Can You Spell Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

Story and photo by Kamari Wright.

MAR. 1, 2019: I don’t think anyone knows how to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious or even a simple word like sagacity. How many people can really spell today? It really doesn’t matter anymore with Spell Check. Spell Check fixes your mistakes so you never have to worry about not knowing the real spelling of the word. In second grade, spelling was something that was super important. Each week we had flash cards showing words to learn by the end of the week. Now today it is very lazy of us to depend on auto correction and apps on our phones to correct tons of mistakes when writing.

Some people are still into spelling without the apps. Last week, Woodridge had its annual spelling bee. The competition came down to three students: third place Christopher Southerland (4thgrade), second place Paris Dozier (4th grade), and the last person standing and champion was first place Blake Saddler (7th grade). It takes a lot of courage to get in front of the entire school and try to spell a word when hardly anybody can really spell anymore.

There were words nobody had even heard of like metallurgy, pegasi, valise, portentously, gangrene, and Xanadu. Who ever knew that Xanadu meant paradise? I am super proud of everyone who participated in this year’s spelling bee, but I still think that all of these apps are corrupting the minds of everyone because it’s doing all the work. Maybe there would be more participants and winners if we only did the work ourselves the old way: studying, correcting our own mistakes and looking up words in a dictionary if we don’t know what they mean.

Kamari Wright is a fourth grade scholar at Friendship Woodridge International School.