If I worked for Google [Canada], I would invest [more] in education.
Not that they don't invest in education. The services that Google provides to students worldwide, often free of charge, have led today's generation through the information age, allowing people to access books (Google Books), scientific journals and peer-reviewed articles (Google Scholar), maps and geographic data (Google Earth, Google Maps), word processing and collaboration (Google Docs, Google Wave) and tools such as Blogger, Gmail, and Chrome. And, of course, Google acts as our gateway to the world wide web (search, images, news, youtube...).
Directly, Google also provides certain scholarships to students, mainly in the fields of computer engineering, in addition to the tens of millions of dollars given as grants to research and education initatives. Projects include HakiElimu in its aim to improve the quality of education in Tanzania and stimulate political debate and a 1.6 million dollar grant to [dead link] a study to identify and reduce learning gaps in the country's elementary school system.
Now, I know I do too much advertising for Google. I've already said Google ten times in this post, and I haven't even gotten to my main point. But the company and its services have had a signifcant impact on my education - in research, developing study aids, and finding solutions - as well providing me with efficient tools that help save time whenever I'm on the computer. Similarly, Google has an impact on the hundreds of millions of students worldwide, and plays an important role in the education of the next generation.
credits: Alex Wong, Getty Images
Meet Laura Newcombe. Meet nearly 300 other young students, mainly from the United States but with the participation of students worldwide, who qualify among millions to take part in the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. All under the age of fifteen without a minimum age requirement. And all superb spellers.
I mention Laura because she's Canadian, and this year (2010), the only Canadian in competition. At the age of 11, she has already been crowned champion at the Canwest Canspell National Spelling Bee. Twice. As the winner of Canspell, she was sent to the Washington DC and was tied for 17th last year (picture above was taken from '09). This year, starting with 272 other spellers in the preliminary rounds, she competed in the Scripps Spelling Bee finals, the youngest among nine other finalists**. Eventually, she tied for fifth place after spelling the word confiserie incorrectly, a word with French roots for "candy store".
I'm not a great speller myself. Spelling questions were far from my favourite topics in Reach for the Top (oh those assigned questions =/) - I would much rather spell words with chemical symbols and have a geography themed question set. To be honest, I have [unfortunately] become quite dependant on spell check - and with spell-checkers as powerful as these - who knows how doomed future generations will be with spelling and grammar. But of course, young spellers such as Laura Newcombe and this year's Scripps' champion Anamika Veeramani remind us of what we are capable of. And in a moment of inspiration, I disabled the in-browser spell check on Chrome, so if you've seen some obvious typos in this post (and in my emails, and future posts), well now you know why.
But it's not really their great spelling ability that truly inspires me. I can't spell well, and they can: ultimately, everybody has their talents and strengths - it's that these young spellers are such eager learners that are determined to make their dreams come true. Watching the Bee Week clips from the past few days (these 273 spellers get to spent the week together - in competition, but also in celebration and fellowship), these kids are nearly always smiling, making friends, sharing experiences, and pushing forwards towards their goals. The competitors high-five each other as they make their way to their seats, and give encouraging nods while their opponents are up at the microphone. By the finals, each speller, when eliminated, is given a standing ovation by all the audience members, their fellow spellers, and their parents, who have joined their kids on stage to support and celebrate the high level of achievement of these young finalists.
Anamika aspires to become a playwright and an author, while pursuing a career of a cardiovascular surgeon, with the intention of going to Harvard Medical School. Interestingly enough, her winning word was stromuhr, a device for measuring the speed of blood flowing through her artery. Laura, still young at 11, has an interest in the arts, a passion in swimming, and a natural love of reading, but for now, she'll work on training for next year as she will once again compete in the Canwest Canspell Spelling Bee.
And if she wins that competition, she'll also be competing the the Scripps Spelling Bee (again) for a chance for over $40 000 in cash and prizes, and of course, the Scripps Trophy. But she's not the only great speller in Canada - why do we (Canadians) only have one entry in the Scripps Spelling Bee?
If you've been watching the Scripps Spelling Bee over the past few years (don't worry, I haven't =/), Canada had twenty-two representatives; this year we only had one. And the main reason? Money. To enter into the Scripps Spelling Bee, you need to fulfill two objectives: a) win a regional spelling Bee, and b) have a sponsor. Most sponsors, as you can see in the picture above, are Newspapers. The problem is that newspapers are a dying species, and companies such as Canwest (which owns the National Post) aren't making as much money as they used to: Canwest filed for bankruptcy protection late last year. As a result, they cut their sponsored spellers from the twenty-two winners of smaller regional competitions to just one - the winner of the national competition.
Of course, I can't say whether or not Canwest will support more students this year now that the economic landscape looks better. And I can't say that some other newspaper or company won't step in to sponsor some of these students. But for these young students nationwide, it would be a comforting fact if companies were keen to support the next generation and inspire millions of kids to reach for the top.
As newspapers continue to suffer because of the growing use of the internet, I don't see why the internet can't be the solution. There was once a time when The Globe and Mail, the Webster Dictionary, and the Encyclopedia Briticanna were the ideal resources (and today, the latter two remain as major sponsors in the Scripps spelling bee). But now with online news sources, dictionary.com, Wikipedia, and Google Scholar just clicks away (note: I'm not saying these are necessarily better), the next generation is learning through the internet, supporting these students as they aim for their careers and dreams. As these sites, including Google, continue to grow as important learning tools, these companies have the potentital to also assist students directly to pursue opportunities like the National Spelling Bee and truly define the next generation as the information/Internet age.
Thus, if I worked for Google Canada, I would invest more in student education - not only through services, but by directly supporting opportunities for students to learn and meet other students, while inspiring countless others to make dreams come true. (The Google Doodle challenges in the United States are a good example of this support; it would be nice to see this in Canada, and also through outside non-Google events as well).
For more information, here are a couple websites I found interesting:
Also worth watching:
Akeelah and the Bee - a 2006 movie about a young girl, also 11 years old, in her journey to the Scripps National Spelling Bee
Words to think about:
rudimentary. suffraginis. thalassian. nematodiasis. scrannel. confiserie.
words that Laura needed to spell starting in round two. one wrong and you're done for the year. She played until round seven. Anamika won in round nine.
**finalists on TV, but not official finalists. Starting at the semifinals, all remaining contestants spell their given words - if they are incorrect, they are eliminated at that round. For prime time television, ABC paused the semifinals in the middle of a round so that there would be ten spellers remaining. With criticism, this format was ideal for prime-time TV, though these spellers were not necessary considered finalists in the official spelling bee rules. Instead, all spellers are ranked numerically (no finalists distinction), and tied with the other spellers that were eliminated in the same round.
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