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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College admissions, the achievement gap, and throwing money at the problem
Boston College (2), Boston University (2), Brandeis, Clark, Denison, Framingham State, Hamilton, Harvard, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Northeastern (2), Skidmore, Suffolk, Tufts, U. of Maine, UNH, UMass Amherst, UMass Boston, Union, Wheaton, and Williams. That’s the complete list of where the… Read More ›
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From strangers to family
Yesterday evening the Crimson Summer Academy held its Tenth Annual Celebration to recognize the conclusion of another summer’s hard work. (Hard to believe that it’s been ten years!) Among the many fine presenters, one in particular stood out: the junior class… Read More ›
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Surrounded by police
“The house next door is surrounded by police, including a swat team.” This wasn’t really what I wanted to hear (four hours ago) in a phone call from Barbara. By now, of course, you’ve probably heard the main story: two… Read More ›
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How many levels should there be?
“I don’t want to stay in Honors Geometry. It’s too difficult!” “I’m bored in regular Geometry. It’s too easy!” We hear remarks like these from a sprinkling of students — sometimes both of them from the same student — usually… Read More ›
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Wall to Nowhere
Sarah Palin may have her Bridge to Nowhere, but Lesley University in Cambridge apparently has its Wall to Nowhere. I spotted this hard-to-miss wall in the parking lot of the Shops at Porter, part of Lesley University. As you can… Read More ›
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All iPads, all the time?
Can we survive in the classroom if we entirely replace laptop computers with tablets? Last summer we converted from laptops to iPads for the incoming sophomores at the Crimson Summer Academy. This summer we expanded the program to the juniors…. Read More ›
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Plagiarism: Pro and con
Pro and con? Perhaps you think this is a deliberately provocative title. Every teacher, after all, is vehemently against plagiarism, right? We are justifiably outraged when a student turns in a paper in which whole paragraphs are cribbed unattributed from… Read More ›
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Graphing lines
So here’s the question: should we teach students that the slope-intercept form of the equation of a line is y = mx + b ? Or should we teach it as y = a + bx ? And does it matter? I contend that it does matter, and that there are several good reasons… Read More ›
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“It’s all mine,” says Douglas
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Not Harry Potter
Just finished reading the first of J.K. Rowling’s two post-Harry-Potter novels. This was The Casual Vacancy, the one she published under her real name. On the whole, my reaction was far more positive than negative. It has very little in common… Read More ›
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T-R-E-A-T-S
Now we have to spell out “T-R-E-A-T-S” instead of saying the whole word…otherwise this is what happens:
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Finally resuming the blog…
…after a four-month hiatus. Stay tuned…
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Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra Concert
Yesterday afternoon, Barbara and I attended a beautiful concert given by the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra at Symphony Hall. Picture yourself there. Close your eyes and just listen. You forget that this was a youth orchestra; you think that the… Read More ›
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As Good as it Gets
So I managed to watch three quarters of As Good as it Gets before deciding it was time to make dinner and I wasn’t interested in finishing this 1997 movie. Despite an excellent performance (of course) from Jack Nicholson, it all just… Read More ›
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As you know, college admissions have become more competitive.
Does it matter that the most competitive colleges are harder to get into than they used to be? It certainly matters at Weston, and I’m sure at other top-ranked high schools as well. The question is whether the net effects… Read More ›
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AIME revised
Contrary to my post of February 22, it turns out that Weston actually has nine students, not eight, who qualified for the AIME. Pravina Samaratunga (junior) took the qualifying test at a different location and therefore wasn’t included in my original list…. Read More ›
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Ruth's Chris
Barbara and I went to Ruth’s Chris last night — the first time for either of us at any Ruth’s Chris location. The positives outweighed the negatives, but… Here’s the scoop. By and large the food was excellent. We both… Read More ›
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Double Indemnity
No spoilers here. I finally saw Double Indemnity, which I should have seen long ago. If you haven’t seen it, do so. This 1944 noir classic is surprising and modern for its time period, although it will still feel outdated to anyone… Read More ›
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The Joy of x
Steven Strogatz has made a useful contribution to the surprisingly large set of math books written for the general public: The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity. I have to admit that I started out… Read More ›
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The Fractalist
I had expected to be able to leaf through The Fractalist: Memoir of a Scientific Maverick, by Benoit Mandelbrot. I had expected that I would spot a couple of interesting nuggets along the way, but that the story couldn’t possibly sustain my… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 