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Should children join a spelling bee contest in Canada? (Part 2: the cons)

Susan Cumberland August 11, 2017

In our last article on this topic, we outlined some pros of joining a spelling bee. We covered the outcomes of English-speaking Canadian kids joining spelling bee contests in both Canada and the U.S.A.

And, like with all subjects on giving our kids the best education possible, there are many points to debate. In this article, we’ll cover the other side of the spelling bee argument – the cons.

The cons of spelling bee competitions

Regardless of country, opposition to English-language spelling bees can be summarized as the following arguments:

They challenge kids to learn words that they will never use again, and that have no meaning or prevalence outside of the spelling bee context

As this opinion column quotes, spelling bee competitions contain “Words known only to people with two Ph.D.’s. Words used only by extremely fanchonette academics and, of course, slobberhannes newspaper columnists who drop them into their prose for a lame joke.”

Pronouncing words can be based on accents, which makes spelling bees confusing

Pronunciation can throw off a contestant. Some words are pronounced based on accents from other languages. And sometimes, one region of a country pronounces a word differently than another region.

Spelling bees can put kids on the spot, and make failure a dooming experience

It’s true, spelling bees can embarrass kids who get the answers wrong, potentially. Though, this is contested (like all points in this article), as spelling bees are competition, like any other sport. Though, since the American Scripps National Spelling Bee is televised, that can make the fall harder to recover from.

Spelling bees don’t actually teach language skills, if that is their end goal

Literacy involves more than memorizing words, and takes actually reading and using words.

When it comes to Canadian kids and spelling bee contests, the choice is theirs, we say!

While we have identified pros and cons to spelling bee contests in Canada, in the end, it is the child who gets to decide whether they want to participate. Like any other passion or extracurricular activity, the spelling bee is just one of many to pick from. Some kids will like sports, some piano or guitar, and others will be obsessed with geography or space. We say, let them take their pick. Spelling bees are a great competitive activity that can benefit some. To others, the possibility of public failure, a learning disability, or some other setback may make spelling bees a horror to think about. And that’s ok! The choice is theirs, we say!

Should children join a spelling bee contest in Canada? (Part 1: the pros)

Susan Cumberland August 4, 2017

Canadian kids joining a spelling bee competition — Photo Credit: USAG-Humphreys Flickr via Compfight cc

A spelling bee contest in Canada sounds like a lot of fun, doesn’t it? While we may have watched them in American TV shows, they do in fact happen across Canada, and Canadian kids attend these spelling competitions in the U.S. In case you didn’t know, Canada’s ‘big’ spelling bee competition is run by the 30-year-old, Toronto-based non-profit, Spelling Bee of Canada (and it has regional competitions too).

So what makes spelling bees fun in any country? Kids get to show off their ability to memorize the spelling of words, and achieve status at the end. Parents are proud, and popularity is won! Or is it that appealing? Some may argue that there are cons to spelling bee contests, just as there are pros. In this two-part article, we’ll debate the question of whether children should join a spelling bee contest.

The pros of Canadian kids joining a spelling bee competition

Of course, Canada bears two official languages: English and French (in addition to some unofficial First Nations languages, which we should also credit). We’ll be covering English spelling bees here.

They encourage vocabulary development in a language that demands memorization

English is a tough language. Vocabulary development takes practice, and memorization techniques.

English is not as orderly or sensical as other languages. It’s a mish-mash of words from different languages, and with different spellings that evolved over many years. That article posits the ‘illogical language’ fact as a con to learning. However, one could also argue that events like spelling bees are conducive to making word-learning a fun, challenging activity.

They open doors to better literacy skills and language enjoyment

Education.com published an article praising spelling bee contests for their ability to do more than encourage dull, meaningless remembrance of words. To quote their adequate statement from a Merriam-Webster editor and spelling bee judge:

The way the children learn the words is…through etymology and learning roots, pronunciations, and multiple definitions….Once children learn to break down words, they can decipher meanings of related words…and become better readers and writers overall…with better reading comprehension, comes greater literacy, and greater enjoyment of reading, literature and language.”

Spelling bees help some kids develop confidence and character

When the CBC reported on a 2016 spelling bee contest in B.C., the parent of the winner noted, rather wisely, the reason he got his child involved. To quote the article’s interview,

It is not just about spelling, it is about character building,” said Jas Bhatia. “How to be patient, wait for their turn and if they spell it wrong to cheer for their friends.”

Another participant’s parent said,

Competition of this nature is positive because it lets them explore more avenues of themselves and shows the result of that commitment.”

