Can You Use It In A Sentence, Please?

For the second year in a row, the champion speller of Horace Mann Elementary School came from my class. My fourth grade class. The competition was heated, and my girl was up against four fifth graders, but she prevailed in the end. I should be so proud, but I'm not.
I spent more time consoling the losers than I did congratulating the winners. The frail egos of kids aged nine to eleven years are just barely up to the task of being on stage, let alone performing academic tasks that, in many cases, are beyond their grasp. This is not to say that I don't have a lot of good spellers in my class. I have a number of good spellers. I just don't have a lot of good spellers behind a microphone in front of a sea of their peers.
Ah, their peers. What a barely supportive gaggle of schadenfreude. One of my goals as their teacher is to try and instill a degree of empathy in their still burgeoning personalities. After today, I can see that I have a good deal of work ahead of me. Rather than seeing their classmate as a representative of their class as a whole, most of them looked on the spelling bee participants as reminders of their own limitations. They jeered as the first girl missed her word. They were admonished by the principal and myself to be "good sports". I'm not sure if they are familiar with the term.
And so, one by one, the contestants dropped away, until there was one. I confess that I took some pride in her accomplishment. But since my contribution to her spelling acumen is brief if not invisible, I chose to pass along the cheer to her second and third grade teachers, and her parents. And anyone who ever gave her a book to read.
Then I thought of something I hadn't before: Half of the kids on that stage were not born into English-speaking households. As a school, we must be doing something right if our spelling bee reflects the diversity in our population. The district competition is next month. That one takes place in front of teachers, parents and other spellers. I think our champion can expect a better ride next time. I'm glad to have her smile to go on the mantle next to all the other broken hearts.