Zaila and the Bee: The Buzz About the Scripps Spelling Bee 2021
Christen Arafeh 
Zaila Avant-garde, an eighth-grader from Harvey, Louisiana was just named the winner of the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee Thursday night.
The Buzz About the Scripps Spelling Bee
Zaila (zah-EE-luh) Avant-garde a homeschooled 8th grader earned the prestigious title in round 18, when she correctly spelled "Murraya" which is defined as "a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian trees having pinnate leaves and flowers with imbricated petals" during the bee's live finals at Walt Disney World's ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
Avant-garde has earned just as much recognition for her athletic prowess than her achievements in spelling. She is a basketball prodigy who has appeared in a commercial with Stephen Curry and owns three Guinness world records for dribbling multiple balls simultaneously.
Scripps' motivation for sharing those hobbies and passions is clear: It sends the message that the spellers are normal kids, not robotic middle-schoolers with a monomaniacal devotion to memorizing the dictionary.
“Basketball, I'm not just playing it. I'm really trying to go somewhere with it. Basketball is what I do,” Zaila said. “Spelling is really a side thing I do. It's like a little hors d'ouevre. But basketball's like the main dish.”
Don't be mistaken: Zaila brings the same competitive fire to spelling that she shows on court. She won last year's Kaplan-Hexco Online Spelling Bee — one of several bees that emerged during the pandemic after Scripps canceled last year — and used the $10,000 first prize to pay for study materials and $130-an-hour sessions with a private tutor, 2015 Scripps runner-up Cole Shafer-Ray.
The time commitment required to master roots, language patterns and definitions is what keeps many top spellers from seriously pursuing sports or other activities. But Zaila, who is home-schooled, claims to have it figured out.
“For spelling, I usually try to do about 13,000 words (per day), and that usually takes about seven hours or so,” she said. “We don't let it go way too overboard, of course. I've got school and basketball to do.”
Seven hours a day isn't going overboard?
Zaila is already getting scholarship offers from perspective colleges.
In addition to becoming the bee’s first winner from Louisiana, she was also the first African American champion. The only previous Black winner of the bee was also the only international winner: Jody-Anne Maxwell of Jamaica in 1998. Zaila said she hopes to inspire other African-Americans who might not understand the appeal of spelling or can't afford to pursue it.
“Maybe they don't have the money to pay $600 for a spelling program, they don't have access to that,” Zaila said. “With tutors and stuff, they charge, like, murder rates.”
The bee has been rightly celebrated as a showcase for students of color — a speller of South Asian descent has been the champion or co-champion of every bee since 2008 — but Zaila is not the first speller to point out issues with economic diversity.
Indian-Americans are the wealthiest U.S. ethnic group, according to Census data, and Indian professionals who immigrate to the U.S. have access to a network of bees and other academic competitions targeting their community.
J. Michael Durnil, the bee’s new executive director, said he hopes to make more resources available to spellers who can't access elite-level training.
“It's really important to me that a student anywhere in the country or a parent or a sponsor watches the bee on (Thursday) and says, ‘I see myself there, I want to be there and there is a clear pathway to try to get there,’” Durnil said.
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Categories: : buzz, college, scripps, spelling bee
About the Author
Christen is the founder of Hive Education. She is passionate about helping families navigate the college application and admissions processes. She helps students set goals to work towards their own debt-free degrees with her personalized scholarship searches, scholarship courses, and by sharing her scholarship strategies that won her over $900,000 in for her own college education. With four years of experience in higher education, two years working with teens in inner city high schools in New Orleans, and starting her first college consulting company during a pandemic in 2020 she strives to make college accessible for everyone, especially for first generation, low income, and minority students. In her spare time she loves to share her love for books with her daughters. You can find her on Facebook.
Christen is the founder of Hive Education. She is passionate about helping families navigate the college application and admissions processes. She helps students set goals to work towards their own debt-free degrees with her personalized scholarship searches, scholarship courses, and by sharing her scholarship strategies that won her over $900,000 in for her own college education. With four years of experience in higher education, two years working with teens in inner city high schools in New Orleans, and starting her first college consulting company during a pandemic in 2020 she strives to make college accessible for everyone, especially for first generation, low income, and minority students. In her spare time she loves to share her love for books with her daughters. You can find her on Facebook.
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