(Community Matters 189) A Community Spelling Bee Anyone Can Join

Technology can fix typos, but it can't replace the experience of staying calm and spelling a word out loud while people watch. Longtime Lakeview High School spelling bee volunteer Barb Galonsky and Lakeview senior Hanish Chintalapati talk about the upcoming Community Spelling Bee. They share how spelling can connect young and lifelong learners together in both fun and meaningful ways. 

Episode Resources

Community Spelling Bee Registration Website

ABOUT COMMUNITY MATTERS
Former WBCK Morning Show host Richard Piet (2014-2017) returns to host Community Matters, an interview program focused on community leaders and newsmakers in and around Battle Creek. Community Matters is heard Saturdays, 8:00 AM Eastern on WBCK-FM (95.3) and anytime at battlecreekpodcast.com.

Community Matters is sponsored by Lakeview Ford Lincoln and produced by Livemic Communications.

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Transcript

Welcome And Where To Listen

Richard Piet 0:03

Richard Piet here. This is Community Matters, a Saturday visit with you at the eight o'clock hour on 95.3. Battle CreekPodcast.com. Were there any old day or at uh the place where you get your podcasts? Just search Community Matters Calhoun County. It's a service of Lakeview, Ford, Lincoln. How's your spelling? Were you good in school at spelling? I wasn't too bad, although I didn't rise to the occasion like some of the folks in our midst.

The June 6 Community Spelling Bee

Richard Piet 0:37

In fact, there is a community event coming on June 6th at Lakeview High School. The Lakeview School District has opened the doors at Lakeview High School for this community spelling bee event. And before you get nervous and say, oh boy, that people are going to be watching me spell, it actually is meant to be lighthearted and participatory, as we are now going to learn from 14-year volunteer Barb Galonsky, who's helped coordinate this and be a bit of an advisor for students interested in spelling bees. Hanish Chintalapati is a senior at Lakeview High School, and he's pretty serious about spelling too. And he and his counterpart, Emily Demlo, are behind this event as well. Welcome to you both.

Hanish Chintalapati 1:30

Hello. Thank you for having us.

Why Spelling Still Matters Today

Richard Piet 1:32

So let's talk about spelling for just a moment and why this is important as a community. Let's just talk about what that means for a minute. I mean, when you think about gathering the community behind uh a little friendly competition, you know, somebody might say disc golf or or uh some other kind, pickleball or something, this is a little different and a little unique. Why? What is it about this that helps foster community?

Hanish Chintalapati 2:05

So I really think that this event, one, because it's a community event, we're bringing everyone together. And two, I think it's just because spelling is something that really all of us do, like in our day-to-day lives. Whether we're like sending emails, sending texts, spelling can be a bit different between both of those. But at the end of the day, it's words that we're communicating through. And really everyone knows English. Like everyone that's kid that should be participating in here knows English. And as long as you know the language well enough, you can participate in the spelling me. So I really think that it's something that like say you're playing basketball, not everyone can play basketball. But spelling is something that nearly everyone can do, everyone can participate in, or if you want to learn and stick around, that's fine too. And it really is just something that should be brought to more people's attention as well, just because you know now we have stuff like AI spelling for us. So I think spelling is something that needs to be brought back to life, really. And we're trying to do this through this event while also bringing the community together.

Richard Piet 3:14

Do you think we rely too much on technology aids to get us through this stuff?

Hanish Chintalapati 3:19

Definitely, definitely. I think like even being in school right now, the temptation to you know chat GBT and assignment is huge. So I think really I we're definitely depending on technology too much. We have stuff like Grammarly, essentially spelling for us, but I think it's something that shouldn't be used as much. Like, say we have like self-driving cars in the future, you still need to know how to drive before you get in a self-driving car.

Richard Piet 3:47

Have you thought about that? Spelling as an art. We'll talk, we're gonna get into that a little bit more.

Confidence Under Pressure In Spelling

Richard Piet 3:52

Barb, 14 years as a volunteer advisor, helping to coordinate young people's interests locally in, I guess what you'd call competitive spelling.

Barb Galonsky 4:05

It's very true. Uh, it started by entirely by chance. I did not start with my daughter, although she did have some participation, and she quickly said, No, I'm out. But at the same time, there were several younger students who really were interested in this and it just made me think, well, they they wanted to have spelling bees every week, basically, which is not achievable. But we did end up creating our program at Lakeview Middle School, which has been fairly successful. And the thing about spelling, I think that's really interesting and that's especially interesting at a community level, is a spelling bee is not just about spelling. It's about spelling, um, of course, but it's also about trying something really difficult and creating an opportunity for your brain to do something that's not a normal everyday experience. And I think that's really fun foundational for young spellers at fifth through eighth grade, which is where the National Spelling Bee Program lies. But beyond that, for high school students and for what I'm generally called lifelong learners. So you could be 80 years old. Maybe you haven't been into spelling bee since you were in seventh or eighth grade. But those, I've talked to many older folks, and those lessons are still deeply part of their brains. And it's interesting to see how even a younger speller's brain is challenged and activated by asking them to spell something. Let's just pick a simple word. Something maybe three syllables long. Invention. Invention is a fairly straightforward word, but saying those letters in the right order out loud while someone else is watching you say that is a very different thing than writing it down on a piece of paper. There's an element of confidence and about thinking under pressure that's involved in an oral spelling bee. That's just not part of writing something down on a piece of paper or typing it in to your computer or your phone. And I think that's where a lot of growth happens for our younger spellers. And I think maybe reactivation and regrowth, if that's a phrase, I'm not sure. But for older spellers who have maybe not been in a competitive spelling bee for a while.

