Success: Can You Spell That Without Any S's?
Success: Can You Spell That Without Any S's?
“Akeelah Anderson can spell. She can spell better than anyone in her school in South Central Los Angeles, and she might have a chance at the nationals. Who can say? She sees the National Spelling Bee on ESPN and is intrigued. But she is also wary, because in her school there is danger in being labeled a "brainiac," and it's wiser to keep your smarts to yourself. This is a tragedy in some predominantly black schools: Excellence is punished by the other students, possibly as an expression of their own low self-esteem.”
-- Roger Ebert
We see Akeelah as she struggles to get by in school. She’s never missed a spelling word, although she doesn’t study, but she does love words. She plays Scrabble on her computer. Her dad also loved words. He died when she was six, and now five years later she feels closer to her dad than her mother, a single, over-worked mom trying to raise a daughter with her own baby, Akeelah and her gangsta-wannabe brother.
This is a movie with relationships and my favorite one is between Akeelah and her best buddy, Georgia. Georgia is always supportive and she has dreams of her own. She wants to be a flight attendant. She is unwavering in her encouragement of Akeelah, and Akeelah repays with encouragement and support in kind. When Akeelah is invited to a birthday party for a fellow spelling bee contestant in the prestigious Woodland Hills area, Georgia goes with her. At the party, however Georgia refuses to get out of the car and instead chooses shopping at the mall. She knows she doesn’t fit in with Akeelah’s new friends. As Akeelah gains notoriety and becomes a local celebrity, Georgia sees Akeelah less and this saddens her, but she never fails to offer encouragement. They remain friends . . . and Georgia will probably grow up to be a flight attendant.
Throughout the movie, the characters never take the easy way out. There are so many clichés that could have been easily applied. They weren’t.
Akeelah meets every challenge with determination and pluck. She chooses her own path from forging her permission slip, to skipping a tutoring session, and to misspelling a word on purpose. She makes decisions and suffers the consequences.
Akeelah and the Bee is a movie that deserves to be shown over and over again to young people, old people, friends and strangers as well. Share the experience with your neighbors and students. Support your local schools at every opportunity. Now, that spells success.
Success Can You Spell That Without Any Ss - To learn more about this author, visit Don Doman's Website.
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The wonderful feature film Akeelah and the Bee is about friendship, community, achievement, and love. If I had enough money, I would give multiple copies of this movie to every single educational institution in the world. I can’t give away that many DVD copies, but I can give a few and so can you.
“Akeelah Anderson can spell. She can spell better than anyone in her school in South Central Los Angeles, and she might have a chance at the nationals. Who can say? She sees the National Spelling Bee on ESPN and is intrigued. But she is also wary, because in her school there is danger in being labeled a "brainiac," and it's wiser to keep your smarts to yourself. This is a tragedy in some predominantly black schools: Excellence is punished by the other students, possibly as an expression of their own low self-esteem.”
-- Roger Ebert
We see Akeelah as she struggles to get by in school. She’s never missed a spelling word, although she doesn’t study, but she does love words. She plays Scrabble on her computer. Her dad also loved words. He died when she was six, and now five years later she feels closer to her dad than her mother, a single, over-worked mom trying to raise a daughter with her own baby, Akeelah and her gangsta-wannabe brother.
This is a movie with relationships and my favorite one is between Akeelah and her best buddy, Georgia. Georgia is always supportive and she has dreams of her own. She wants to be a flight attendant. She is unwavering in her encouragement of Akeelah, and Akeelah repays with encouragement and support in kind. When Akeelah is invited to a birthday party for a fellow spelling bee contestant in the prestigious Woodland Hills area, Georgia goes with her. At the party, however Georgia refuses to get out of the car and instead chooses shopping at the mall. She knows she doesn’t fit in with Akeelah’s new friends. As Akeelah gains notoriety and becomes a local celebrity, Georgia sees Akeelah less and this saddens her, but she never fails to offer encouragement. They remain friends . . . and Georgia will probably grow up to be a flight attendant.
Throughout the movie, the characters never take the easy way out. There are so many clichés that could have been easily applied. They weren’t.
Akeelah meets every challenge with determination and pluck. She chooses her own path from forging her permission slip, to skipping a tutoring session, and to misspelling a word on purpose. She makes decisions and suffers the consequences.
Akeelah and the Bee is a movie that deserves to be shown over and over again to young people, old people, friends and strangers as well. Share the experience with your neighbors and students. Support your local schools at every opportunity. Now, that spells success.
Success Can You Spell That Without Any Ss - To learn more about this author, visit Don Doman's Website.
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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