Just finished The Plot to Save Socrates, by Paul Levinson, an intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying science-fiction novel. In many ways it’s in the classic time-travel genre, with the usual issues about preventing paradox and taking future knowledge back to an… Read More ›
Month: March 2006
Who has time to read blogs?
“Who has time to read blogs?” asked one of my colleagues. She went on to guess that blogs can’t have very many readers, since no one has time to read them. “Actually,” I replied, “some blogs have large numbers of… Read More ›
A student speaks out on MCAS
Michael Bendetson [real name used by permission] is a sophomore in my Algebra II class. Today he emerged from the first of many MCAS sessions with the observation that MCAS is supposed to promote education, and yet his math class… Read More ›
Homework: punishment or reward?
More than 400 students at Weston High School are participating in the Relay for Life, a fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society. Everyone is justifiably enthusiastic about this, since it’s a community effort supporting an excellent cause. But that’s not… Read More ›
Birkenstocks
According to movie director Jason Reitman: Nothing says “I want to tell you how to live your life” more than Birkenstocks.
Campaign for the education of the whole child
Schools must ensure every child has access to a rich array of subjects, including social studies, world languages, science, art, music, physical education, and recess, as well as reading and math… [T]he state must provide adequate resources to ensure that… Read More ›
Getting help from tutors and parents
“Everyone in Weston has a math tutor,” says my neighbor in Dorchester. “Kids in Weston do well in math because they all get help from their parents. And they all take math courses outside of school.” Of course this is… Read More ›
Toast
Just finished reading Nigel Slater’s memoir, Toast. Don’t bother.
Two kinds of skepticism
As I mentioned in my post of March 11, some interesting issues were raised on the unfortunate March 10 episode of Numb3rs. There was no explicit mention of the dispute between two kinds of skepticism, but that was actually the… Read More ›
Taking the mission seriously
Earlier this year I tried to figure out whether I had a common mission in all the math classes that I teach. Here’s what I eventually came up with: To empower all students to represent the world quantitatively and to… Read More ›
Turning back the clock
One of the many virtues of writing in a wiki is that previous versions of a document are always readily available. I’m still trying to get used to this. Want to turn the clock back to the way your document… Read More ›
The Murder Room
Just finished listening to the audio CD version of The Murder Room, by P.D. James. It makes an interesting contrast to the Greg Bear novel that I discussed in yesterday’s post. (No, I don’t find it confusing to listen to… Read More ›
Darwin's Children
I’m currently reading the last chapter of Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Children, the sequel to Darwin’s Radio, which I read last month. I wish I liked this one better than I do. You know how sometimes you have the experience of… Read More ›
Not surprised by model railroading
One of my students was surprised — not to mention perplexed and amused — to hear that one of my hobbies was model railroading. “Why are you surprised?” asked one of his classmates. “He’s a math and computer science teacher… Read More ›
If the IRS had discovered the quadratic formula
As you’re sitting there figuring out your taxes, take a look at what the quadratic formula would look like if the IRS had discovered it.
A billion is a substantial number
According to an Associated Press article, dated yesterday, “a billion is a substantial number.” I don’t think we can disagree with that. But the context is, shall we say, a bit implausible: Federal authorities investigating a man who smuggled money… Read More ›
Pi Day
Today, of course, was Pi Day. One of my mathematically devoted students not only baked brownies decorated with the digits of pi — only a small fraction of them, alas 🙂 — but also brought in a CD of “Mathematical… Read More ›
George Bush, student of English
One of my students is having great difficulty understanding the abstract ideas of additive and multiplicative inverses and identities, especially in the context of matrix algebra. Finally he’s so frustrated that he exclaims, “I feel like George Bush in an… Read More ›
Wiki values & learning curves
Why am I finding it so difficult to get used to be a writer on a wiki, not merely a reader? There’s something about the whole process that still feels alien to me. Somehow the learning curve seems unnecessarily steep…. Read More ›
Skepticism is a virtue
One of my tenth-graders gleefully tells me about a CS professor at the University of Wisconsin who held a contest in which he challenged others to “hack” into his Mac, and someone did so in 30 minutes. At least that… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 