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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Pronouns again!
Pronouns — as well as other linguistic tidbits — continue to be an issue far beyond what one might expect. Linguist Dennis Baron continues to be the primary authority on the topic of pronouns, and only partly because of their… Read More ›
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RIP, Douglas (2004-2020)
He was a very good cat. He helped me build my model railroad, and he loved to sit on my lap. He was so affectionate that we often called him Huggie Dougie. He will be missed.
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Buffy and Star Trek — and the Jews
Until recently I hadn’t thought about any connections between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Trek, nor about any connections between Star Trek and the Jews. So what happened recently to update that pluperfect verb “hadn’t realized”? Well, as I’ve mentioned before, one of my… Read More ›
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Looking back over a summer of teaching remotely with Zoom and Canvas
So my course is over now, and I’m in the midst of final grading, which means I have a little perspective about how this new experience went. Twice this summer I’ve written about Zoom-based teaching and learning, first on July 3… Read More ›
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Sigh, Gone
A coming-of-age memoir by a Vietnamese refugee. That’s a flat, factual description of this powerful book. It doesn’t capture much of what it is like. The full title — Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the… Read More ›
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Should everyone in your class be able to earn an A?
This question was inspired by a very interesting post in Computing Education Research Blog (anonymous, but probably by Mark Guzdial). There are (at least) three ways in which you might be interpreting it: Is it OK if everyone in the class… Read More ›
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Eve (my great-niece)
Starting early on her STEM preparation:
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On not playing poker
Can a psychology Ph.D. who has never played poker before become a championship poker pro? Apparently so! Maria Konnikova has been making the rounds, promoting her new book, The Biggest Bluff. I heard her on NPR and on Freakonomics, but you might… Read More ›
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What— hieroglyphics in AI??? (and in Google?)
You’ve heard of Fabricius, right? Actually, probably not. I hadn’t either. Here’s Google’s description of it: Fabricius, a Google Arts & Culture Lab Experiment that uses machine learning to help translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. That sounds implausible, but it’s true…. Read More ›
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Stories are sticky. Statistics, not so much.
Last month I was listening to a Freakonomics episode that really stuck with me. That’s what it was about. Stickiness. As teachers, we would like our lessons to be sticky. As citizens, we would like certain political messages to be… Read More ›
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The Existential Joss Whedon: Evil And Human Freedom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly And Serenity
Don’t go away! OK, a reasonable response to this book title might be “How geeky can you get‽” I mean, the pop-culture-plus-intellectual combo inherent in The Existential Joss Whedon: Evil And Human Freedom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly… Read More ›
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Nobody sends messages by fax anymore… or do they?
I was wrong. I admit it. For years I’ve been saying that it’s ridiculously archaic to be using fax technology. I said that in 2020… and in 2019… and in… well, I’ve been saying it since 2010 at least. It… Read More ›
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School-reopening plans
Harvard staff writer Colleen Walsh asks whether we are “agonizing over school-reopening plans.” We certainly are! In fact, that’s all I seem to be reading about these days. Should schools open in-person, remote, or hybrid? Whether it’s Donald Trump’s screeds… Read More ›
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Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso
Two or three weeks ago I wrote a piece about the complications of Hispanic surnames. Despite the complications, there is definitely something appealing about taking your surname from both parents, not just from the father. The problem, of course, comes… Read More ›
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Model trains are not cat toys!!!
You can skip to 1:20 if you’re impatient:
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High school students! You can learn linguistics online!
Linguistics is the science of language. While most often classified as a social science, it’s really an interdisciplinary field that sits at the intersection of social sciences, humanities, and STEM – language is such a fundamental piece of our collective… Read More ›
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The myth of “learning styles”
It says here that 90% of teachers believe two related claims: There are four different learning styles — visual, auditory, reading/writing, kinesthetic. Lessons need to address all four. For several reasons I have long been skeptical of statements like the… Read More ›
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He’er, his’er, him’er: Pronouns in the news, 1912 edition
Pronouns again! There are (at least) two different issues swirling around pronouns: Singular they, which I wrote about in 2018 Calling someone by their preferred pronouns (in terms of gender), which I wrote about earlier this month Both of these issues… Read More ›
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I can’t give secure assessments in a remote teaching-and-learning setting!
Don’t tell anyone: there’s a dirty little secret here! I have some bad news: people cheat. More specifically, students cheat on tests and other assessments. So, how do you give secure assessments in a remote teaching-and-learning setting? It’s all too… Read More ›
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Stuck in the past
You say you didn’t learn cryptography in high school or college? And you didn’t learn it on your own, as some of us did? It isn’t too late! In that case you’ve probably never heard of the Vigenère Cipher, so… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 