First of all, it’s absolutely essential to see it in 3-D, preferably in IMAX. The three-dimensional effects were absolutely convincing, especially in the outdoor scenes, giving the viewer the sense of being in the action rather than watching the action. The result was a thoroughly entertaining, amazing film. I was totally absorbed by it, having no trouble sitting for nearly [...]]]> What more can I add to all the chatter about James Cameron’s Avatar? Not much, except to share my opinions. You probably already know all that you need to know about this movie, and I certainly don’t want to include any spoilers.

First of all, it’s absolutely essential to see it in 3-D, preferably in IMAX. The three-dimensional effects were absolutely convincing, especially in the outdoor scenes, giving the viewer the sense of being in the action rather than watching the action. The result was a thoroughly entertaining, amazing film. I was totally absorbed by it, having no trouble sitting for nearly three hours. (The Tempur-Pedic seats definitely helped! I guess that’s one of the benefits of seeing a movie in a theater that’s located in a furniture store.)

The linguistically sophisticated artificial language of the Na’vi was of course of interest to me, though it was really a minor part of the movie. Although the three-dimensionality allowed subtitles to hover well in front of the action — thereby making them less intrusive than they would be otherwise — it was still appropriate for Cameron to use the device of having the main Na’vi characters be more-or-less capable speakers of English as a second language. Doing so allowed him to get away with minimal use of subtitles. Perhaps I’ll write a follow-up post concerning their own language .

I was surprised to see some little kids at this showing (early Sunday afternoon). Either their parents had no idea that there would be so much violence, or they didn’t care. Avatar is basically a war movie, after all, so they should have cared.

As a war movie, it included every cliché in the book, and therein lies its major flaw. The flaw isn’t the lack of originality; I discount critics who observe that this movie has been made before. Yes, the theme and story line are taken from other efforts, but so what? It’s commonplace for plays and films to do this; even Shakespeare took story lines from elsewhere. No, the flaw is the piling on of cliché after cliché. Fortunately the action and the visual effects are so stunning that it’s almost possible to ignore this problem, but “almost” isn’t good enough. As an unsubtle metaphor for the Europeans’ destruction of American Indians and their lands, it was bound to be somewhat predictable — but it didn’t have to go to such extremes. The result was a collection of one- and two-dimensional characters who fell into situations that anyone in the audience would have expected.

Despite that flaw, and despite its transparent political correctness, Avatar is still a successful film. Aside from the special effects, the spectacular scenery and the attention to detail redeem the story. Go see it — warts and all!

It also got me [...]]]> “I make order out of chaos.” This is how an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in years explains her transition from linguistics to statistics, when people think it’s a complete change of field. It’s how she explains it to non-linguists, of course — as I already knew the connection. But the phrasing really resonates with me. I’ve described elsewhere how the search for patterns and abstract generalizations is what unites linguistics and math teaching in my mind, but I rather like the step up the ladder of abstraction implied by “I make order out of chaos.”

It also got me thinking about why I like the mystery and science fiction genres in popular fiction. My liking for science fiction is no mystery, so to speak: anyone with a mathematical bent is likely to enjoy the conventions of that genre. But what about mysteries? I’d been thinking about that lately, and it occurred to me that mystery writers also make order out of chaos: the unsolved crime is cognitively chaotic, and the solution creates order out of it. Furthermore, the puzzle that’s often involved bears definite kinship to the kinds of puzzles we solve in both math and linguistics. Just a thought…

The youth of Ireland are becoming increasingly poor spellers and writers, and their love of text messaging on cellphones is a major reason why, according to the Education Department.

In a report published Wednesday on national test results in English for about 37,000 students aged 15 and 16, the department’s Examination [...]]]> A lot of adults are complaining that teens are “illiterate” in their writing, especially in email messages — you know, “kids these days…” and all that — but that’s not what I’m seeing. The abysmal level of teenage writing is usually attributed to their addiction to text messaging, a.k.a. texting. For example:

The youth of Ireland are becoming increasingly poor spellers and writers, and their love of text messaging on cellphones is a major reason why, according to the Education Department.

In a report published Wednesday on national test results in English for about 37,000 students aged 15 and 16, the department’s Examination Commission said cutting-edge communications technology has encouraged poor literacy and a blunt, choppy style at odds with academic rigor.

