The New York Times - 12.09.2019

THE NEW YORK TIMES NEW YORKTHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2019 0 N A33

FRONT PAGE
An article on Tuesday about a
C.I.A. informant extracted from
Russia referred incorrectly to the
timing of the initial reporting of
the C.I.A.’s 2016 exfiltration offer
to the informant. An offer that
appears to be the same one de-
scribed in the Times article was
reported by Bob Woodward in his
2018 book “Fear.”

INTERNATIONAL

An article on Wednesday about
Margrethe Vestager, the Euro-
pean Union’s competition com-
missioner, erroneously presented
some paraphrased comments by
Joe Kennedy about Ms.
Vestager’s work on tech industry
regulation as a direct quotation.
While Mr. Kennedy expressed the
idea that Ms. Vestager is at the
vanguard of tougher tech indus-
try regulation on both sides of the

Atlantic, those were not his exact words.

NATIONAL An article on Wednesday about possible replacements to succeed John Bolton as President Trump’s national security adviser mis- spelled the surname of the diplo- mat who became the ambassador to the United Nations. She is Kelly Knight Craft, not Kraft.

BUSINESS An article on Wednesday about a bill to stem rising rents in Califor- nia misstated one provision of the bill approved by the State Senate. It exempts dwellings built within the last 15 years from rent caps, not buildings older than that.

ARTS A book review on Tuesday about “The Penguin Book of Migration Literature” misstated which writers were included in the anthology. It is not true that it “does not include” Indigenous voices.

Errors are corrected during the press run whenever possible, so some errors noted here may not have appeared in all editions.

Corrections

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Back in 1971, the year Jonathan
Knisely won the National Spelling
Bee, there were no study guides
for sale on Amazon and no Face-
book groups dedicated to spelling
bee study. To prepare, he pored
over lists of words from previous
bees that his father borrowed
from other parents. He beat out 76
competitors to clinch the trophy,
$1,000 in cash and a trip to New
York City.
This year, a record 562 spellers
from ages 7 to 15 competed for a
$50,000 cash prize and the trip to
the Big Apple. The contest was
shown live on ESPN, and profiles
of the most closely watched spell-
ers circulated on social media.
But for all the changes, a few
bedrock principles remain the
same. The first is that the bee is a
formative experience for children
who advance to the highest levels.
The national bee is, after all, often
called “the orthographic Super
Bowl.”
Dr. Knisely, now a medical doc-
tor, and three other former cham-
pions with whom we spoke re-
cently said the lessons that they
gleaned from the contest had
served them well. They learned

about the importance of hard
work and grace under pressure,
and also, crucially, about the role
of luck, all of which remain as rele-
vant as ever.
While spellers study countless
hours, with varying levels of pa-
rental support — these days, that
could include pricey coaching —
victory in the bee can still come
down to chance.
“I was lucky enough to get a se-
ries of words I could spell,” Dr.
Knisely recalled. “It’s not as if I
knew every single word given to
other spellers in the contest.”
The National Spelling Bee was
first held in 1925 as a joint project
between nine newspapers, and
the competition was taken over by
the media company Scripps-How-
ard in 1941. The 2019 Scripps Na-
tional Spelling Bee, held in May,
attracted worldwide attention
when it ended in an unprecedent-
ed tie between eight competitors,
known as the “octochamps.”
The contest has become more
professionalized and difficult,
which observers say is another
sign of how childhood is changing,
particularly in wealthier house-
holds. Some parents hire past
champions as coaches, or spend
money to travel to minor-league
bees. Online study programs can
help spellers review thousands of
words at a time, offering instant
feedback.
The bee has also begun accept-
ing spellers who have not won re-
gional bees, and whose families
can pay their way, swelling the
ranks considerably. The bee said
the move evened the playing field
for children in more competitive
areas and those who have no re-
gional sponsors.
“Childhood has become a far
more competitive time,” said
Shalini Shankar, an anthropolo-
gist at Northwestern University

and author of “Beeline: What Spelling Bees Reveal About Gen- eration Z’s New Path to Success,” which was published in April. Dr. Shankar writes about how South Asian-Americans have come to dominate the contest, and

the effect of immigrant parenting styles on American society. As a new school year begins, the former champions we inter- viewed — stretching from 1971 to 1996 — told us about the impact the spelling bees had on their lives

as they pursued careers in medicine, law, business and teaching.