In the lead up to the 2017 national spelling bee contest in Toronto, the CBC also reported on parents and participant’s attitudes towards the benefits of spelling bees. One child was entered into the game to overcome stage fright, and to be able to learn to interact with peers. It worked! Reflecting on an 1988 competition, a winner testified that the experience helped build her confidence.

Plus, at least where U.S. spelling competitions are concerned, the prizes can be extensive for winners. This can show kids the result of dedication to perfecting a skill, and the rewards that could result.

They are helping to break down race barriers for Indians and South Asians

This point may be one that some can argue around. But it is notable, and noted by multiple journalists, that winners of spelling bees lately are dominantly from India or South Asia (or have that heritage as Canadians and Americans). The aforementioned CBC article stated that 14 of the past 18 winners in America were Indian. This author even compared the Indians’ skill in spelling to that of running talents among Ethiopians and Kenyans. So, could this be a way to let the South Asian community shine?

There is another side to spelling bee competitions!

Our Canadian kids may not all be suited for spelling bee contests, and parents and teachers may disagree with their existence altogether. Stay tuned for our next article in this series, outlining some cons of spelling bee competitions.

Backgammon math lesson ideas to teach kids

Susan Cumberland July 28, 2017

Teach the math of dice by playing backgammon — Photo credit (CC0 license): https://pixabay.com/en/backgammon-board-game-cube-strategy-1903937/

We’ll bet that when Disney came out with the movie, The Queen of Katwe (or if you read the book earlier), kids everywhere must have been inspired to pick up the board game of chess as a hobby. And it’s always great to teach kids a topic they’re interested in.

Surely, learning chess has a lot to teach about strategy, life and mental exercise. But there’s another timeless game that’s just as old as chess, with more to give. Ever thought of teaching backgammon math lessons to your pupils?

Below are math ideas you can teach kids by playing backgammon.

Teach the math of dice by playing backgammon

This can be as simple as learning how to add up two numbers. But it can also show how a limited set of numbers can create many possibilities of combinations.

This resource teaches backgammon dice statistics, moves, and odds in great detail.

So, with two dice, you have 36 possibilities of numbers. And that leads us to teaching math probability…

Use backgammon rolls to teach math probabilities

As the above resource states,

Understanding the true probabilities of dice rolls can greatly improve your tactical play, by letting you accurately assess the risk of leaving blots, and the chances of hitting and covering points. It also helps you to play strategically, by telling you how to distribute your pieces around the board in order to make the largest number of potential dice rolls work well for you. Probabilities are the secret of why good players seem to get more ‘lucky’ rolls than beginners.”

You see, math is not useless!

When you roll two dice instead of one when playing backgammon, your mathematical probability changes. As this article also explains so well, calculating probability in backgammon can show kids a strategy for determining possible outcomes. In fact, it’s a great simple way to start teaching math probabilities, or to introduce the application of fractions. They can use this information to make decisions about where to move their checkers on the board, in order to win.

Kids can practice doing math calculations in their head with backgammon

With backgammon, players aren’t allowed to use tools to make calculations – not even a pencil and paper. But as this player mentions in his ode to backgammon math, “odds and percentages” are oh so necessary to becoming a great player. But it’s not as hard as people may at first believe. He notes:

The more you do the math, the easier it becomes. It’s like any other learned skill. At first I got frustrated counting pips, and now I can do it much faster and easier…especially after learning some shortcuts…

“I hated calculating match equities, and to do it right used to take me well over 10 minutes some times. Now, I can pretty much figure out most match equities in a few seconds.”

Along with doing calculations in the head, backgammon players also learn memorization skills. As the above author explains, the more you know about how backgammon math works, the easier you can make general estimates on the fly. This is also a math skill, and a life skill for kids to learn. Once they learn principles, they can learn to apply those principles in multiple situations. Isn’t that what math tests are all about?

Backgammon math lessons get more complex as you advance your game

We’ve covered only a few of the math skills used in backgammon. However, backgammon math is so interesting and applicable to math theory, computer scientists have even studied it! And, as this article delves into it, you can see there is more to it, which can turn into advanced math lessons for your students. In life, this game can teach that while ‘luck’ can explain some things, strategy can be applied to improve your odds.

See related posts on our education blog:

Teaching kids how to start a newspaper (8): desktop publishing, design and layout training

Susan Cumberland July 21, 2017

See other articles in this series:

Continuing on with our sequence on how to teach kids to start a newspaper, we’ll cover some production and publishing aspects of the industry. Once students have gone through the other lessons on starting a newspaper, they can begin putting it all together into a publishable format that looks just like a real newspaper!

