Author Archives
In 2018 I semi-retired by retiring from Weston High School after my 21st year teaching mathematics there. This was also my 44th year as a teacher altogether. In 2023 I retired fully, adding in my 18 years at Harvard’s Crimson Summer Academy each summer. For 21 years I had 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 varying number of cats (once up to six, but now sadly down to one).
Larry Davidson
ljd@larrydavidson.com
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And they say that girls can't do math…
So why is it that the top two mathletes on Weston High School’s Math Team are freshmen girls? And a year young for their grade, at that? Check out the situation from ten months ago. But it’s only two data… Read More ›
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Obama and the Achievement Gap
Now that we’ve elected an African-American intellectual to the highest office in the land, can a reduction in the achievement gap be far behind? For many years we’ve been observing that black male students see very few role models for… Read More ›
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iPhone games
Having been an enthusiastic iPhone user for the past four months, I’m not surprised that many of my students want to play games on it (at least those students who don’t have iPhones themselves; this is Weston, after all). That’s… Read More ›
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Turn your iPhone into an ocarina.
I recently installed an unusual application on my iPhone: Ocarina. This program turns your iPhone into a four-hole ocarina, with the holes outlined on the iPhone’s touch-sensitive screen. But the really cool thing is that you actually blow into your… Read More ›
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Teaching spreadsheets in high school math classes
Should high-school math classes be teaching Excel? Or, more generally, should we be teaching spreadsheet use — and Excel just happens to dominate the market? We have been exploring these issues at Weston High School. Certainly the right point of… Read More ›
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"Everyone else does it."
The Josephson Institute Study of the Ethics of American Youth has been widely reported on such widely varied outlets as National Public Radio, Fox News, and Yahoo News. They report “a troubling picture of our future politicians and parents, cops… Read More ›
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The Big Ideas of Algebra, Part One
Earlier this month I participated in a fascinating two-day seminar on The Big Ideas of Algebra, taught by Deborah Hughes-Hallett and sponsored by Teachers as Scholars. Although I undoubtedly talked too much, I figure that that was because I had… Read More ›
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"Opportunity, compassion, honor, excellence, Davidson"
I saw this catalog the other day, and I found the cover strangely appealing: I’m not sure which part I liked better: the “Davidson Bill of Rights” at the bottom, or the list of words at the top, terminating in… Read More ›
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The Girl of His Dreams
If you can’t travel to Venice in the real world, the next best thing is to travel vicariously in the novels of Donna Leon. Formally speaking, these novels are squarely in the mystery genre, but Leon devotes as much attention… Read More ›
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Meme abuse
What’s a meme? Well, those of us who have spent too many years on the Internet (from its inception in 1969, actually, when it was called the ARPAnet) and those of us who have read The Selfish Gene, by Richard… Read More ›
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Reading the OED and The Professor and the Madman
I have recently read two unconnected but closely related non-fiction books: Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, by Ammon Shea, and The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester. Probably I should have read them in the… Read More ›
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Spanish foods?
Following up on yesterday’s footnote, I need to mention another linguistic annoyance: the misuse of the word “Spanish.” Yes, it correctly describes the language that is spoken not only in Spain but also in much of Central and South America,… Read More ›
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Midsummer Night's Dream
Kudos* to the Weston High School Theater Company for its outstanding production of Midsummer Night’s Dream the past three nights. Among the excellent cast, I first want to mention Katherine Donahue (Helena) and Anna Been (Hermia), who were exceptionally effective… Read More ›
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Teaching RSA in high school
By this point I’ve taught simplified versions of the RSA algorithm to ten different cohorts of teens: four years’ worth of Honors Algebra II students at Weston High School, juniors for four summers at Crimson Summer Academy, and two years’… Read More ›
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Dim Sum at Chau Chow
Two years ago I promised a review of the dim sum at the then-new branch of Chau Chow in Dorchester, but I don’t think I ever wrote one. So here, at long last, is that review. Barbara and I ate… Read More ›
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Do I look Russian?
One day I walk into a Russian grocery store in Watertown, and the owner starts speaking to me in Russian; I don’t understand a word. Another day I walk into a Russian grocery store in Waban, and the employee at… Read More ›
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Interpreting political data
I want my CSA sophomores to understand many sorts of visual representations of data — tables, charts, graphs, etc. — especially in the context of elections, since we’re applying mathematics to models of voting. This summer, of course, we have… Read More ›
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Zakiyyah's Concert
Instead of being out in the thunderstorm this afternoon, I attended a beautiful concert performance by my fellow Dorchesterite and former student, coloratura soprano Zakiyyah Sutton. (Yes, I had to look it up too. I used to know what coloratura… Read More ›
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Ashmont Grill revisited
It was too hot to cook today, so Barbara and I went to the Ashmont Grill, along with our friend Cheri. This was our third dinner visit there in the past six months or so (in addition to a couple… Read More ›
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What kids call their parents…and their parents' friends
Just getting around to blogging this, but there was a fascinating article a few weeks ago in the Boston Globe, made all the more relevant to me because it mentioned several of my Weston students and was written by the… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 