“Text messaging, with its use of phonetic spelling and little or no punctuation, seems to pose a threat to traditional conventions in writing,” said the report written by the department’s chief examiner, whose identity is kept confidential to safeguard the integrity of tests.

The report branded today’s teens “unduly reliant on short sentences, simple tenses and a limited vocabulary.”

…

Ireland is among the world leaders in cell-phone use — in part because of traditionally high costs for conventional phone lines — and surveys indicate that a majority of children have their own mobile phone by age 12, with the most enthusiastic texters sending more than 250 a week.

Yes, that happens to be Ireland. But we hear the same kind of complaints in this country as well. However, as I said above, that’s not what I’m seeing. Of course I may have a very skewed sample, consisting primarily of Weston students, but since I’m not pretending to be doing a statistically valid survey I’ll go ahead with my observations, skewed though they may be. Here’s what I see. I’ll stick to email, since that’s where we’re most likely to see overly informal writing:

Most students know how to address adults (teachers, at least) in their writing, even when using email. The big exception is the capitalization of the pronoun “I,” which often appears uncapitalized. Otherwise their grammar, style, punctuation, and spelling are all pretty reasonable. I’m not claiming that we have works of literature here — merely that the quality of writing is close to that of adults.

To gather my evidence, I looked at 20 consecutive email messages written by my students in October. (As I say, it’s certainly not a rigorous survey, nor was it meant to be.) Here they are in their entirety; I have omitted no messages, nor have I edited anything beyond adding message numbers and altering students’ names. Judge for yourself.

1 Hey Mr. Davidson,

I hope that i could get a recommendation from you. I’m sorry i couldn’t get to you earlier about the recommendation letter.
To make it easier for you, i’ll be sending the info you need over email. However since i do not have the finalized list of the colleges that i would like to apply to, is it possible to hold onto the the rec. till i can get you the list of colleges? After i’ve narrowed my list down i’ll be able to give you the letters that you need to send them off in. Thanks a lot.

---

2 Hey Mr. Davidson,

I am doing a lot better today, yesterday and Tuesday were truly awful though, so although i’m not 100%, I feel “relatively GREAT” and it was very nice to get back to school today. I stopped by your desk after school to talk about what I missed and you weren’t there, but luckily I’ve been getting filled in pretty well from classmates, and borrowed a textbook, so i’m not behind, and just may need some help completing tonights assignment. I noticed a note on your desk that said you will miss tomorrows class, is this true?

Thanks for the check-in, I appreciate it, and I hope to see you soon!

---

3 Hi Mr. Davidson,

This is Stu Dent in your H block Geometry class. I’m just wondering
what days you free after or before school this week before the 18th?
Thanks alot!

---

4

On the westonmath website for #6 on tonight’s homework I’m not sure what the &ndash means. Should I assume the question is for (X+2)^2?

---

5 Hi Mr. Davidson,

I was wondering if there was a possibility I could meet with you tomorrow morning regarding proofs as I am confused going about proving them especially with word problems such as the one with the bus and railroad for example. I’m willing to come whenever you are available (except maybe not 3:00 AM in the morning!).

---

6 Hi Mr. Davidson

I’m having some trouble with the domain and range part of tonight’s homework, as well as the Dr. scheme questions. Could I meet with you at 7:15 tomorrow morning to go over it?

---

7 Hi Mr. Davidson

I’m in your Honors Geometry class Block F. I just have one question. For the sample problems you gave in the book, I’m not quite sure what method I should use to solve the last question, number 43. I usually use guess and check, but I know there could be an equation to solve it, but I’m not quite sure what the equation is.

---

8 Hello Mr. Davidson,
I have registered onto the math blog site and I was wondering how to do I actually post a blog since I have not been able to find the button that allows me to actually make a post.

---

9 Hi Mr. Davidson,

Tomorrow I have a study hall first and last block.  I was wondering if you were free either of those blocks so that I could go over the test with you.

Thanks!

