My sister, Ellen Davidson, died unexpectedly in her sleep Wednesday morning at age 77. No information yet about cause of death, although she did have Parkinson’s, so that may be it. If you knew her, you realize that she was… Read More ›
Teaching & Learning
Triple threat: Carl Sagan, critical thinking, and an exam
Carl Sagan. A blast from the past, you’re going to tell me! But not really. As several commenters have pointed out after watching the video linked below, he’s more relevant than ever at this point. So go watch it yourself… Read More ›
Truly these are oldies but goodies — songs from… wait for it… two millennia ago!
Back in the ancient world, when I was in high school, a friend and classmate of mine was named Dwight Wayne Batteau, better known (then and now) as Robin Batteau. For quite a while now he has been half of… Read More ›
Measles and polio down in the schoolyard
The Brits know the danger of RFK Jr, so why don’t Americans? Click on the image to hear what the Marsh family says — or rather sings. (If you aren’t old enough to recognize the song they’re parodying, go back… Read More ›
A former student’s PhD defense
The highlight of my week was a talk at MIT yesterday by a former Weston student of mine, Akiva Gordon. You may think that I must not get out much if a lecture at MIT was the highlight of my… Read More ›
My 10 Favorite Books Redux
When I just happened to be looking at a post I wrote 17 years ago (for reasons that I will explain below), I was surprised to realize that today’s list of my favorite books wouldn’t be very different from that… Read More ›
Not on the Test
Recorded 16 years ago, but even more relevant today:
Baskerville!
Four years ago I wrote a post about the Baskerville typeface, Of course my post had to be titled The Font of the Baskervilles; I had no choice. And now we have an entire book called Baskerville, subtitled The Biography… Read More ›
Math for English Majors
No, I was never an English major (although my mom was). I wasn’t even a math major (although I taught math for decades). But, as a linguistics major, I had entwining connections with both English and math, as linguistics intersects… Read More ›
“You can’t possibly be asking me to read an entire book!” he exclaimed.
At his public high school, [this first-year student at an Ivy League university] had never been required to read an entire book. He had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover. That… Read More ›
Two surprising Ancestry conclusions
Capitalization matters. Occasionally. The title of this post can be read as written, with an upper-case “A,” or it can be read as spoken aloud, with a lower-case “a” (not that case choice can easily be heard in speech, though… Read More ›
Why accelerate in math?
Looking back over five decades (more or less) of teaching high-school mathematics, I estimate that maybe 30–40 of the students I have taught over the years were truly accelerated in math. But let’s define our terms first: So, you ask,… Read More ›
Not just for nerds, not just for geeks.
Suppose you heard from someone (me, for instance) that you might enjoy a book titled Thinking Inside the Box. What would you expect it to be about? Perhaps some sort of pushback against those of us who advocate thinking outside… Read More ›
But what if that little engine just couldn’t?
You probably remember the inspirational story from your childhood, The Little Engine that Could. Yes, I understand, that story is supposed to be inspirational…but I’ve always considered it pernicious. Pernicious. How can that be? Well, I was reminded of that… Read More ›
Rethinking grading
“You got an A in Algebra One in your previous school, but you clearly don’t know very much algebra. How did you get that A?” was my question to a certain high-school freshman I was teaching. No, it was not… Read More ›
Some experiences with ChatGPT
In recent months I’ve been desultorily exploring ChatGPT, for better or for worse. In the following examples you might want to note GPT’s impressive use of English syntax and vocabulary, combined with an impressive amount of lying/inaccurate facts: Finally, as… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 