Silly Little Country

Spelling Bees

I wasted a couple of hours last weekend watching the local Rogers channel broadcasting the Ontario Spelling Bee championship for the year.  Occasionally I would shout out at SillyWife, "Hey, here's a whitie!", and there were some occasional participants of apparently African-American background.
But it really was astonishing how competent what I call "South Asian" kids were, with a little bit of competition from East Asians.
Why such a difference?  Kathy Shaidle has her usual fun finding a rather incomplete explanation.
She is spot on right to push the question to the next level.
Let me guess - spelling bee is closely correlated to overall intellectual skills that schools test and reward.  If we do great there we get college degrees and the option for further education.
So why do the other ethnic groups not try that logic?

posted by Alan Adamson @ 8:21 PM