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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Making the Grades
Everyone who has any connection with education — teacher, student, parent, administrator — needs to read Todd Farley’s Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry. Yes, the book is a bit repetitive, and of course it reflects… Read More ›
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Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
I’m sure you’re familiar with all the controversy surrounding Amy Chua’s memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Some of the controversy is well-deserved, but much is not. This book came to the world’s attention through an excerpt published in… Read More ›
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The big cat-drawing contest
My D Block class was even more hyper and less focused than usual today, since it was the afternoon of the last day before vacation. Some of them really wanted to have a cat-drawing contest, so I gave in and… Read More ›
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Massachusetts State Math Playoffs
Congratulations to the Weston High School Math Team for coming in fifth in the state at the Massachusetts State Math Playoffs in Shrewsbury on Monday! We have just learned that those results have qualified us to enter the New England… Read More ›
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Lost in Lexicon, but not lost in Brookline
A terrific turnout last night at the Driscoll School in Brookline. More than half (!) of the fourth- and fifth-graders (and their parents) showed up for an evening event revolving around Penny Noyce’s Lost in Lexicon. My role was to… Read More ›
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A Latin test from 1964
Continuing yesterday’s theme, I offer you a Latin test from 1964, with no comment about how well I would do on it today:
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An AP US History test from 1964
Deep in my attic, in an old file folder, I discovered an AP US History test that I took back in October of 1964: I wonder how many of those questions I could answer correctly today, especially within a 50-minute… Read More ›
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Rubrics
We’re all being pressed to use rubrics. For those of you not in the ed biz, a rubric is described pretty well in Wikipedia: A rubric is a scoring tool for subjective assessments. It is a set of criteria and… Read More ›
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Holmes lives.
I’m currently reading my third Sherlock Holmes pastiche of the month, and I have one more in audiobook format that I still need to listen to. All four are set entirely or in part after the Conan Doyle canon. We’ll… Read More ›
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OK
I recently read OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word, by Allan Metcalf. For some unaccountable reason this book has only two customer reviews on Amazon; there must be some good reason for that. Anyway, Metcalf tells you everything… Read More ›
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A test should tell a story.
A colleague who does not teach in our Math Department was tutoring one of my students. Not being familiar with our mildly unusual Honors Geometry course, she found that she herself did not know how to do the last problem… Read More ›
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English literature, “foreign literature,” and poetry month
When I was talking with a Weston English teacher the other day, I realized that my own high-school experience with literature as assigned by English teachers was badly skewed. “This is an English department, not an American department” was one… Read More ›
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Math should be useful, or fun, or beautiful…
The great Art Benjamin, whom we’ve had the pleasure of listening to twice at Weston High School, made the following remarks in his TED talk: If I had an extra minute, I’d also talk about how we shouldn’t only show the mathematics… Read More ›
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Professional development/Race to Nowhere
Today we participated in an intense professional development (PD) program and worked on our preparation for NEASC accreditation. NEASC work is often frustrating but often useful as well (more on that later). Today’s PD was quite interesting. The main part of… Read More ›
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Suing your child’s preschool
Strange but true (like many of the other news reports heard on Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me): A Manhattan mom is suing a $19,000-a-year preschool, claiming it jeopardized her daughter’s chances of getting into an elite private school…. and the elite… Read More ›
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Diversity at dim sum
Once again we had delicious dim sum at Chau Chow in Dorchester…but one thing was different this time. Usually it happens that either Barbara and I are the only non-Asians in the place or else maybe there are one or… Read More ›
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Pi Day — or Tau Day???
This is a few days late, but… We held our annual observation of Pi Day on Monday in two of my classes and on Tuesday in the other two (since they didn’t meet on Monday). But one of my students… Read More ›
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Bob Devaney’s talks and the Weston Fractal Fair
Professor Robert Devaney of Boston University gave two excellent talks to our precalculus classes (consisting mostly of juniors, with a sprinkling of advanced sophomores and freshmen) on Tuesday. His talk to the college-prep classes (”Precalculus Part One”) focused on the… Read More ›
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Something new every ten years
“We should all embark on something completely new every ten years,” said Roy Strong, as quoted by Susan Hill in Howard’s End is on the Landing. When I read this opinion, I paused, closed the book, and thought for a… Read More ›
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Taste of Dorchester
Come to the Taste of Dorchester on April 28! The food is from Ashmont Grill, Big Moe’s M&M Ribs, Blarney Stone, Butcher Shop Market, Inc., Dot 2 Dot Café, Down Home Delivery & Catering, Flat Black Coffee, Freeport Tavern, Gerard’s Restaurant,… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 