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
-
Swing Time
I’m slowly catching up on some movies that were produced before I was born. One of these was Swing Time (1936), a musical starring the inimitable Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, with music by Jerome Kern. As is common in early musicals, there’s… Read More ›
-
School is a 24/7 Job
Normally I don’t repost somebody else’s blog post in its entirety, but in this case… Mrs. Smith bitched to the Principal that little Alfie’s teachers never called when little Alfie wasn’t doing well in their classes. She didn’t know how… Read More ›
-
Just My Type
What a cool book! Simon Garfield’s Just My Type, subtitled A Book about Fonts, will tell you all you want to know about fonts, in a readable and mostly non-technical style — all you want to know, but not more… Read More ›
-
Proofiness
Read this book! Presidential candidates, and anyone who expects to vote for a presidential candidate, should also read this book. Its subtitle explains the Colbertian word of the title…or does it? Oddly enough, the subtitle changed between the first (hardback)… Read More ›
-
Predicting answers
Before you start solving a problem, predict what the answer will be. Not necessarily the exact answer; an estimate will do. One strategy that I like (but don’t use as often as I should) is to get students to do… Read More ›
-
21 things that will be obsolete by 2020…or will they?
Johns Hopkins professor Shelly Blake-Plock recently wrote an essay listing 21 things (in school) that will be obsolete by 2020. Will they really? Of course there were many doubters, including me. But before we get to the doubts, let’s look at… Read More ›
-
Strategies, techniques, and tricks
Why have I been surprised at the way that many teachers use the word “strategy”? And why does it bother me when teachers refer to “tricks”? Well, I’m glad you asked, so I’ll tell you why I believe that in… Read More ›
-
Jane Austen in Scarsdale: or Love, Death, and the SATs
This satirical novel is an irresistible book for anyone who lives or works in a town like Weston. (I know, the title says Scarsdale, but they’re close enough.) Paula Marantz Cohen has updated Jane Austen’s Persuasion by moving it 200… Read More ›
-
Bay State Model Railroad Museum
A few weeks ago I returned to the oddly named Bay State Model Railroad Museum for its excellent Open House. The reason I say it’s oddly named is that it’s not a museum in the conventional sense; it’s really the headquarters… Read More ›
-
London Under
I first picked up this fascinating book by Peter Ackroyd because I thought it had something to do with the London “Underground,” otherwise known as its subway system. And indeed several parts of the book do concern the Underground. But the… Read More ›
-
The Last Samurai
Don’t you just hate it when someone writes a book review without having actually read the book? Of course I’m not going to do that…but I do need to give a preliminary comment about Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai (not… Read More ›
-
The distance formula
What are the pros and cons of teaching the distance formula? I can think of two of each: Pro #1: It’s useful and convenient. Pro #2: Future teachers may expect your students to know it. Con #1: It’s nothing but… Read More ›
-
Khan Academy revisited
Khan Academy used to be a good idea. Maybe it still is; I haven’t made anything like a thorough review of their hundreds of offerings, so it’s impossible for me to tell. But I’m skeptical. Before examining the reasons for… Read More ›
-
Teaching science through language
We like to claim that linguistics is a science, but I’ve never before seen any explicit discussion of using it to teach scientific principles. An intriguing abstract from Anne Lobeck suggests some possibilities along those lines, particularly pointing out that linguistics… Read More ›
-
Why asking questions might not be the best way to teach
Some years ago, one of my students asked me this question: “Why is it that whenever I ask you a question, you always respond by asking me a question?” I was tempted, of course, to say “Why do you think… Read More ›
-
Among Others
I wish I had read Jo Walton’s Among Others when I was a teenager. Since this novel wasn’t written until 2011, I couldn’t have that opportunity. It would have had a big impact on my life. So I had to settle for… Read More ›
-
Significant figures
Math teachers and science teachers never agree about significant figures — neither about their importance nor about how to use them. Math books and competitions tend to ignore the issue, or else they promulgate arbitrary rules, such as “answers must… Read More ›
-
The City and the City
What an unusual novel! It’s billed as science fiction, but it isn’t really. It’s more like…well…geography fiction, or government fiction, or some other nonexistent category. This fascinating story takes place in the present day (more or less) in a fictional… Read More ›
-
“What Math Students Say”
How many times have you heard math students say these things? (She isn’t one of my students, but she certainly could be.)
-
The WWW Trilogy
Yes! If you want to read a science fiction novel that holds your attention and makes you think, you should definitely read all three books in Robert J. Sawyer’s WWW Trilogy: Wake, Watch, and Wonder. Like much of hard science… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 