Today we took 200 high-school freshmen on a full-day combined geometry-and-physics field trip to the Museum of Science. It was fun, educational, and…exhausting. Sometimes it was like herding cats. Fortunately we had a dozen adults, so no one individual was responsible… Read More ›
What a mystifying play! Yesterday I went to see Einstein’s Dreams at the Central Square Theater, and I wish I brought Dr. Korsunsky along so that he could have explained the physics to me. A year of honors physics in high school was… Read More ›
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 ›
Reading Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels is a guilty pleasure. The Boston and Cambridge locales are spot on, the dialog is snappy, and most of the plots are entertaining. Or perhaps I should say it was a guilty pleasure, as Parker died… Read More ›
Pixar? Math? What a combination! When I wrote about what I learned at the NCTM Annual Meeting back in April, I observed that geometric transformations and mathematical models were common themes at that conference. Transformations seem fairly abstract, even if… Read More ›
The new Boston Public Market opened a couple of weeks ago to much fanfare. Along with a lot of positive publicity, there were some vocal critics, so I had to check it out. This isn’t the kind of farm stand… Read More ›
Just over four years ago, I favorably reviewed the Sea Breeze Mexican Grill, which had just opened in our neighborhood. This restaurant chugged along for a while, being an adequate neighborhood restaurant but nothing special. My initial enthusiasm began to wane…. Read More ›
Music professor and composer Delvyn Case gave a refreshing and informative talk yesterday afternoon about the music of the Beatles. The talk, of course, was part of the Dorchester Historical Society’s lecture series. Of course. What do I hear you… Read More ›
Douglas is world-famous now: he has just appeared on TUAW, and he is very excited about this exposure.
This is an engaging memoir by Boston politico Larry DiCara, former City Councillor and former mayoral candidate. Part political history, part personal, it provides a convincing insider’s account of Boston politics in the ’70s and ’80s, focusing on the busing… Read More ›
I don’t know why this sign on a barber shop in Dorchester Lower Mills rubs me the wrong way, but it does:
In early June, Barbara and I decided to celebrate our upcoming June 23 anniversary by having dinner at Abby Park, since Barbara’s friend Mimi McCaffrey would be performing with her band, The Blue Hotel. The dinner was surprisingly good (after three… Read More ›
A little over a year ago, I wrote a post in which I speculated about whether 88 Wharf was going out of business. I had liked this Milton restaurant a lot back in 2009–2011, but by 2012 it had gone downhill…. Read More ›
I’m uncharacteristically speechless. As Dr. Boyce Watkins puts it, “Rich, white kids have ‘affluenza,’ poor, black kids go to prison.” Here’s the story: A wealthy teen who killed four people in a Texas drunk driving accident will not go to… Read More ›
So I’m in the lobby outside Bella Luna Restaurant in the Brewery Small Business Complex in Jamaica Plain, looking at the bulletin board, and I spot the juxtaposition of these two notices on their community bulletin board. I’ve drawn blue… Read More ›
The Franklin Park Zoo is only two miles from my home, and I’m a member, but I don’t get there often enough. But I had a great time there yesterday — and how often does one get to visit a… Read More ›
This title is stolen directly from an excellent piece by John Spencer, whose blog is always worth reading. It’s clear from context that Spencer lives in a middle-class district and teaches in a low-income one. This combination is of course… Read More ›
I hate to use a phrase that was coined by a senior advisor to President George W. Bush. But use it I must…and even in a similar context. Michael Gerson described the all-too-common educational practice of expecting less from members… Read More ›
What do meerkats, the Canadian Pacific, coral reefs, and the Dead Sea scrolls all have in common? Maybe I should have added a fifth item, so we could play “one of these things is not like the others.” But that’s… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 