Richard Piet 6:28

Well, and and if you think about your example, invention, if you're still getting your footing about spelling, boy, that could be T-I-O-N, S-I-O-N, C-I-O-N. You gotta figure out your letters a little bit.

Barb Galonsky 6:43

So I ran a spelling bee for uh fourth graders at two different middle schools this week. One of the winning words was pediatric, pretty big word. So one of the things that's very interesting would be the challenge would be to tell to for a speller to change pediatric pediatrician and why pediatric sound ends with a K sound, and pediatrician does not have a K sound in it. And there are lots of reasons for that that advanced spellers learn to understand.

Richard Piet 7:09

Let's just be clear the community spelling bee is not necessarily uh meant to be nerve-wracking or as competitive, let's say, as the national spelling bee. And as you pointed out, anyone of any age could participate in this, and maybe they'd like to, and it gets your wheels turning

Word Origins Hidden In Michigan

Richard Piet 7:30

a little bit.

Barb Galonsky 7:30

A little bit. And I think what happens for spellers that are beyond spelling is interest in where words come from. So many of our words in English come from other languages, they come from Latin, they come from Greek, they come from French, um, and there's historical reasons for that, but they also come from Native American languages that we just live with right here every day. We live in Michigan, a street two blocks from me, and my home is Wawa Tassi. So these are words that are from Algonquin, and we live with that all the time. We go to Detroit. This is a French word. My grandmother lived on Lafayette Avenue in Detroit, also another very French word. So in Michigan, we're surrounded by place names, especially that come from very different languages than English.

Richard Piet 8:18

Yes, very true.

Training For A National Spelling Bee

Richard Piet 8:20

Hanisha, I don't want to sell you short here. Look at this. Uh a senior at Lakeview High School qualified for the 2020 national spelling bee in the sixth grade. What was involved in that?

Hanish Chintalapati 8:33

It was definitely a lot of studying, a few months of studying beforehand. And on top of that, it's like also a lot of studying on the rules of spelling, essentially. So there's a lot of like patterns based on language of origin and stuff like that. Like, say, like one of my favorite ones I like to tell people is that French, the K sound that we normally get is like C K or just K is usually spelled Q-U-E-D. Right. So that's one of like the really interesting ones. So just studying rules like that on top of the list kind of it definitely made it hard on my sixth grade self, but it was yeah, it was it was a good experience. It kind of put me in the mentality to learn how to study, essentially. And I think for sure it was it was a lot, but it was a good experience.

Richard Piet 9:19

So, how did you do that? Did you know your parents stand there and rattle off words to you every night?

Hanish Chintalapati 9:25

It was a lot of that at the time, too. My brother, he was in college studying computer science. Oh, what he did was he made a computer program. It was super cool, where you stick in like the spelling list and it uses Google Translate to read it out for you, and then you type in the spelling and it tells you if you're right or wrong.

Richard Piet 9:44

Well, that's uh using innovation, isn't it?

Hanish Chintalapati 9:46

I think it was it was my biggest hack other than Ms. Galansky and the spelling

Tactics For Spelling Out Loud

Hanish Chintalapati 9:50

rules.

Barb Galonsky 9:50

So one of the techniques that's really important for a person who's going to be a competitive speller, you might be a good speller. You might be a good speller because you're typing your words in, you might be a good speller on paper and you write it, you know, you're a very good writer and you've written well all your life. But and you but when you write on a piece of paper, it's a pen or a pencil, you can see what you've written and you can see that it looks odd. And then you can go back and fix it. But when you're spelling out loud, don't have the same opportunity. So one of the things I really encourage younger spellers to do is to use a tactile reinforcement of their spelling. And you'll see this at the National Spelling Meeting if you watch it on TV. The spellers will spell on their arm or the literally tracing the words out, or they'll close their eyes as if they're imagining the words appearing on a blackboard in their mind. Some spellers do air typing, mostly seen computer air typing. But recently I've seen air texting.

Richard Piet 10:46

Oh, with your thumbs.

Barb Galonsky 10:48

Which I think is maybe not quite as useful because there's not as much space, but you have brains, they they can do these types of things.

Richard Piet 10:57

So visualizing, this makes sense.

