Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for May 25, 2006 IL STUDENT WINS NATIONAL GEOGRAPHY BEE

From CNN.com...

Tops in nation, 12-year-old placed only second in local school bee

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Could you locate the Cambrian Mountains on a map? Twelve-year-old Bonny Jain could and his knowledge made him the winner Wednesday of the 2006 National Geographic Bee.

The eighth-grader from Moline, Illinois, won a $25,000 college scholarship by correctly naming the mountains that extend across much of Wales, from the Irish Sea to the Bristol Channel.

It was Bonny's second appearance at the national bee. Last year he came in fourth place.

His victory was the culmination of a four-year effort -- the first time he entered the contest, he got only second place in his local school's geography bee.

"It feels pretty cool to have gotten up to the top of the nation from second in the school," Bonny told reporters after his win.

On stage, in banter with the bee's moderator, "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek, Bonny seemed confident, saying he felt nervous only during the final round after he missed a question about the Andaman islands -- his only wrong answer. He also felt uncertain when answering a question about the Tuareg people in the African nation of Niger, but that time he was right.

Although Bonny plans to celebrate his victory by having "a huge party," he also needs to prepare for his third appearance in the national spelling bee, which starts May 31.

He was joined by his father Rohit, his mother Beena, and his 5-year-old sister, Riya Jain. His teacher, Kelly Mulcahy, also accompanied him.

Neeraj Sirdeshmukh, 14, from Nashua, New Hampshire, came in second. He won a $15,000 college scholarship. Third-place contestant, Yeshwanth Kandimalla, 13, of Marietta, Georgia, won a $10,000 college scholarship. The other seven finalists won $500 each.

Fifty-five participants between fifth and eighth grade went to Washington, D.C., to compete in the national bee. They represented the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Pacific Territories and the Department of Defense Dependent schools. The group was whittled down to 10 finalists during the first round of competition Tuesday.

A related Op-Ed piece from the New York Times...

War of the Worlds

By CHARLES PASSY
Op-Ed Columnist
Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

EVERY spring, dozens of the country's brightest grade-school students make their way to Washington for a fierce battle of wits. They summon the knowledge and problem-solving skills that have served them through qualifying regional competitions. But this time, the stakes are much, much greater: It's the national bee.

The National Geographic Bee, that is. For all the attention that continues to be accorded to the National Spelling Bee, from a feature film ("Akeelah and the Bee") to a prize-winning documentary ("Spellbound") to a Broadway musical ("The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee"), the less-heralded Geography Bee is more relevant. After all, we live in a global age, when events in far-flung countries have as much impact as those close to home. It stands to reason that knowing where these places are would be an invaluable skill.

Yet Americans continue to be relatively clueless about geography. A survey released this month by National Geographic showed that 60 percent of college-age Americans couldn't find Iraq on a map, while half couldn't find New York State.

It was a similar survey in the late 1980's that prompted National Geographic to establish its bee in 1989, taking its cue from the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which started in 1925. In many ways, the two events are quite similar. Both have something of a self-serving corporate mission: National Geographic wouldn't mind getting its name out there; ditto the Scripps media company. And both attract high-achieving students who relish the opportunity to compete for national recognition and $25,000 or so in prizes.

Indeed, in some cases, the two bees attract the same students: the winner of the geography bee on Wednesday — Bonny Jain, an eighth grader from Illinois who won by knowing where the Cambrian Mountains are (Wales) — is competing in the National Spelling Bee next Wednesday.

But as the parent of a teenage son who three times made it to the top 10 of the state geography bee in Florida and who also competed on a regional level in the spelling bee, I'd argue that the geography one is more valuable and enriching. It's not just the obvious — that geography teaches us about the world in which we live. It's that the bee itself requires a different method of preparation.

Whereas students who ready themselves for the spelling bee typically begin with the bee's word list, geography bee contestants have no such handy resource. Instead, they must be more creative and resourceful, relying on a combination of atlases, almanacs and publications. They also usually become voracious newspaper readers; my son often began his mornings boning up on international news in the daily paper.

The geography bee's questions, too, require a different level of thinking. The spelling bee contestants rely on memorization or knowledge of etymology. The geography bee asks competitors to connect many more dots through a broad understanding of political, cultural and environmental factors.

Consider this question from last year's bee: "Tropical storms and population growth have been contributing factors in a major housing shortage on the largest island in the Greater Antilles. Name this island." (Cuba.) Or this one: "The Yucatán Peninsula is to Mexico as the Kola Peninsula is to what?" (Russia.)

True, spelling is a gateway to understanding language, but what possible value is there to knowing how to spell "appoggiatura" (a musical embellishment) and "pococurante" (an indifferent person), to name two of the more recent winning words? By contrast, knowing about Cuba or Russia means knowing about Communism, the political ideology that has informed much of America's foreign policy in the past half-century.

And yet the spelling bee continues to receive all the attention. Perhaps that's because spelling is a tantalizingly easy concept to grasp. You either spell a word right or you don't. The answers are all in the dictionary.

Geography, on the other hand, asks more. But it offers more in return: to know the world is to know how to make it a better place, from a path to peace in war-torn regions to a promise to conserve our planet's natural resources.

Which is why I never look back with regret on my son's failure to win the state Geography Bee and qualify for a spot in the nationals. He's still reading the newspaper every morning. He's still considering a career in international affairs. Let the Spelling Bee champs revel in the obscure. My son's got the whole world in his hands.