Spellers teach lessons in D-E-D-I-C-A-T-I-O-N

Six years ago from this week, I was standing on center stage in front of the entire country on national television. Well, actually I was next in line, and ESPN cut to commercial, but that counts, right?

I happened to be participating in the event that ESPN features every Memorial Day week that seems just a bit out of place when put next to Major League Baseball and the NBA Playoffs. That's right, I was a contestant in the National Spelling Bee.

It seems like it was just yesterday I was making my second and final appearance at the Bee; I happened to finish in the same place both times, 22nd out of the over 240 competitors.

So, why am I sharing this? Well, other than the fact I want everyone to know that I supposedly made an appearance in the movie Spellbound (which I still need to see), it turns out that as college students we can learn many things from these kids on stage spelling words from usually unread lines of the dictionary this week.

Dedication is the first and most important virtue of any top speller you may run across on television over the next few weeks as the spelling bee makes it loop through every imaginable ESPN station. I was probably on the lower end of the spectrum of study time when compared to my peers at the Bee, and I easily studied a dozen hours each week for several months in preparation.

As a college student, I often find it difficult to commit myself to study a dozen hours in a week that I have a crucial exam, and I certainly don't see myself doing it when the actual test or event I'm studying for is months away. But then I flip on the television this week and see an eleven-year old who has the patience and attention span to learn how to spell words for hours upon hours as a purely enjoyable extracurricular activity that makes me wish I could be a bit better at dedicating more time and effort toward important things in my life.

The lights make it warm on stage and the pressure almost makes it unbearably hotter. Every person except for the occasional child or grandparent that has drifted off for the afternoon has his eyes fixed on the contestant spelling. A single wrong letter leads to the dreaded bell of elimination and the judges and pronouncer that seemed to be friendly just hours ago have turned evil, giving out the most difficult word of the round to you.

But calmly, letter after letter, a correct spelling emerges, and you finally breathe. Sometimes as students, it's tough to remember that professors are not really against students, and presenting in public is not quite as horrifying as it seems.

It's nice to take a lesson from the ever-so-smooth-and-composed middle school students spelling words they may have never seen in front of such a large audience. They show that it's okay to have a little personality mixed in with the presentation, and in the end, speaking in public is not all that bad.

"Why do we need to know this?" is a question that generally surfaces in classes throughout the semester. I admit that every once in a while it goes through my head as well. I cannot particularly explain the value of every equation I learned in Calculus, nor am I sure of the importance of some of the computer programming skills I attained over the previous semester. I also can't explain why it's of any worth that I can spell and define septentrional, oxylophyte, claviger and doublure. In fact, the program I'm using to type these words does not recognize a single one of these words as being a part of the English language, but I have spelled each one of them at some point in my life. Well, the last one I actually misspelled while ESPN was on that commercial break.

But the point is that I do not believe I have ever seen a single one of these words in print, nor have I had the chance to use them except in this editorial, but I still learned how to spell them. All of the contestants on stage this weekend can probably spell even more ridiculous and useless words, but the point is that they have learned them for the sake of knowledge and that it is important to learn things, even if they may not be applicable in every day life.As a student, it's easy to blow off the class that seems to have no relation at all to one's chosen career path, but it's important to realize that the process of learning, regardless of the purpose, is invaluable.

So, if you have a chance to watch the Bee as it repeats over the next few days, take a second to watch the kids on the big stage. And remember, that it's okay to be young, a bit naïve, and in search of knowledge.After recognizing all of the individual skills each of these young men and women have acquired, it's easy to forget to watch and see how they act as a group. If you get the chance, take a little deeper look at how much the kids seem to empathize for each other and support their new friends from all over the country (as well as a few island nations and even Canada) who were often perfect strangers at the beginning of the week.

It's the realization that it's okay to want others to succeed and support them that really makes the experience worthwhile.Looking back, it's tough to imagine what it would have been like if I had spent the entire time trying to prove that I was better than everyone around me. I certainly would not have this editorial topic, which was suggested to me by a fellow speller who is currently in D.C. for this year's bee, nor would I have enjoyed having a chance to stay with one of my best friends on a trip to Chicago last week. Looking back and watching this year's contestants, I guess the old and often forgotten paradigm is true. The best part of life is not necessarily the outcome that is emphasized so strongly, but the journey and the lessons learned along the way.