In Bee-Brained, in Harper’s Magazine, Vauhini Vara, a former spelling champ, visits the all-Indian-American North South competition, which includes spelling, vocabulary, math, essay writing, public speaking, “brain bee” and geography contests. A father named Kalyan Mysore told other spelling dads why his son was competing in vocabulary but not spelling. “You expend effort in this, you won’t get anything out of it beyond doing well in the spelling bee. Because these days, we h

A student, “Nathan,” tweeted “Close school tammarow PLEASE” to Frederick County (Maryland) Public Schools. Katie Nash, the district’s social media director, replied “but then how would you learn to spell ‘tomorrow’? :)”, reports the Frederick News-Post. The exchange was retweeted. District officials told Nash to stop tweeting. Then they fired her. After only a few months on the job, she said, “I sort of would have expected that there would have been some counseling or some su