Barb Galonsky 10:59

Reinforcement is extremely useful. But spelling out loud and practicing spelling out loud is very important. Because spell the top two mistakes that a speller will make, even if they know their word front to back, is they will skip a syllable so that you've thought it in your brain. Your brain has thought it, but your mouth is not quite in the same spot. Or they'll or people will flip a letter. So or or just skip a letter. And these are the most common ways because the brain is quicker than the mouth. So one of the things I really advise for my competitive spellers at the middle school level and anyone is just really, really slow down.

Richard Piet 11:41

So, Hanish, what's a word that sticks in your mind that you maybe you got it? Was pretty impressive.

Hanish Chintalapati 11:48

I have two favorite words. Like after you know, studying for the spelling bee and all that. One of them was my winning word in sixth grade at regionals, and it was mercenarily.

Richard Piet 11:58

Mercenarily.

Hanish Chintalapati 11:59

So that was one of them. And then the second one was on the school spelling list in either sixth grade or fifth grade, and it was like the hardest word on the list, and it was a German word off Widersing.

Richard Piet 12:14

Oh, sure.

Hanish Chintalapati 12:16

I just love the spelling of it, so I just thought it was sick.

How To Join Plus Prizes

Richard Piet 12:19

So we've piqued someone's interest. They're thinking about participating on June 6th at Lakeview High School and the community spelling B. Do they have to start studying the 4,000 words? I mean, what what do you recommend?

Barb Galonsky 12:32

People can just give it a whirl without studying at all. Hopefully, people will pre-register so we have an idea of how many people are coming. But people can rely on their bank of solid words in their brain. They could also choose to do a little bit of studying in advance. And if when you register, there is a link with more information about how to access the regional spelling bee list from scripts and use that to do some prep or kind of unroll.

Hanish Chintalapati 12:59

Yeah, you think you're a hot shot? Let's see. I just want to add that you shouldn't be scared to join the spelling bee just so that you think you're gonna misspell a word.

Barb Galonsky 13:06

Oh, there are plenty of words that are really approachable.

Hanish Chintalapati 13:09

Yeah, and like obviously all of us have misspelled a word before. So it's like it's not the end of the world, no one's watching you. And I think the benefit of meeting the rest of the community and getting back into spelling is well worth it.

Barb Galonsky 13:24

So one other thing I want to kind of conclude with is the prizes for winning at the community bee are bragging rights. But we will also have prizes instead of having the best three spellers, which is the most common thing, we will have the prizes for the top elementary school speller, middle school speller, high school speller, and then a prize for the top lifelong learner with some gift certificates to Barnes and Noble so that people can continue to explore their literary futures.

Richard Piet 13:59

Okay, that sounds very appropriate. All right, so uh one of the techniques is knowing the origin of the word that might help you. And another technique is don't rush through the spelling. What do you need us to do if we want to be part of the community event?

Barb Galonsky 14:15

We have our website, which I can share with you, and we also have a flyer that's posted around town, Willard Library. You can see it at some businesses around town.

Richard Piet 14:26

Give us the link, we'll put it in the show notes for this episode at Battle Creekpodcast.com. Folks can click right through, and that is that. How did this come together? Did you need money? Did you need support? Did anybody step up and say, here, let's help you make this happen?

Barb Galonsky 14:41

I think Anish, in a way, because he didn't actually get that in-person experience at Nationals because of COVID. He's really, you've been the one that's been pushing for this, Anish. We've we there's always been a kind of this feeling for eighth graders that there's no bees in high school. Can't we have a bee in high school? And we've talked about it. We've talked about having different types of bees, teachers versus students, team spelling, but it's never happened. We were kind of getting close to that when COVID happened, and then everything has been rebooting since then. But Hanish is a senior this year. This is his gift to Battle Creek before he leaves to go off to college.

Richard Piet 15:22

So where's college, Hanish? What are you studying?

Hanish Chintalapati 15:24

I'm going to Northwestern in the fall.

unknown 15:27

Okay.

Hanish Chintalapati 15:27

Northwestern. I'm studying econ and a program they have which is MMSS. So it's like mathematical methods and social sciences, is what I'm studying.

Richard Piet 15:36

That's an interesting combination. Okay.

Hanish Chintalapati 15:38

For sure.

Richard Piet 15:39

Well, congratulations on all of this. And I did leave that little detail out when I said that Hanish was a 2020 national spelling bee qualifier in the sixth grade. It never happened because of COVID. It never did. So we see a little bit of the motivation here with he and with his counterpart, Emily Demlo. And of course, Barb, hats off. 14 years uh helping keep students and the rest of us, I suppose, spelling. So be a part of the community spelling bee at Lakeview High School June 6th. Click through from this episode in the show notes to get registered. And uh good luck. And good luck to all of you. Thank you.

Barb Galonsky 16:24

Bring a friend or bring if you're an older person, bring your grandkids.

Richard Piet 16:27

Sounds like a marvelous idea. All right, Barb Dolansky and Hanish Chintalapati. Thank you.

Hanish Chintalapati 16:33

Yeah, thank you for having us. Thanks so much. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.