Author Archives
In 2018 I retired from Weston High School after my 21st year teaching mathematics there. This was also my 44th year as a teacher altogether. Although I’ve retired from Weston, I haven’t retired from teaching: I still teach at Harvard’s Crimson Summer Academy each summer (this coming one will be the 18th!), and I supervise a student teacher through Simmons. For 21 years I taught at the Saturday Course in Milton, MA, and I used to serve on the board of the Dorchester Historical Society.
I read, cook, and spend a lot of time building my model railroad. For some reason I’m left with less free time than would be ideal, considering that I’m supposed to be retired, but somehow I also manage to devote time to my wife, Barbara, and to our excessive number of cats.
Larry Davidson
ljd@larrydavidson.com
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So you think you don’t have an accent?
You do have an accent—even if you think you’re speaking unaccented English. And you do speak a dialect—even if you think you’re speaking “ standard English.” In an amazing three-part must-see video, dialect coach Erik Singer takes us through a… Read More ›
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Remember the Ebonics controversy?
Just over a couple of decades ago, the whole country was buzzing about something called Ebonics, now known as AAVE (African-American Vernacular English). You may or may not remember this, depending on your age and ethnicity. Go watch this short… Read More ›
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Have you read For Whom the SUV Rolls and Farewell to Legs?
Those two titles may remind you slightly of a couple of books by some guy named Hemingway, who was famous mostly for his many six-toed cats. Actually, however, I cheated slightly: the first title is really For Whom the Minivan… Read More ›
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“Scottish cuisine”: an oxymoron?
Think of the world’s great cuisines: French, Italian, Chinese, Greek, Turkish, Japanese, Indian, Thai, and Spanish (though YMMV). You’ll note that most of these are from warm or even hot climates. Very few people list Norwegian, Russian, or Scottish among… Read More ›
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Revisiting Chinatown. (That’s Chinatown, not Chinatown.)
After nearly half a century, I finally decided to rewatch Chinatown, which I only dimly recalled. I remembered that it had been one of my favorite movies at the time. Would it hold up after so many decades? The answer… Read More ›
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What did you read in high-school English?
Just over three months ago I wrote a post about the pros and cons of my high-school experience. One paragraph, in the list of cons, focused on what my classmates and I read in my English classes: When I asked… Read More ›
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We have Open Streets in Dorchester!
Yesterday was Dorchester’s turn to participate in Open Streets Boston. A 2-mile stretch of Dot Ave was closed to traffic and open to pedestrians, bicyclists, pedicabs, community activities, booths for non-profits…and even math! Pictures speak louder than words, right? So,… Read More ›
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Lies, Politics, and Democracy
Knowing the facts is not the same thing as seeing them all put together in a single two-hour documentary. Yes, we all know the story of Trump’s attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021, and we may even know the surrounding… Read More ›
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Jewish gatecrashers in the Ivy League
“Harvard’s run by millionaires,Yale is run by booze,Cornell’s run by farmers’ sons,Columbia is run by Jews. Give a cheer for Baxter Street,another one for Pell,and when the little sheenies die,their souls go straight to Hell.” [Popular song at Ivy League… Read More ›
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Bond. James Bond.
Apparently there are 27 James Bond movies (so far). I had seen only four of them—all before 1970, back in the Connery era—so I figured it was time to start watching again. I was wrong. But I’m getting ahead of… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 