may remember Jules Verne's novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"? The famous submariner Captain Nemo (Latin for "nobody") finally disappeared in a maelstrom just off the coast of Norway. What you didn't know is that he resurfaced, alive but shipwrecked, on an island that can't be found on even the best maps. There he settled down, his ship irretrievably lost and became a happy father.
What he didn't know when one day he cradled his newborn son Aretix in his arms was, that this child prodigy would eventually grow to surpass him in both intellect and knowledge. Everything he ever learned he could repeat flawlessly and hardly ever would he forget anything he wanted to keep in his memory. He astonished everybody, from his teachers to the wise men and women of his tribe and because of his uncanny ability to learn and remember he was soon nicknamed "Captain Mnemo" from the greek word "mneme" for memory and mnemonics, the skill to remember everything at will.
Many a genius would jealously guard his little tricks and keep the secret of their success to themselves. Everyone else is awestruck and they try and make everyone belief that their abilities are unique. Captain Mnemo is different: he always shares his little secrets with your children and makes you all learn and remember just as easily as the best in class, if not better. Soon after you start reading each new adventure of Captain Mnemo that he takes your children on you will notice how easily they remember everything vividly that was read to them, craving to hear not only more the next day but even wanting to look up more on each subject by themselves in the library or on the Internet.
It doesn't take many weeks and your child gets better grades, becomes happy and self-confident while you make reading these adventures out to them not only a bonding experience cherished by both of you, no, you'll even once again learn (and this time remember for good) all the lessons that you had in school or high school, with no time or effort.
Just one small example to give you a better understanding. Let's say your two children are called Anne and Eric. They have been invited by Captain Mnemo to travel on his submarine (which incidentally can also fly, even in outer space, travel back in time or shrink so small it can navigate blood vessels and teach about biology just as easily as about the universe at large).
"The Olympic games are on, Captain" said Anne, "could you please you tell me what these Olympic rings stand for?". Captain Mnemo asked Anne and Eric to sit down and told another little story: "There was a railway worker in an overall who was called for an urgent repair in a railroad tunnel. He had to stop at a traffic light outside the tunnel though since it had just turned red. While he watched nervously it soon turned yellow and then green so he could enter."
"Now Anne," Captain Nemo said, what color had the workman's overalls?". Anne didn't hesitate: "It must have been a blue denim, wouldn't it?" "Right, Anne, now, Eric: what color did he see looking into the tunnel?" "Oh, that's pitch dark, so it's black surely!" "Very good, both of you, now the traffic light ...", but he couldn't finish his sentence as Eric and Anne both cried "red, yellow, green - the five rings are blue, black, red, yellow and green, didn't you just tell us?" Captain Mnemo looked rather pleased and continued: "Well, that seems to have been far too easy, let's see if you can tell me the five continents these rings are meant to symbolize: did you know, that in Europe the Scandinavians (such as the people of Sweden or Norway) almost always are fair haired and blue eyed? Now, what color would you call an African? A Red Indian? People from Asia? What are the first four continents, Anne or Eric?Anne and Eric shouted joyously, taking turns: "Blue stands for Europe, black: Africa, red - America, then Asia would be yellow and you haven't told us the fifth continent, but anyhow, it can only be green!" "All right," Captain Mnemo said "- that last continent is Australia, but some people would hesitate to call it green". Anne said: "but isn't Antarctica, the South Pole also a continent, so we have six in all?" "Absolutely correct, only there isn't any Olympic team from the South Pole so you can neglect the sixth continent, however, now that you mentioned it: what color do the holes in the rings remind you of?" "White!" Eric said, "so we have five continents matching the color of the skin or eyes of their inhabitants with the exception of Australia which gets the last color green and we can even remember there's a sixth continent, Antarctica and it's covered in ice so it's the white inside of the rings."
"Oh my" Captain Mnemo said, "it's already late - off you go to bed and don't forget to brush your teeth. Tomorrow we'll try and remember which animals live on which continent so you won't ever forget."
As a business and educational consultant in the fields of language training, speed learning, memory enhancement, Franz Rasch develops training materials and methods that increase intelligence and creativity. Using his reading course first graders will read within one week, Mr. Rasch current project is a course teaching a 3000+ word vocabulary in five days using advanced memory techniques, see http://www.captainmnemo.net
