumnae) in the dictionary!)
Some of the words that stumped our contestants: premonition, connote, sympathize, nucleus

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