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Strategies & Market Trends : Heinz Blasnik- Views You Can Use -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (2847)	6/29/2003 7:52:10 PM
From: LLCF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4907

<i guess the spelling bee has become something of a national mania for hyperactive parents thanks to ESPN. i left the theater thinking it would be better to have ESPN coverage of a kiddie chess tournament--chess is much better as it's international and you can do it your whole life. also a bit more intellectually compelling than spelling words--though Kasparov calls it "mental torture". likewise, one of the parents saw the spelling bee and called it "child abuse".> ""Some day schools will teach about the dynamics of thought, rather than stuffing supposedly relevant thoughts in. It is much more important to 'see' your thinking for what it is, than 'what' you think."" -Zen Master I recently ran into some type of Neuro-PHD type that was telling me that the whole concept of learning spelling through all these rules and such is simply a waste of space and thinking time. He thinks in 15 years it'll all be rote. DAK

To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (2847)	6/30/2003 12:13:53 AM
From: GraceZ	Respond to of 4907

i have heard that the Kanji with the most readings is sei, as in Sensei or teacher--a researcher told me this character has at least 16 different readings. I see: kanjisite.com They must have really extensive flame wars over there. "I know you think you know what I said but this is what I really said...." etc. -ggg- i guess the spelling bee has become something of a national mania for hyperactive parents thanks to ESPN. i left the theater thinking it would be better to have ESPN coverage of a kiddie chess tournament--chess is much better as it's international and you can do it your whole life. also a bit more intellectually compelling than spelling words--though Kasparov calls it "mental torture". likewise, one of the parents saw the spelling bee and called it "child abuse". I've heard that particular documentary is quite good. I was forced to learn to play chess as a child (I loved it even though it was mandatory), my parents didn't give a fig about spelling bees or even spelling per se unless it effected my overall grades. I went to mostly parochial schools and the nuns stressed penmanship over spelling. You could write any old nonsense as long as it was neat. Consequently I've had to learn to spell as an adult (painful---spell check was invented for me) and I've discovered that there are some things like multiplication tables and spelling that really are best learned by rote when you are young. My husband is a great speller (does crossword puzzles all the time) so if I can't get a word close enough for spell check or the dictionary I ask him. I did spend one winter when I was a teenager reading the dictionary cover to cover, but alas I was far less interested in how words were spelled than I was in their meanings as well as how they were pronounced. Ideas and concepts were far more interesting to me than their mere representations using the alphabet. As for spending a year practicing for a spelling bee, I think kids are better off learning the true meaning of a "contest of words". Flawless spelling really doesn't help you there, you have to know what the words mean and then you have to have an idea about something actually worth contesting! I'd rather see a great idea presented with poor writing and jumbled spelling than a mediocre idea presented in perfect prose. Although I have found that if you really are interested in having your ideas read in the fluent manner you want to express them, spelling errors detract from that flow.

To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (2847)	6/30/2003 12:52:01 PM
From: benwood	Respond to of 4907

You might want to check out the film "Searching for Bobby Fischer." Some parents really put the screws to their kids in the chess arena (I've seen this at tournaments at my own kids' school). However, that said, the vast majority of parents are really good about it, and I think it is a far better use of a kid's brain for a variety of reasons. My kids don't play much, but I still dragged them to see Yasser Seirawan and Elena Donaldson et. al. last year in the US Championships here in Seattle. <g>