IT IS TIME TO ESTABLISH SPELLING BEE CLUBS IN OUR SCHOOLS
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Bahamas Minister of Education Jeff Lloyd and his team of committed educators who are responsible for molding the minds of future generations of Bahamians are currently preparing for the opening of the new school year in September. Now is the time for members of the Bahamas National Spelling Bee (BNSB) Committee employed by the Ministry to start lobbying in earnest for the introduction of Spelling Bee Clubs in the country’s junior and senior high schools.
Ever since the BNSB started sending a spelling champion to compete in the highly prestigious annual Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. in 1998, The Bahamas’ champion has failed to advance beyond the early rounds of the competition each year, a symptom that clearly suggests there is a need to change the manner in which our spellers are prepared for this highly competitive competition.
By contrast, except for the past several years, Jamaica’s champion was perennially among the finalists, and its 1998 champion, Jody-Anne Maxwell, made history when she became the first non-American to win the competition at the age of 12. This also was the year that The Bahamas participated in the Scripps Bee for the first time, but although Dominique Higgins of Jordan Prince William High School was very competitive in the early rounds, he was eliminated in the fourth round.
As the person responsible for introducing the Scripps National Spelling Bee to The Bahamas when I was Editor of the Nassau Guardian in 1998, with strong support from the then Minister of State for Education Dion Foulkes, I was very much involved in the preparations for the annual Bahamas National Spelling Bee during the early years.
Under the supervision of Dr. Olga Clarke of the Ministry of Education, dedicated members of the Bahamas National Spelling Bee Committee each year organized competitions at all levels of our school system, starting with in-school competitions throughout The Bahamas and subsequently regional competitions leading up to the national finals to select an overall champion to represent The Bahamas at the Scripps Bee.
In the early years of the National Spelling Bee, Grand Bahama produced a disproportionate number of our spelling champions due in no small measure to the leadership provided by Daphne Barr, who is still an education officer with the Ministry of Education, but in recent years apparently has not been as actively involved in organizing the Grand Bahama championships as in past years.
In preparation for the upcoming “Spelling Bee Season,” I would like to suggest that the National Spelling Bee Committee take steps to more actively involve Ms. Barr, based on her proven track record, in the organization of competitions in Grand Bahama.
Additionally, having lived in Grand Bahama for 12 years prior to moving to Washington, D.C. in 2013 as the Press, Cultural Affairs and Information Manager at The Bahamas Embassy, when I was Editor of the Freeport News, I was extremely impressed by the teaching ability of Sheryl Wood, who for a number of years was Principal of the Beacon School for students with special needs.
A friend in Grand Bahama, who agrees that establishing Spelling Bee Clubs in our schools is a great idea, also has a high regard for Ms. Wood’s ability as an educator and strongly suggested that efforts should be made to get her involved not only with the Spelling Bee in Grand Bahama but nationally.
Ms. Wood, who has been an educator for more than 35 years, currently is Deputy Director of Anglican Education with the Anglican Central Education Authority. When I contacted her earlier this week in preparation for writing this column, it was almost as if she had been waiting for someone to reach out to her to do what she is undoubtedly well qualified to do.
Having been an adjunct professor at the College of the Bahamas and other tertiary institutions in the Northern Bahamas, she has “prepared special children as well as children in mainstream education for spelling bees.”
“I believe The Bahamas can produce a Scripps Spelling Bee champion if we are less proprietorial and work as a team to prepare our national winner,” Ms. Woods said. “In essence, we need an ‘It will take a village’ approach to assist our national winner to become an international winner.”
Of course, whether or not she is included on the National Spelling Bee Committee is a decision to be made by those in authority at the Ministry of Education. I don’t know how much Education Minister Jeff Lloyd gets involved in determining matters of this nature, but based on his visionary leadership several years ago of the YEAST program, which redirected the lives of a number of youth-at-risk to a pathway leading towards being law-abiding productive citizens, I am convinced that Minister Lloyd would surely see the benefits of having a person like Ms. Wood on the Bahamas National Spelling Bee Committee. Hopefully, he will also embrace my idea of establishing Spelling Bee Clubs at the appropriate levels in our schools, whether as a part of the curricula or as an after-school activity.
The bottom line is that we have got to find a way for our champion to get beyond the early rounds of the Scripps Bee and position himself or herself to reach the finals and possibly become the overall winner.
Last year’s Bahamas entry in the Scripps Bee, Johnathan Randall, the Eleuthera District champion, spelt both of his on-stage words correctly, but did not score sufficient points in the vocabulary and written test to move on and possibly make the finals.
This year The Bahamas National Spelling Bee Committee should also take advantage of a new invitational program called RSVBee that allows jurisdictions to send two champion spellers to the Scripps National Bee. The fact that the top three winners in the BNSB championship on Sunday, March 18, 2018 at Atlantis, Paradise Island, battled for quite a long time before a champion emerged, should motivate The Bahamas committee to start planning now to get a corporate sponsor or sponsors for the second Bahamas entry in the Scripps Bee.
As a result of the RSVBee program, contestants in this year’s Spelling Bee increased substantially from the 291 the previous year to 519, including 241 who qualified through RSVBee. It is worth noting that this year’s overall winner was an RSVBee contestant.
