Tuesday, March 17, 1987 Daily Nebraskan
Memory seminar defended
Page 5
This let ter is to the students at Nil who found
themselves swayed by the seemingly knowing
and misinformed John Osborn, (DN, Marc h 12).
Granted, Osborn may have felt he was doing
everyone a great service; it's too bad he failed so
miserably in his attempt to get the story straight.
In Osborn's own words, he does make one very
accurate and revealing statement: "I acknowl
edge that I know very little about this field, nor
have I ever attended KitteU's seminar." After
this admission, Osborn feels qualified to dis
courage any participation in a seminar he's
never attended. He also alludes to the fact that
all information on this material can be had in the
library. (Information on tax laws can -also be
found, but 1) Is it current? and 2) Is it easily
understood?)
Guest Opinion
So, on to the facts. Setting the record straight,
a page out of the phone book was memorized (4
columns, about 91 names per column). It was
memorized as a promotion to recruit members of
athletic teams to attend my seminar in its
beginning stages. They may have seen that if one
could-memorize more than 2,500 numbers in
such a short period of time, and numbers being
one of the more difficult symbols to memorize,
that perhaps the skills could be used in such
difficult subjects as chemistry, physics and
algebra. Not to mention foreign languages,
scientific terms and vocabulary.
As to the existence of Memory Improvement
systems one need only call "Salt Lake County
Department of Public Works, business license
division, (801) 468-2000 for verification."
Now we have a testimonial from a learned
professor, who, in Osborn's words, "should be
discounted as highly biased" because he works
for a company that organizes seminars. In addi
tion, because my name and number are on file
there, I must work for them as a presenter.
Dr. Paul Timm first attended my seminar more
than two years ago when he organized a group of
teen-agers from his neighborhood to attend my
seminar at no cost. Since Timm has taught pet
sentation skills to the MBA students at Brigharv
Young University, I valued his help and com
ments as to how to improve my presentation
skill's. It was a few months later that he was kind
enough to provide me with his testimonial as to
my seminar.
Granted, he does now work with Prime Learn
ing International; however, he started with them
a few months ago as part of a professional devel
opment leave from his t eaching duties. My name
and phone number are on file with Prime Learn
ing because I did some consulting work for them
to show them how to incorporate a small memory
module in their secretarial workshops on learn
ing names and faces.
Claiming that I developed these systems is
the grossest case of misinformation or miscom
munication I've witnessed to date. I researched
the techniques from books in the library, semin
ars and tapes. I have refined, broken down and
developed easy progressive steps to learning
these techniques, and, most importantly, shown
students how to apply these mnemonic devices
to the real-life problems of college memorization.
The allegation of mysticism, voodoo, etc., was
quite interesting. In all of my demonstrations, I
explained to my audiences that any 6-year-old
could learn this system, that it's quite simple.
Once again, it was intended, as was the phone
book page, to impress on students' minds that
memory techniques can make a seemingly
impossible task very possible. For now, this
demonstration using a phonetic peg system will
have to do, because in the limited time we have
in each fraternity or sorority to present our pro
gram, one hardly has the time to memorize a
page out of a student's biology book.
Osborn also failed to mention that the seminar
had a money-back guarantee. This was done for a
specific purpose. Some students know some of
these techniques, and if $25 was not justified in
their minds; they had nothing to lose, the refund
was available upon request at the conclusion of
the seminar. (None of the 84 students who
attended Thursday nights' seminar requested a
refund, though many asked about the refund on
the way into the seminar, clutching Osborn's
article in their hands).
Students who couldn't learn the techniques
or saw no applicability also were refunded. So
why would anyone ever want to discourage par
ticipation in a seminar that teaches and pro
vides an opportunity for progression?
Bob Kittell
Memory Improvement
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MARCH 16-18 10:00-4:00 PM N. Union Lobby
DATE
TIME
PLACE
1986 ArtCarved Class Rings
3 OtpotH Raqund
ONLY s20 DEPOSIT
NEEDED TO ORDER!
ORDER NOW!
Plaza Level City Campus Union 472-7300
Garden Level East Campus Union 472-1746
-J 1 ,", J
G DH nit
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