---

10 Hi Mr.Davidson,
I went over the clock problems with a friend and now I understand it so I don’t need to meet with you! Thanks

---

11 Hi Mr Davidson,
Could i see you tommorow morning before school starts to go over some test questions and concepts? Thanks

---

12 Hi Mr. Davidson,

I’m in your F Block Honors Geometry class. I just have one question. On the test, on problem 3, for the collinear points question, I think it was the last one. I got that question wrong because I said the points were collinear. I don’t know why, though, its wrong. Can you please explain it to me so I don’t make the same mistake on future test or quizzes?

Thanks,

---

13 Hello,

I just submitted the post that I created on the blog website.
I did not remember how to make the math look like math.
Also, when I try to preview it, it says “Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.”
I probably did something wrong and I’m not really sure how I can fix it.

Thanks,

---

14 Hi Mr. Davidson,

I think I may have left my math book in your class on Friday. If you have it could you please let me know and I can get it on Tuesday.

Thank you very much and have a good long weekend!

---

15 It is Stu Dent. I have contacted you because i finished my blog, and saved it, but then logged out, and it seems now that the website could be messed up, because when i try, it says “Cheatin’ Uh.” I will continue to try, but could you please respond, because i would like to have my post up.

---

16 Hi Mr. Davidson,
This seems like forever ago, but at the end of last year you said you could help me out by writing my college recommendation.  I have the form from the school and the forms from CommonApp.org almost ready to give you, so I thought I should let you know where I am/remind you.  I am applying to one school Early (November 1), so I also have an envelope from that school, and then I will bring the rest later when I decide what schools I am going to apply to Regular (January 1).
Would you like to meet with me before you write it?  Or can I just drop off the packet of papers with you?
I only have one free, so if we met it would probably have to be either in the morning, during lunch, or quickly after school.
Thanks for all your help,

---

17 Hi Mr.Davidson,
My parents and I discussed my last quiz and test grades we thought
that maybe I should consider taking the CP geometry course. Do you
have any input on this and is there an F block CP geometry class?
Please let me know.
Thank you,

---

18 Mr. Davidson
So i know it’s been a while since we’ve talked but I was wondering if you need anything from me for teacher recs. I will have the envelopes and teacher rec form to you for Thursday. May I drop it off Thursday after school? I am actually just giving you the info (envelope, due date) for the school that I am applying early to because I still have to finalize my other schools. I will tell you the rest of the schools as soon as I finish my list. I hope that’s okay.
Thanks,

---

19 hi mr. davidson!
its Matilda. well i was talking to Stu Dent and he tried helping me with the blogging but it wouldnt work. and he said that i had the same problem as him and the admin messed up the account or something like that. i couldnt write the blog! let me know how to fix it. see you tomorrow!

---

20 Hi Mr. Davidson, I’m finishing up the teacher recommendation package that I plan to give to you tomorrow in school. There are a few things that I can include if you feel that you need or want them: my activity list, parent brag sheet, the teacher rec Basic Questionnaire, etc. Would you like me to include any of these in your package?

Today’s observation is that chairs are for humans. William doesn’t agree:

What accounts for this dramatic drop? Of course we’re talking about only a small subset of the senior class at Weston, so it might not be statistically significant. But I [...]]]> I’ve just sent off my final college recommendations — for a couple of schools that have surprisingly late deadlines of January 10 or January 15. My spreadsheet shows that the students who asked me to write recommendations for them this year altogether applied to an average of 7.5 colleges apiece (ranging from 2 to 14). Last year’s seniors applied to an average of 10.4 colleges apiece (ranging from 5 to 16).

What accounts for this dramatic drop? Of course we’re talking about only a small subset of the senior class at Weston, so it might not be statistically significant. But I do wonder whether there is finally a reaction to the excessive number of applications that the Common App has encouraged, or whether this year’s senior class includes a lot more students admitted early (under Early Decision or Early Action), so they are less likely to apply to a lot of schools in round two, or whether there’s some other explanation I haven’t thought of.

So says Paul Lockhart, and I couldn’t agree more. It’s great having cooperative students who will correctly follow directions in solving problems — or should I say exercises — but following directions is a cheap virtue. As Lockhart observes, you don’t develop your mental faculties that way. On March 28, 2008, I wrote a brief laudatory piece about Lockhart’s fascinating essay, which he has now turned into an irritating book, also called Mathematician’s Lament. That’s too bad, as he has a lot of valid things [...]]]> “Mental acuity of any kind comes from solving problems yourself, not from being told how to solve them.”

