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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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 ›
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Supreme Musical Artists of the Past Fifty Years
As I mentioned in my post of four days ago, my sophomores at Crimson Summer Academy (CSA) are currently studying models of voting. While I’m trying to move them away from cuteness as a criterion and toward serious consideration of… Read More ›
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MBTA fares steady in real dollars for 100 years
Take a close look at the yellow bars in this bar chart:Much to my surprise, it turns out that subway fares in Boston have remained nearly unchanged for 110 years when adjusted for inflation, especially when you ignore the short-lived… Read More ›
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No surprise: they support Obama.
As I mentioned in my post of two days ago, the sophomore component of the summer course I teach at Crimson Summer Academy focuses on models of voting. Although the emphasis is primarily on applied mathematics, the 2008 course was… Read More ›
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Interred with their Bones
After many hours of listening — and I do mean many — I have finally finished the audiobook version of Interred with Their Bones, by Jennifer Lee Carrell. At times I wasn’t sure whether it was worth slogging through to… Read More ›
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Cuteness counts
My regular readers know that I teach Quantitative Reasoning (QR) at the Crimson Summer Academy (CSA) over the summer. (If you don’t how what CSA is, read my blog posts from May 7, 2007, and April 30, 2008.) The theme… Read More ›
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Roche Bros. soft-shells better than Legal Seafood's!
Which is a better place to buy soft-shell crabs, the Legal Seafoods fish market at Chestnut Hill or the Roche Bros. supermarket in West Roxbury? The obvious answer is Legal, of course. Everyone knows that fish markets are better than… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 