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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Copenhagen
So…it’s hard to avoid telling a bad joke about uncertainty…you know, “Heisenberg and Bohr walk into a bar…” But I’m going to try hard to stay away from such jokes, Not that the play isn’t amusing. In fact it has… Read More ›
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The Ophelia Cut
You’re probably wondering how many John Lescroart mystery novels featuring Dismas Hardy I’ve read at this point. No, you’re not wondering that? That’s just as well, since I’m not at all sure; there are 14 in all, and they seem… Read More ›
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What’s wrong with Strunk and White?
The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, is certainly a popular book, but its popularity is richly undeserved. There, I said it. A recent article by Stanford’s Asya Pereltsvaig in the Languages of the World blog explains why the popularity of Strunk… Read More ›
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“You’re not actually bad at math.”
This picture sits atop an interesting article in Slate magazine, titled “You’re not actually bad at math” and subtitled “A new way to think about how to reason.” Although I call the article “interesting,” it’s ultimately disappointing. It raises several… Read More ›
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A Little Night Music
Yesterday afternoon Barbara and I went to see A Little Night Music at the Huntington Theatre. Go see it! Although I consider myself something of a fan of Stephen Sondheim, I had never seen this particular musical before, either on stage… Read More ›
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Standards of mathematical practice: A portfolio
Check out Tina Cardone’s post about standards of mathematical practice. Her suggestions relate closely to my post of August 30, where I discussed the attributes of a good mathematician and how we’re planning to measure them in Weston. There’s a… Read More ›
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Common bonds…or One No Trump
What do these three have in common? Tea-partiers who distrust experienced teachers and blame them for everything that’s wrong in education. Climate-deniers who distrust scientists. Republicans who prefer any of the three highest-polling candidates (Trump, Carson, Fiorina). They’re all right-wingers, of course,… Read More ›
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Why?
What is the key question? Not to sound like Abbott and Costello, but actually “why” is the key question. A year ago, my boss’s boss, Pam Bator — new in that role at the time — started a blog called“Why?” Note… Read More ›
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Using primary sources in teaching, even in teaching math
Primary sources should provide a significant portion of our information. History teachers know this, of course, but it’s rare among math teachers. Even though my major academic interests are math and linguistics/languages, I was deeply affected by the best course I took… Read More ›
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Teaching isn’t brain surgery
I love the provocative title of this talk by philosopher Harry Brighouse: “Teaching’s not exactly brain surgery, is it?” Brighouse is trying to provoke us into thinking that his talk is going to be a teacher-hating rant by some Tea Partier…. Read More ›
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Social skills and teamwork are primary
Some of my students hate groupwork. I’m sympathetic; I used to hate it too. Working in a group slows you down, these students say; it forces you to cooperate with less-capable classmates; it makes you assume responsibility for other people’s failings. There… Read More ›
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How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life
We all like Dilbert. Well, some of us like Dilbert. Those of us who have worked in the software industry post copies of Dilbert cartoons near our desks because they are so much on target about the high-tech workplace and… Read More ›
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“Everyone has to raise their hands”
The great Sam Shah has written another classic blog post, a post that needs to win a prize for immediately persuading me to implement what he recommends. How often does that happen? Here’s the central paragraph: If your group has a question, everyone… Read More ›
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The Shining Girls
What an unusual book! The genre-defying novel The Shining Girls, by South African author Lauren Beukes, might not be your cup of tea…but give it a try. Don’t worry about its genre. Is it science fiction? Is it fantasy? Is it a… Read More ›
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“I’m shocked, shocked to find that cheating is going on in here!”
A couple of weeks ago I was shocked —shocked, I tell you — to find a headline in the Boston Globe reading “Harvard, MIT researchers find cheating in online courses.” Imagine that! You have an online course, where students are… Read More ›
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Fantasy Internships
For the second year in a row, our college-prep Algebra II classes are all doing a year-long applied math project centering on cryptography, which has long been one of the four units in our Algebra II curriculum. This project is… Read More ›
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Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away
Plato! Google! What a combination! Philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein imagines what would happen if Plato were somehow still alive and were visiting Google, being interviewed on talk shows, etc. This premise, of course, requires a certain suspension of disbelief,… Read More ›
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Seveneves
Another fine novel from the great Neal Stephenson! Though not by any means his best, Seveneves is still a five-star story. Go read it. At only 880 pages, you’ll be able to finish it in a day or two. Well…no. It really… Read More ›
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What Language is: And What it isn’t and What it Could Be
Sometimes people ask me to recommend a good book on linguistics for the general reader — not a textbook, not a technical treatise, just an informative (and accurate) explanation of what linguistics is all about. I’ve never quite been sure… Read More ›
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Attributes of a good mathematician
In a Professional Development activity a couple of years ago, we brainstormed the “attributes of a good mathematician.” These were supposed to be the characteristics that a successful math student should be developing, so we started thinking about how to… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 