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
-
Life after exams
It’s tough to keep kids focused and engaged after they’ve finished their final exams. As I blogged earlier, our math exams were on the 14th… but school continues until the 23rd! Everyone knows that tests and grades are all that… Read More ›
-
Fermat's Last Theorem limericks
Weston High School held a math haiku contest, but maybe we should have had a math limerick contest instead. Here are some math limericks about the proof of Fermat’s last theorem (from a contest held at the University of Illinois… Read More ›
-
Cantor's proofs
A lot of my precalculus students today didn’t like and/or didn’t believe Cantor’s proofs of the denumerability of the rationals and the non-denumerability of the reals. A few articulated their disbelief; most were quiet and attentive, but how many of… Read More ›
-
Stunning graphs of equations
You have got to go look at the Visual Dictionary of Famous Plane Curves and study some of the stunning images that Xah Lee has collected. I particularly recommend his collection of sinusoids and his gallery of graphics based on… Read More ›
-
Beware the Algebrator
Yes, there really is a product called The Algebrator. Their slogan is, “You Type in Your Homework Problem. Algebrator does the Rest!” Here is an excerpt from one of their ads. What’s wrong with this picture?
-
Too hot to think
It wasn’t a great day for taking math exams. I opened up the windows and doors in my classroom at 7 AM to get some cross-ventilation, but when the exam started at 7:35 it was already 83 degrees in my… Read More ›
-
Amusing calculus book?
The pseudonymous Rudbeckia Hirta writes about “the most amusing book ever written about calculus”: The Historical Development of the Calculus, by C.H. Edwards. I know, you don’t think the competition for most amusing calculus book is very stiff, but I’m… Read More ›
-
The TeachScheme conference
The TeachScheme conference (see my post of 5/22) went very well. Because of some changes in the program, we actually were granted 15 minutes for our talk! I came away with quite a number of interesting ideas, both for the… Read More ›
-
Representations
Dennis and I were talking about multiple representations. Multiple representations are one of the Big Ideas that wend their way through all our math courses. A table and a graph and a function machine and a mapping diagram are all… Read More ›
-
Awards
Is Weston High School the only school that gives out too many awards? Probably not. I counted 14 awards for one of our seniors, and 14 for another as well! And, of course, there were hundreds of others for seniors…. Read More ›
-
Numb3rs
Please read Graham Cormode’s review of the TV show, “Numb3rs” (which he claims is pronounced “Numbthreers” rather than “Numbers”). Brief excerpt: Given low initial expectations, it was probably one of the better attempts to show mathematical topics within the context… Read More ›
-
Literature & math: imaginary gardens with real toads
This week’s New York Times Book Review contains a fascinating Literary Map of Manhattan, preceded by an explanatory article written by Ethicist Randy Cohen. Quoting Meg Wolitzer, Cohen defines his (their?) “cartographic motto”: a strong sense of specificity, even though… Read More ›
-
What math has taught him
Sam Hughes is the author of the Venn Diagram cited in my previous post. I also recommend his list of “Things mathematics has taught me”: That there are such things as unanswerable questions — indeed, provably unanswerable questions That Occam’s… Read More ›
-
Don’t confuse England with Britain
Perhaps a Venn Diagram would help.
-
Statistics for kids
Do check out the NCES Students’ Classroom site. Good stuff — even though a lot of it is in Comic Sans (see yesterday’s post).
-
Ban Comic Sans!
In a column in this week’s Boston Phoenix, Mike Miliard reports on the worldwide campaign by Dave and Holly Combs to ban the Comic Sans font: …It’s Comic Sans, the goofy, ungainly typeface, meant to mimic handwriting that’s somehow proliferated… Read More ›
-
Another gender difference?
My impression is that there are significantly more female teen bloggers than male ones, but maybe I’m wrong. A fascinating study by David Huffaker says that “BlogCensus randomly sampled 490,000 blogs to find 40% male and 36% female, with the… Read More ›
-
Homework considered harmful
Homework can be counterproductive, according to an article on the physorg.com website. Here are a few excerpts: Instead of improving educational achievement in countries around the world, increases in homework may actually undercut teaching effectiveness and worsen disparities in student… Read More ›
-
Building learning communities
A conference on Building Learning Communities — right here in Weston! I don’t know much about it, but it’s led by Wellesley’s distinguished former tech coordinator, Alan November, and the blurb looks interesting. Stay tuned for more info…
-
Chris Lydon redux
Yesterday Christopher Lydon returned to NPR with his new show/blog called Open Source. Day #2 concluded a few minutes ago. Actually, of course, it was only the broadcast portion that concluded a few minutes ago. The Internet portion — the… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 