So says Paul Lockhart, and I couldn’t agree more. It’s great having cooperative students who will correctly follow directions in solving problems — or should I say exercises — but following directions is a cheap virtue. As Lockhart observes, you don’t develop your mental faculties that way. On March 28, 2008, I wrote a brief laudatory piece about Lockhart’s fascinating essay, which he has now turned into an irritating book, also called Mathematician’s Lament. That’s too bad, as he has a lot of valid things to say. But most readers will be unable to see what’s good because it’s surrounding by so much that’s annoying. In particular, Lockhart seems to take an extreme view in favor of throwing out all curriculum and all direct instruction, replacing everything with student-directed problem solving. I say “seems to take” because in fact that’s not actually his position; it’s just that he gets so carried away with his radical POV that everything else gets lost. So, if you read this book, you need to star the following sentence in particular:

If I object to a pendulum being too far to one side, it doesn’t mean I want it to be all the way on the other side.

Keep that in mind. It’s just that everything Lockhart discusses is in fact all the way on the other side. Consider, for example, this provocative chapter title: “High School Geometry: Instrument of the Devil.” Certainly some students do like geometry, though Lockhart claims that those students would like it even more if it were taught his way. And surely most adults remember their high school geometry class with something less than fondness. The big complaint about high school geometry — and here I agree with Lockhart — is that the central themes of proof and definition are presented so woodenly. Writing proofs about claims that are obvious feels arbitrary and useless, and yet that’s what most of the early months of geometry are filled with. And the two-column format is arbitrary and restrictive, a peculiar American custom that no real mathematician would ever use. As Lockhart observes, “A proof should be an epiphany from the gods, not a coded message from the Pentagon.” But it’s rare experience in high school geometry for students to spend a long time struggling with a non-obvious problem, then to come up with a non-obvious conjecture, and finally to write a convincing proof that shows how the conjecture connects with other knowledge. That’s how it should be done.

A similar issue occurs with definitions:

Definitions matter. They come from aesthetic decisions about what distinctions you as an artist consider important. And they are problem-generated. To make a definition is to highlight and call attention to a feature or a structural property. Historically this comes out of working on a problem, not as a prelude to it.

Hear, hear!

All of this, of course, is driven by one’s concept of what math really is. Lockhart is a pure mathematician, viewing problem-solving and puzzle-solving as rewarding for their own sake, and I agree with him there. But his contempt for applied mathematics will do nothing but turn off most of his readers. It’s important for students to understand that applications come after the math is developed and hardly ever motivate the discovery of new mathematics, but it’s also important for them to work with those applications. Some students will be motivated by that, and everyone will learn something that their future teachers will expect. Nevertheless, Lockhart’s characterization of what math really is is spot on:

Math is not about a collection of “truths” (however useful or interesting they may be). Math is about reason and understanding.

Unfortunately this characterization flies in the face of so much of what is expected of math teachers and math students. MCAS and SATs and science teachers inadvertently encourage the “collection of truths” misconception, even though they of course also want reason and understanding.

Finally, I need to mention the subtitle of Dan Meyer’s blog, dy/dan. The subtitle is simply less helpful. This characterization may seem like an odd one, especially when it’s the subtitle of a blog that’s well worth reading. But Meyer’s resolution to be less helpful is an important one. Like most math teachers, my unthinking inclination is usually to try to be helpful, to answer questions, to point students in the right direction. But Lockhart’s response to a certain question from a student is to observe that “the right thing for me to do as your math teacher would be nothing.” In other words, to be less helpful. That, in the long run, is what will actually be helpful to the student. I just wish that Lockhart had limited himself to a more tempered criticism and had been clearer about taking a balanced approach; he will turn off too many readers who would have a lot to gain from his wisdom if they could only pay attention to what’s good rather than what’s irritating in this provocative book.