Teaching kids print production with technological tools for design and layout may crossover into high school projects like the yearbook club or class. By teaching desktop publishing techniques, kids who may not be involved in the school newspaper or yearbook can still get exposed to the process.

When starting a student newspaper, design and layout training with desktop publishing can:

Give students the chance to understand how speedily newspapers are be produced, which may explain the brevity of their coverage, and the time pressure journalists come under, in the real world of media.
Build computer software skills that students can use in their future employment.
Give students an eye for the perfection in graphic design skills, such as alignment, consistency, scale, typography and the impact that sizing elements on a page can have.
Teach students how to follow conventional norms and ‘rules,’ and understand why these can save time in the workplace. For example, they can learn style guides, templates, font formatting and known efficiencies already used in the print media industry. Perhaps a discussion on cost effectiveness and print budgeting can also be explored with your class when taking on a project like this.
Engage students in the creative process of layout and design in print media. For example, making decisions about photos and ads to place on a page, as well as other visual cues to help guide a reader according to the design intention.

Resources you’ll need for teaching kids desktop publishing or print media design

You will need access to school computers, and purchased software licenses to create a newspaper the ‘modern’ way. If these are not available, you could use the ‘cut and paste’ method (literally). And, yes, you could also go the fully digital route, by creating a classroom blog or newspaper website. However, since website publishing engages different learned skills, this would start us on another topic, for a future article!

Assuming you can access the computers and software, most likely, your class will be learning how to create a newspaper design and layout using Adobe InDesign. They can also use QuarkXpress, which was the older standard used in publishing.

For some parts of the process, you may need Photoshop, and a PDF creator, if not included in your existing page design software. If the students plan on creating a newspaper logo, Adobe Illustrator may also be required.

The Adobe Education Exchange website

Adobe has an entire website section dedicated to teaching tutorials on each of its products, including InDesign. Find the InDesign tutorials, and filter the age groups or lesson types here:

https://edex.adobe.com/search/global/?category=teach&product=indesign

Here is a resource that lists all Adobe education programs:

https://edex.adobe.com/programs (some of these are meant for adults, while others are for students. Either way, you may find useful teaching resources on this page).

Your school may need to purchase syllabus lessons on the site (depending on contributor licenses), or register for an account.

Here are lessons or ideas to get you started when teaching kids how to start a newspaper:

Learn Adobe InDesign CC – a course to learn InDesign for publishing, without prerequisite knowledge needed.
Adobe InDesign Tutorial 1 (Creating a Article) – a ‘first approach’ lesson to help students get the hang of using InDesign for newspaper purposes. It also answers questions about InDesign’s purpose.
Grid System in Graphic Design – an important lesson needed for any newspaper or magazine project!
Publishing with InDesign – a lesson for publishing a newspaper into different formats.
Inspired Magazine – an idea of a project to try at your school, where students run the ‘show’ of their magazine!
Grade 4 and 5: Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign – a great syllabus on the very basics of InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop designed for Grades 4 and 5.

And of course there are plenty more you could search for on the site!

As a teacher, you can also participate in discussions with other collaborators on lessons. For example, here is one teacher trying to get feedback on how to teach high school students about InDesign:

https://edex.adobe.com/discussion/5f226f6f55/

Other teaching resources around the web for teaching newspaper print production

Of course, the web is full of ideas and tutorials to help teachers when it comes to design and layout training for print publishing. We’ll list some we found here:

Have fun while learning about desktop publishing for a student newspaper!

As you can see, the process of designing a layout for a newspaper can be a fun and creative project for kids. It certainly is one of the most visual aspects of teaching how to start a newspaper (apart from photojournalism, perhaps).

The above resources can get you started, and perhaps this can turn into a collaborative effort with a graphic design teacher in the school!

3 crucial reasons to teach art in schools

Susan Cumberland July 14, 2017

Teach art in schools

To teach art in schools can be obvious to some. How can we go without? What if kids have an artistic talent to be discovered? For others, the debate can go the other way. Why is art important to teach? If student time and school budgets are stretched, is it more important to focus on math and reading, and cut art altogether?

Of course, art comes in various forms when taught at school. It can be visual art, yes (like painting, graphic design, photography or sculpture). But it can also include theatre, dance, music, poetry and writing. Some may even say it includes languages, baking, decorating or esthetics training. And so, the debate over whether it’s important to teach art in schools can bring up specifics.

However, we won’t be getting into those specifics in this article. Instead, we’ll point out reasons art, in general, is important to teach, for the value it brings to wholesome education.

