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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

• Don’t shoot off fireworks in residential neighborhoods…

  By ljd42 on July 4, 2022

  

  …where they scare cats and dogs, trigger PTSD in war veterans, and are illegal.

• 42: From crosswords to jigsaws to the meaning of life

  By ljd42 on July 3, 2022

  

  Another exciting book from A.J. Jacobs! 42: From crosswords to jigsaws to the meaning of life is not the title of the book. As Lewis Carroll might say, it’s not even the name of the book. Nor is it what… Read More ›

• Can you pronounce dBar as one syllable?

  By ljd42 on July 1, 2022

  

  Barbara and I had a lovely dinner at dBar, outside on their beautiful patio…but we forgot to take pictures! ☹️ I suppose that means it didn’t happen. So we’ll settle for a photo from OpenTable. Barbara started with a “jumbo… Read More ›

• And now…I’m back to teaching…

  By ljd42 on June 29, 2022

  

  Ten months ago was when I had most recently taught a class. But that was by Zoom, of course. As was my teaching in the previous summer. So it has really been almost three years since I’ve taught a live… Read More ›

• More and more teachers are leaving the teaching profession.

  By ljd42 on June 27, 2022

  

  Yes, I suppose I’m part of the problem, not part of the solution. But I didn’t exactly leave the teaching profession: I just retired from my position at Weston High School. Being “semi-retired,” I’m still teaching every summer at the… Read More ›

• All four cats…

  By ljd42 on June 26, 2022

  

  companionably eating their dinner together. And should be no fighting over the food bowls, with four bowls for four cats:

• Gender issues: a perspective from a Russian Jewish mathematician

  By ljd42 on June 24, 2022

  

  “My mom used to tell me that most men do not like brainy women,” writes well-known mathematician Tanya Khovanova. Well-known in certain circles, anyway. Female, Russian-American, Jewish—there are a lot of possible identity issues here. I’ve written about Khovanova twice… Read More ›

• What’s an “app crit”? And why should I care?

  By ljd42 on June 22, 2022

  Perhaps for some odd reason you have never looked at a modern edition of an ancient or medieval text—whether in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Old Norse, Sanskrit, Old High German, or whatever. In that case, it’s not too late to start!… Read More ›

• Back when Heinlein was antifa (really!)

  By ljd42 on June 20, 2022

  

  When I was growing up and reading a lot of science fiction, the Holy Trinity of sf writers consisted of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein. Often they were called “The Big Three.” They had a number of… Read More ›

• I finally got to see the world’s finest model railroad, but…

  By ljd42 on June 19, 2022

  

  As I drove along Main Street in Peabody yesterday, the first bad omen was the sight of the old-fashioned parking meters in front of the Franklin & South Manchester Railroad. Quarters only! The problem was that I no longer carry… Read More ›