Inspiring 11 year old Bhavana Madini from Long Island, NY – National Spelling Bee Finalist!

Bhavana Madini who was among the Top 51 finalists for the National Spelling Bee held recently at Washington DC was in Chennai for few weeks.

Arise ‘n’ Shine, one of the leading educational enterprises in the country invited Bhavana as a guest speaker to share her journey with the primary students at Anna Adarsh, one of the schools where Arise ‘n’ Shine provides an integrated English and Emotional Intelligence program for the students. ‘As part of student learning and development, we create platforms for students from foreign countries to share their stories, challenges and engage inside the classrooms.’ says Raj Ganesh, CEO of Arise ‘n’ Shine.

Bhavana is a resident of Long Island, New York. ‘The whole journey started when she was little.’ said Arul Arasu, Bhavana’s mother. Her first grade teacher was the first to identify her skills. Bhavana won the prize in almost all the spelling events in her community. She won the classroom bee, school spelling bee and she also competed with all the spelling bee champions from Long Island. Bhavana also wrapped up the top prize at the Regional Spelling Bee and moved on to make it to the National Spelling Bee.

Bhavana had to learn about 70,000 words. She spent about 4-6 hours a day to improve her language skills, vocabulary and etymology. She does a lot of reading. There were times when Bhavana was tempted to give up looking at the intensity of the preparation and the sacrifices she had to make. Every time she felt demotivated, she would think about the road travelled and the little milestones she achieved along the way. Today she is on the top 51. She is determined to travel further to get to the finals and to win the national title.

This 11 year old prodigy’s speech about her journey with the National Spelling Bee inspired both the students and the teachers. ‘If you have a goal and plan a schedule around your goal with a little bit of hard work, you can go farther than you can imagine’, says Bhavana to the students. After hearing Bhavana’s speech, few students came forward and shared their excitement.  Grade 5 student Akshaya Shree said, ‘Bhavana speaks beautiful English. I want to speak with confidence like Bhavana.’ When you create such a platform for your students, it can pay multiple dividends. Yashika, another grade 5 student animated her feelings, ‘I want to be in the news like Bhavana. I will work hard to improve my English skills.’ You never know, both Akshaya Shree and Yashika can be our next news in the upcoming months as Bhavana has stirred their heart and mind to achieve greatness.

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