Bloghop?
I found this link in my referrals and looked it up to see who had linked to me. Turns out I’m listed at BlogHop. How did I end up there? And even twice?!
Each of my entries got one rating so far. I wonder who rated it…
Oops, I just realized that if you search their blogs for Andrea, you get four results: two links to this blog, one to bleep, and one to a blog I sort of accidently created on Weblogs.com a while ago… So I assume they found at least a large portion of their listed blogs over at Weblogs.Com.
It’s Garret‘s birthday today. Happy Birthday Garret!!! And get well soon! Tell the hedgehog to go hibernate…
Pokémon
Unglaublich… In der letzten Wetten dass..?-Sendung ist der siebenjährige Benedict Bier Wettkönig geworden. Er hat gewettet, daß er alle Pokémon-Karten auswendig kann, d.h. er kennt anhand der offiziellen Numerierung alle 151 Pokémons, und zwar nicht nur deren Namen, sondern auch deren Typ, Größe, Gewicht, Eigenschaft und Entwicklungsstufe. Â
Gerade habe ich ein kurzes Interview mit ihm im Radio gehört. Er war heute wieder normal in der Schule, aber noch ganz fertig von der Wetten dass..?-Party am Samstag. Benedict plant schon die nächste Wette: Dann will er alles über Formel 1 auswendig lernen, “Statistiken und so”.
Das seltsame ist, daß sein älterer Bruder 1997 auch schon bei Wetten dass..? mitgemacht hat. Da fragt man sich doch, ob das alles auf dem Mist der Kinder gewachsen ist, oder ob die Eltern da ihre Finger im Spiel haben…
German and the developing mind
A couple of days ago, I received an email from Terry Henert, a reader of my blog, on German and the developing mind. I asked him to post it on the discussion group, so you can all share your opinion. Besides, I’m not really an expert on brain development, so I thought the discussion would be a better place to talk about this that private email.
“Here’s something I’ve been wondering about for a long time and it deals with German as a language and it’s effect on the developing mind, mainly of children. It may seem pretty “off-the-wall” but there might be something we can learn here. Besides, I think it is more fun to try to find things to discover when we don’t know if there is anything to discover.”
Please have a look at his thoughts and share your opinion! Are any of the experts here? Frauke? Scott?
Famous?!
I’ve submitted a photo from the Expo to Friends of Jezebel’s mirror. If you’d like to see it, it’s here. (This is the URL of the frame with my photo; your browser should load the complete set of frames after a second or two.)
I recently discovered Andrea’s weblog while looking for the price of popcorn in Germany. Ich esse lieber meinen Puffmais mit Butter und Salz, kein Zucker, danke:-).
Here’s something I’ve been wondering about for a long time and it deals with German as a language and it’s effect on the developing mind, mainly of children. It may seem pretty “off-the-wall” but there might be something we can learn here. Besides, I think it is more fun to try to find things to discover when we don’t know if there is anything to discover.
Here are a couple of background observations.
1) We’ve all heard about the effects on kids who listen to Mozart or similar complex music during certain early, formative years. It seems to enhance their spatial-temporal reasoning skills i.e. math, logic and spatial relations.
2) I heard a program on NPR last spring discussing how people from countries with tonal languages like VietNam and China seem to have a higher percentage of people with perfect pitch. A tonal language often has the same word or sound pronounced at different pitches with each sound having an entirely different meaning, as if they were different words. Repeating, people from these countries have a higher percentage of people with perfect pitch.
Each of these examples corroborates the notion that the experiences and environment affect the development of pathways in the young child’s brain. The young brain certainly seems to be open to being guided or influenced as it develops.
Now, so what does that have to do with German? I don’t know, but I’m wondering if the complexity of that language might have some effect on those young German brains as they develop. I think there is a general perception that Germans have always been superior engineers and designers and good at all things technical. If we looked a little closer, there could very well be more observations regarding specific skills.
I’m interested in whether there might be something in the language, or perhaps in some other aspect of the general environment, or culture, that might contribute to the development of those particular skills. Or perhaps more interesting still, are there other traits that might be enhanced by either the language or some other environmental aspect? Of course it could be simply the power of cultural and societal influences. Those things, alone, can encourage diligence and striving for excellence.
Well, that’s the food for thought. I’m wondering if anyone else has given any thought to this or if anyone knows more about it. I have no evidence or opinion on the subect but the possibility has always intrigued me. So, is it another Mozart or just plain Rock and Roll?
Er hat gewettet, daß er alle Pokémon-Karten auswendig kann, d.h. er kennt anhand der offiziellen Numerierung alle 151 Pokémons, und zwar nicht nur deren Namen, sondern auch deren Typ, Größe, Gewicht, Eigenschaft und Entwicklungsstufe.
Das ist doch nichts Besonders, das kann die Mutter meines Patenkindes auch.
Und zwar aus purer Überlebenstrategie, wie sie behauptet, sonst wachsen ihr ihre zwei Töchter (fünf und sieben) über den Kopf.
Vielleicht sollte sie sich auch mal bei Wetten dass..? bewerben – mit der Wette, daß sie die Karten schneller aufsagen kann als der siebenjährige Benedict!
Eine Freundin von mir hat gerade ihre eineinhalb Jahre Referendariat an einer Grundschule hinter sich, und ich schätze, die kennt da auch so einige Monster…
– sowohl auf Karten als auch im Klassenzimmer!
Eine Freundin von mir hat gerade ihre eineinhalb Jahre Referendariat an einer Grundschule hinter sich, und ich schätze, die kennt da auch so einige Monster…
sowohl auf Karten als auch im Klassenzimmer!
Ja, das glaube ich, ich unterrichte auch einige süße kleine Monster, und die wiederum sind auch allesamt Professoren der Pokémonologie
Sean
Zu Professor der Pokémonologie fällt mir unweigerlich Alex Bierman ein – auch bekannt als Professor Alex!