Anamika Veeramani's spelling coach: Janice Hearst

So here's a simple video of Janice Hearst, who coached 2010 National Spelling Bee winner Anamika Veeramani. Hearst had coached her since 4th grade...quite impressive! Here, Hearst just speaks to the qualities that made Anamika such a deserving winner. Hearst also tips her hat to Anamika's family, and the strong love and support they gave to her, which I can personally say is instrumental to a speller's success.

"America is not the greatest country in the world anymore."

Pretty dismal assessment, right? Well, that's the take-away from HBO's brand-new series The Newsroom, where Jeff Bridges's curmudgeonly character has a breakdown during a panel at Northwestern University, and says precisely that (complete with a number of expletives, so be forewarned). Take it away, Jeff:

Some pretty compelling, sobering facts there. What happened? Or more to the point, how can we get back on track? I'm certainly not an expert in the educational realm...not a teacher, not a policy wonk, not an administrator. My only claim is as a spelling coach over the past year. But this concerns me. And not because of some "rah-rah-we're-number-1" sentiment.

Well, okay...maybe a little bit. Who wouldn't want to be #1? Especially since we have been there before. I remember back in the early 1990s, when evidence was beginning to mount that American children and teenagers were starting to slip in academic performance, beginning to be outdone, primarily by Asians. Since that time, at least one source indicates that much of eastern Asia and Europe has passed us by now.

But more important than a chest-thumping sentiment is this fact...one that has always been true, but which grows truer and more urgent each day: We need to be as well-educated as possible in subjects that will help us address the challenges that we face every day. And a country that has been as blessed with natural resources, a relatively intelligent population, and a history of ambition and industry as ours should be regularly contributing a lion's share of well-educated, well-prepared children, teenagers, and adults to address these challenges.

I'm sure there are more well-researched, more inspiring words to read than this platitude, but there's my sentiment.

Wisdom from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

I watched this first of the Harry Potter movies last night. It's a wonderful movie, particularly for nerds like me. Through it, you live vicariously through a kid who has lived in dreary conditions for years, only to suddenly be swept up to a magical land where he is appreciated, even revered. But he has done nothing up to this point to earn any of it. He is told that he is an amazing wizard, and has been given, free of charge, the tools with which to create himself accordingly. And on a much more mundane level, he wanders through Diagon Alley with Hagrid, basically doing his back-to-school shopping. But for what other school do you require a pewter pot, an owl, and a wand? Magic suffuses this movie, and I'm not just talking about potions, herbology, or flying on the Nimbus 2000.

Along the way, he discovers, among other things, the Mirror of Erised. He sees his deceased parents in there, whom he has never known, beaming at him with pride and love. Understandably, it stirs his heart, and he begins to spend hours in front of the mirror. Perhaps days later, Professor Dumbledore finds him there, and tells him this about the mirror:

It shows us the deepest and most desperate desires of our hearts.
Remember this, Harry: This mirror gives us neither knowledge, nor truth. Men have wasted away in front of it, even gone mad.
It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry, and forget to live.
That is why tomorrow, it will be moved to a new home. And I must ask you not to go looking for it again.

Keep in mind that Dumbledore is talking about the Mirror of Erised. (Spell that last word backwards.)

For me, I must admit that the internet is a kind of addiction. I spend hours on it. It is my own Mirror of Erised. And I need to use it judiciously, to further my own goals, and not to get lost in my dreams.