I know I rant about the dumbing-down of America every now and then, but I truly feel that subjecting your child to hours and hours of rote spelling memorization for upcoming spelling bees is a little too much. I believe that expanding a child's vocabulary by reading to and with them is extremely important, but when they're learning nothing but words like "aition, campanile, kittel, [and] giaour" then I debate the usefulness of the endeavour. And when you convince them to continue by calling it "playing" and invoking guilt-inducing mantras like "Remember the family" it borders on unconscionable, in my opinion.