Jonathan Knisely, 1971 Winning word: Shalloon Dr. Knisely, 61, a radiation oncol-

ogist at NewYork-Presbyterian/ Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York, came from a spelling family. His older brother had pre- viously made it to the national competition, and the whole family traveled from southern New Jer- sey to Washington to root for him. Dr. Knisely remembered watch- ing his mother cry after his brother was eliminated. “I told her that I would win it for her,” he said. “And then, believe it or not, it occurred!” His winning word was shalloon, a lightweight twilled fabric. Clinching the trophy felt “raptur- ous,” he said. For all his preparation, even at 12 years old, he knew what a big role luck had played in his win. “The fates had smiled on me,” he said. His big win became a notable line on his résumé, and it may have opened some doors in his ca- reer, Dr. Knisely said. (He still has an eagle’s eye for proofreading, which can actually be a bit of a dis- traction when he’s trying to ab- sorb a piece of writing.) But he never pushed his three children to get involved in the bee — not that they were particularly interested. “It was not so cool to them,” Dr. Knisely said. “Not like being a fire- man.”

Balu Natarajan, 1985 Winning word: Milieu Dr. Natarajan, 47, a sports medicine doctor in Chicago and chief medical officer for a national hos- pice provider, knows how exten- sively the bee has changed. He’s been a staff member and judge for the bee, and nowadays he helps his 13-year-old son, Atman Ba- lakrishnan, prepare for the competition. “The body of knowledge, the amount of information necessary to win today is just exponentially greater than it was back then,” he said. That’s because of technology’s impact on preparation, he said. Whereas a winner in the 1980s might have had a word bank of 10,000 to 25,000 words in study guides, spellers today might study from an online list of 100,000 words. And while he prepared for months, he has observed that suc- cessful contestants these days tend to study year-round. “People are much more prepared when they get to the national stage,” he said. “And they just keep upping the ante.” Dr. Natarajan, who hailed from

Bolingbrook, Ill., was the first South Asian-American to win the contest. He was 13, and it was his third appearance at the national bee. His win helped him build confi- dence and appreciate the value of hard work and family support, he said. He was embraced and celebrated by Indian-Americans, and inspired others to participate. “They accepted the championship not as mine,” he said, “but as ours.”

Stephanie Petit, 1987 Winning word: Staphylococci “I was in no way expecting to win,” Ms. Petit said of her appearance at the national bee when she was 13. She had learned she was going only about six weeks before the bee, and immediately doubled down on her study routine at home in Bethel Park, Pa. She faced 184 other spellers, the larg- est bee held up to that time. Her winning word was staphylococci, the plural of staphylococ- cus, a kind of bacteria. Now a lawyer for nonprofits in San Francisco, Ms. Petit, 46, keeps her trophy in her office, and col- leagues sometimes tease her about it. But she has often drawn on her bee experience, which included appearances on national TV and a meeting with President Ronald Reagan. She also credits the bee with giv- ing her a leg up when it came to college admissions: She was accepted to Harvard, Yale and Princeton. (She chose Princeton.) “Learning that lesson of hard work plus luck was very valu- able,” Ms. Petit said. “It carried me through college and law school, and as a lawyer, I still think it’s true: You can prepare, but sometimes it helps if you get a lit- tle lucky.”

Wendy Guey Lai, 1996 Winning word: Vivisepulture Ms. Lai, now a middle school math teacher in San Francisco, was an avid reader as a child in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. But she got seriously motivated to participate in spelling bees when she read about the incentives for winning the national championship. She won in her fourth year of competition, with the word vivisepulture, the act or practice of burying alive. She was 12. Studying for the contest “was very old school,” she recalled. “I didn’t use any digital device, it was all writing it down. We had le- gal pads with just one word on every line, sometimes a definition, highlighted if it was a word that I missed, and we’d come back to it.” ESPN began broadcasting the finals live in 1994, and Ms. Lai said that she and other children adapted to the pressure of appear- ing on camera during the bee. (Jay Leno also tested her spelling on “The Tonight Show,” but she was unflappable.) Ms. Lai, 35, worked in finance after graduating from Harvard, but switched to teaching, which she finds more fulfilling. In the classroom, she shares the most important lessons that she took away from the bee: Grit and per- sistence are key to success; hon- ing a skill takes lots of time; and it’s about the journey, not the des- tination. “That’s so much richer than the championship itself,” she said.

Pluck and Luck: Spelling Bee Champs on the Secret to Success and What Came After

By KAREN ZRAICK

VINCENT TULLO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES BOB DAUGHERTY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Jonathan Knisely, now a radiation oncologist in New York, left, raising his trophy in victory in the 1971 National Spelling Bee, right.

DAVID KASNIC FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

BOB DAUGHERTY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Balu Natarajan, left, a medical

doctor in Chicago, helping his

son Atman study for the bee.

Above, winning in 1985.

J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS PETER PRATO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Stephanie Petit, a lawyer in San Francisco, said her win may have helped in college admissions.

PETER PRATO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES NBC VIA GETTY IMAGES

Wendy Guey Lai tried three times before she won in 1996. Then she was a guest of Jay Leno’s.

A contest that has

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popular — and

competitive.

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