We were in Manhattan, after all, so we spent a portion of each day at a museum. I’ve already reported on the Tolkien exhibit we saw at the Morgan. The next day we went to the National Museum of Mathematics,… Read More ›
Teaching & Learning
An upcoming reunion — words and all
Yikes! My 50th college reunion is coming up! (You already know this if you happen to have read a certain post that I wrote a couple of months ago.) What was the famous class of 1969 like? “All happy graduating… Read More ›
Roots and wings
Looking back, do you like the way your parents raised you? Eight of my nine principal academic interests came from my dad: in alphabetical order we have editing, history, languages, law, maps, math, philosophy, and typography. We’re only missing computer… Read More ›
The Israeli election, consciousness-raising, a potential Nobel Peace Prize winner, the college admissions scandal, the U.S. constitution, and mostly a Sierpinskitasch — all in one post
Six topics in a single blog post? How can that be? Well, it’s all because those are six of the topics discussed in a single blog post in Scott Aaronson’s interesting blog, Shtetl-Optimized — all being examples of things that make… Read More ›
Crypto: The KEY to Algebra.
This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post, where I wrote “I also gave a second talk, in a breakout session, on cryptography.” The crypto talk was a bit more informal than the keynote; it had an audience of about a… Read More ›
I gave the keynote address… and lived to tell the tale!
Yesterday I delivered the Keynote Address at the annual conference of the New England Mathematical Association of Two Year Colleges. Despite being an INTJ — which means that I should have been exhausted by the presence of so many other people —… Read More ›
A student’s take on testing and related pressures
Hello my name is worthless Name number and date State your class and hour Let the rubric pick your fate This is the first stanza of a high-school student’s poem, as posted by her teacher, Kevin Bosworth, in Diane Ravitch’s blog…. Read More ›
No Pi Day?
This is the first time in 26 years that I haven’t been able to observe a weekday Pi Day with any of my classes. Sigh. But there are plenty of online resources for my past, present, and future students.
Weston’s 17th Fractal Fair
I returned to Weston yesterday for its 17th annual Fractal Fair. That’s a lot of fractal fairs! As you might expect for a subject that keeps evolving every year, with an entirely new set of exhibitors every year, the fair… Read More ›
The top universities for linguistics?
Are these really the top universities for linguistics? That’s what the QS World University Rankings by Subject says. I’ve been skeptical of lists like this as I watched high-school ratings over two decades from publications like Boston Magazine and U.S. News, paying special attention… Read More ›
Happy Exelauno Day!
Schools in this entire area (not just Roxbury Latin!) are closed today in honor of Ἐξελαύνω (Exelauno) Day. Or maybe there’s some other reason.
“Why Girls Beat Boys at School and Lose to Them at the Office”
Gender-based generalizations are almost always wrong. When they aren’t wrong, they are at least misleading, because nobody listens when you explain that you are speaking in statistics, not in absolutes. Nevertheless, generalizations can be useful aids to thinking about the… Read More ›
Here in the Northeast it’s not Virginia — or is it?
Virginia was the home of the capital of the Confederacy, so the recent events in Virginia might not have surprised you, but could they happen here in the Northeast? What follows is a lightly edited version of a true account… Read More ›
Teaching and coaching
One of my former colleagues gave up teaching — at least for a while — to become a “math coach.” “What does that mean?” you may well ask. That’s what I asked, at any rate. We all know what an… Read More ›
Computational thinking — but where’s the beef?
Do we believe what the Wolfram Blog says about computational thinking? Maybe. I’m suspicious of the very title of the post: The Computational Classroom: Easy Ways to Introduce Computational Thinking into Your Lessons. Anything that promises “easy ways” is automatically… Read More ›
Can an introverted teacher thrive?
John Spencer writes: My dog is also an introvert. I didn’t realize that was possible with dogs, but it is. She likes to have “me time.” If things get too loud and crazy, she will walk into the other room…. Read More ›
Better dead than coed?
“Andover will go coed over my dead body!” That’s what my AP Latin teacher told us at least three or four times during my senior year. His prediction didn’t quite come true, but it was close: in 1973, the year… Read More ›
Should you pay attention to what your English teacher says?
I could answer by saying “no, you shouldn’t” — but my colleagues and friends who teach English would be up in arms. Instead, I can say “yes, but question authority” — i.e., ask for evidence, not just rules that are… Read More ›
What’s the difference between honors and regular math classes?
When you were in high school, did you take honors or regular math classes? Or a mixture of the two, depending on the year? In any case, what motivated your decision? What’s the difference between the two levels — or,… Read More ›
How some people talk to teachers
Excerpts from a recent article in McSweeney’s, “If people talked to other professionals the way they talk to teachers”: “Ah, a zookeeper. So, you just babysit the animals all day?” – – – “My colon never acts this way at… Read More ›
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