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The BUZZ about the BEE
ven if you caught just a glimpse of this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee, which was broadcast on ESPN, it was immediately apparent that spelling bees have changed dramatically since most of us were in grade school. And it isn’t just the media attention that is lavished on this annual event that is different: The words are way more challenging and the kids themselves are better prepared and savvier than was imaginable even a decade ago. What accounts for this transformation? What might it mean? Those are difficult questions. Fortunately, Shalini Shankar, Ph.D., a professor of Anthropology and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University, has been studying the Bee for the past few years. In fact, on April 30, roughly a month before the 2019 Bee, she published a thoughtful book about the phenomenon called. Shankar, who was busy preparing for the start of the fall semester, took a moment to answer some of our questions about the Bee via email. That exchange is below. Read on…
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