Of the five main characters, narrator and protagonist Frederica Hatch is a sophomore at Brookline High School. Two of the others — Frederica’s parents — are well described in the excerpt above. The fourth is her father’s over-the-top ex-wife, Laura Lee French, who serves as the catalyst for conflict and resolution within the novel. The fifth, Dewing College itself, might or might not be based on Pine Manor College; that’s my hunch, though I have no hard evidence to support this conjecture.

As you can probably tell by [...]]]> The first page of Elinor Lipman’s 2006 novel, My Latest Grievance, grabbed my attention immediately:

Of the five main characters, narrator and protagonist Frederica Hatch is a sophomore at Brookline High School. Two of the others — Frederica’s parents — are well described in the excerpt above. The fourth is her father’s over-the-top ex-wife, Laura Lee French, who serves as the catalyst for conflict and resolution within the novel. The fifth, Dewing College itself, might or might not be based on Pine Manor College; that’s my hunch, though I have no hard evidence to support this conjecture.

As you can probably tell by this point, My Latest Grievance is a satire, but a very gentle and sympathetic one. Elinor Lipman is best known as an observer of human interactions and social mores; the added touch of having her novel narrated by an indulged only child of radical parents gives it a point of view that’s fascinating to the reader (at least to this reader). While it’s firmly anchored in Brookline, no special knowledge of the Boston area is needed in order to enjoy reading it.

In case you aren’t familiar with Dunning, take a look at my brief pre-review of The Bookman’s Promise. I wrote that post before I had finished reading the entire book, but in the end it held up as I had expected:

…some [...]]]> Here I am, continuing my efforts to catch up on some of the books I read in 2009. I’ll turn my attention now to writing a capsule review of John Dunning’s The Bookwoman’s Last Fling. As a bibliophile, I’ve had a special fondness for Dunning for many years, but this book just isn’t as good as its predecessors.

In case you aren’t familiar with Dunning, take a look at my brief pre-review of The Bookman’s Promise. I wrote that post before I had finished reading the entire book, but in the end it held up as I had expected:

…some interesting history, a bit too much violence, and unfortunately not quite so much fascinating detail about the book business as the first two books offered the reader… But so far it’s well worth reading, even if it’s a notch below Booked to Die and The Bookman’s Wake.

Unfortunately The Bookwoman’s Last Fling continues the downward trend: it’s still worth reading, but it’s two notches below The Bookman’s Promise; unless you’re committed to Dunning, just read Booked to Die and then The Bookman’s Wake.

Many readers found Marisha Pessl’s narrator (and hence this book, her first novel) annoying. Perhaps I’m biased, because I’ve taught teenagers for many years, but I can’t object when they are merely annoying; you have to look beyond that to the wide panoply of redeeming characteristics. In this case the narrator, Blue van Meer, is a precocious intellectual — precocious to the point of being a definite outlier but not [...]]]> Yes, this is a bizarre title for a novel. But a novel it is. And it continues one of the themes suggested in yesterday’s post: the extraordinary but still believable teenager.

Many readers found Marisha Pessl’s narrator (and hence this book, her first novel) annoying. Perhaps I’m biased, because I’ve taught teenagers for many years, but I can’t object when they are merely annoying; you have to look beyond that to the wide panoply of redeeming characteristics. In this case the narrator, Blue van Meer, is a precocious intellectual — precocious to the point of being a definite outlier but not to the point of stretching credulity. That, of course, is my opinion. Yours may differ. In fact, this is one of the rare occasions when I want to look at the opinions of others. Normally I review books, not reviews of books; but I’ll make an exception this time.

Let’s look at some excerpts from the contrasting but not incompatible reviews in the Washington Post and the New York Times. First comes Donna Rifkind in the Washington Post:

A self-absorbed scholar and a young girl crisscross America by car, flitting through college towns where they endure ill-advised sexual encounters, heartache and a potent dose of popular culture. Studded with ingenious wordplay and recondite allusions, their story veers between highbrow comedy and lowbrow tragedy as it careens toward a couple of ambiguous murders and some crafty detective work.

Ten points if you identified this as the plot of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Extra credit if you also recognize it (minus the pedophilia) as the plot of a much-ballyhooed first novel by Marisha Pessl, who tackles the art of fiction by vigorously associating everything in her book with something else. Constructing the novel as if it were the core curriculum for a literature survey course, complete with a final exam, Pessl gives each chapter the title of a classic literary work to which the episode’s events have a sly connection: Chapter 6, “Brave New World,” describes the first day of a new school year, while in Chapter 11, “Moby-Dick,” a large man drowns in a swimming pool.