See related:

1) Art teaches kids skills they can use in other disciplines

This article, expounds the effects of budget cuts to arts programs. The creative process involved in producing art is integral to learning. Kids don’t just learn how to produce art for art’s sake. The author puts it this way:

If we teach kids loads of math and science but don’t encourage their creativity, they aren’t going to grow up to be great engineers and scientists and inventors and discoverers

“…Creativity is about helping to solve the world’s many problems.”

In essence, the need for art in relation to subjects like math and science can be seen with the recent STEAM movement. That is, turning the acronym, “STEM”, which stands for “science, technology, engineering, math,” into “science, technology, engineering, ART, math.” Thus, “STEAM.”

We’ve written about these topics in more depth at the following links:

2) Art can teach students’ brains how to think, and develop

This author for the Huffington Post explains that art in the form of music, is just as important as math when it comes to learning “life skills,” and principled lessons.

Googling this subject, you’ll find no shortage of scholarly or expert ‘proof’ that art is important to brain development. Here is an explanatory quote from one article on ascd.org (an education organization’s site):

From fine-tuning muscular systems to integrating emotion and logic, the arts have important biological value. For their unique contributions to brain development, the arts must take center stage in schools.”

3) Art can give kids the opportunity for self-directed learning, without boundaries and criticism

When kids at school engage in art, there is a lot of experimentation involved. Sure, with music, they start with learning notes and how to read structured sheets of ‘instructions’ on where to place their fingers, or how long to hold a note. And in painting, they are taught how fractions of colour mixes create new colours (do we sense some math learning here?). But once those basic skills are taught – whether by trial and error or with a teacher – more advancement can be made in their creations.

Then, kids can make their own decisions of what they want to produce. They can also learn that ‘anything goes’ when it comes to creativity. They can self-critique. They can learn how to fix their mistakes and still make something beautiful. They can also avoid the fear of failure and, for once, not be told they got the answers wrong. This article expounds on those aforementioned points in more detail.

In short, with the above considered, it seems art can help with the development of a child’s confidence, enabling them to take charge without limits. It’s a balance to structured learning, which is also needed for character development, wouldn’t you say?

To conclude: art doesn’t have to be an either-or decision

We know art is important in school. While it may not seem like it can translate into a person’s ‘important’ career (which is false, by the way), it can still have an impact in education. And, as we’re seeing, instead of art being it’s own, separate class, some educational curriculums are incorporating it into the way other subjects are learned. This falls right into the path of using different learning styles to help students grasp information.

That way, teaching art – and allowing it to enhance learning – doesn’t need to fall under the pressure of budget cuts or student time.

See more posts from our education blog!

5 signs to recognize autism spectrum disorder in your teen

Susan Cumberland July 7, 2017

With early intervention and an increase in awareness about autism spectrum disorder, many children are being diagnosed as babies or in their toddler years. Since autism is typically discovered in early childhood, many parents don’t expect to have to look for signs as their child ages. Yet, sometimes signs of autism can go undiagnosed until your child is older and begins to experience some noticeable signs as well as learning difficulties. Below are five signs that your teen may have autism.

Withdrawal from social situations

One of the difficulties that people with autism may find hard to overcome is the ability to read other people’s’ signals and emotions. This may cause them to find it difficult to fit in or adjust to what is expected of their age. Because of this, they may often avoid engaging with students their age for fear of being bullied or ridiculed. While teens may withdraw from peers for a variety of reasons, an avoidance of social interaction should be looked into.

More literal interpretations

Teens and adults with autism spectrum disorder are known to have trouble interpreting metaphorical speech, or ‘street talk.’ They can often take phrases literally. So, watch out if your Autistic teens has difficulty understanding sarcasm or idioms. This may be due to communication issues that stem from being more comfortable with structure and ‘exactness.’

Difficulty with complicated or multi-step directions

Teens with autism spectrum disorder may suffer from ADD or ADHD. They may have a hard time staying focused through longer, or multiple instructions. Typically focus can be held for two-step directions. But more than that may cause them to withdraw, or move onto something else.

Showing symptoms of mental health disorders

People with autism spectrum disorder have a higher rate of other psychiatric disorders. The most common psychiatric disorders associated with autism are anxiety, ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, and schizophrenia. Teens with autism can be particularly affected by anxiety disorders, especially when they are in social settings.

Having difficulty with school curriculum

As teens enter into high school, curriculum tends to become more difficult. Teens with autism may begin to exhibit learning disabilities as the curriculum becomes more demanding. However, teens with higher functioning autism often have average, to above-average IQs.

If your teen is exhibiting signs of autism spectrum disorder, it is important to have them properly diagnosed. Intervention as early as possible is important to help your teen to be successful at school, as well as in their life outside of school.