Along the way, there are thousands of references to books and movies both real and imagined, as well as an assortment of pen-and-ink drawings.

…

[H]unkering down for 514 pages of frantic literary exhibitionism turns into a weary business for the reader, who after much patient effort deserves to feel something stronger than appreciation for a lot of clever name-dropping and a rush of metaphors.

As a Harvard freshman recounting the events of the previous year, …, Blue remembers being thoroughly in thrall to her father, a political science professor who changes jobs at third-tier colleges so frequently that by age 16 she’s attended 24 different schools. To compensate for this rootlessness (her lepidopterist mom died in a car crash when Blue was 5), Dad has promised his daughter an undisturbed senior year in the North Carolina mountain town of Stockton, where Blue will attend the ultra-preppy St. Gallway School.

It’s at St. Gallway that Blue’s dedication to her pompous, theory-spouting father begins to waver. Her attention is diverted by the school’s most glamorous figures, a clique of five flighty kids called the Bluebloods who meet every Sunday night for dinner at the home of their mentor, Hannah Schneider, a charismatic film teacher.

…

[T]he final third of the book charts Blue’s efforts to prove that the teacher did not commit suicide, as the coroner concluded, but was murdered.

Like Hannah, Pessl herself is something of an expert at evasion, nimbly avoiding scenes that might require emotional delineation, hiding behind this Nabokovian sentence structure or that Hitchcockian plot twist, always equipped to defend each dodge with the tacit reproach that, hey, it’s only a high-school murder mystery, lighten up. Yet here and there the author betrays glimpses of sensitivity, in Blue’s genuine expressions of grief for the early loss of her mother and in this moving evocation of loneliness, framed (of course) in a simile: “To the far-off tune of the blue Volvo driving away, it slipped over me, sadness, deadness, like a sheet over summer furniture.”

These briefly poignant moments are enough to make a reader wish for more, for a book that is less about other books and more about life…

And then we have Janet Maslin in the New York Times:

Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics is the most flashily erudite first novel since Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated. With its pirouettes and cartwheels, its tireless annotations and digressions, it has a similar whiz-kid eagerness to wow the reader.

In Ms. Pessl’s case that means sustaining the mock-academic brio of her title throughout a long, serpentine, seemingly lightweight schoolgirl story. It also means that the narrative…is sectioned into chapters named for works by writers familiar from the classroom.

…

The extremely good news: Special Topics in Calamity Physics soon jettisons its booster rockets and begins to soar. All Ms. Pessl must do is dispel the suspicion that she is dawdling and indicate that serious ingenuity is at play. At that point the teenage insights of the book’s narrator, Blue van Meer, become only part of a more complex construction, and it becomes evident that Ms. Pessl has hidden a secret history beneath her novel’s surface.

This book’s gradual upward trajectory leads it toward mounting suspense, a hall-of-mirrors finale and a coda that is supremely inspired. In the guise of asking questions, Ms. Pessl resoundingly answers a big one: yes, she knew precisely what she was doing all along.

…

Everything about Special Topics in Calamity Physics is comparably coy, convoluted, brightly self-conscious and (to use a word blessedly remote from Blue’s jubilant vocabulary) postmodern. Even the physics equation on the book’s back cover has outsized verve. And what begins as a dubious proposition, in a world wholly without need for additions to its Prep School Confidential bibliography, becomes a whirling, glittering, multifaceted marvel, delivered in an irrepressibly smart and flamboyant new voice. No reference points need be invoked. It speaks for itself.

The book’s triumphant coda is a final exam rehashing questions raised by the narrative. True or false: “Blue van Meer has read too many books.” True or false: “Reading an obscene number of reference books is greatly advantageous to one’s mental health.”

Here’s one not from Ms. Pessl. Q: Is Special Topics in Calamity Physics required reading for devotees of inventive new fiction? A: Yes.

So both reviews are somewhat mixed, but I definitely agree with the overall tenor of the second one. Add this to my list of recommended novels about high schools and high-school students.