I don’t know why I never knew about the Cornell Math Explorers Club before now. Its website is a terrific enrichment resource for high-school math students and their teachers, with a wonderful assortment of slightly offbeat topics that are right… Read More ›
Teaching & Learning
Can the right to choose be detrimental?
I always start off each class in September with a seating chart where the students are seated in alphabetical order. This arrangement is the quickest way for me to learn the names of the 75–95 names in all my classes,… Read More ›
Numb3rs, Season Six — and the Unexpected Quiz
On the other hand, the season opener of Numb3rs — Season Six, which is hard to believe! — was pretty good, even it was skimpy on the math and a bit long on tensions between Charlie and Amita. But this… Read More ›
Spring Awakening
Go see the musical version of Spring Awakening at the Colonial Theater if you’re a parent or a teacher or a teen, or if you’ve ever been one of those. This disturbing German play from 1891 is not exactly typical… Read More ›
Sullivan, Möller, Krauthammer, and Noonan
I can’t keep up with Andrew Sullivan, since he posts about 42 entries a day. (I’m not exaggerating!) But I just read the following email from one of his readers and I have to pass it on: First they tortured… Read More ›
The New England Playoffs
No, not football — too late for that. And not basketball — although it’s the right season for that. I’m talking, of course, about the New England Association of Math Leagues Playoffs, which took place today at Canton High School…. Read More ›
This is Your Brain on Music
I don’t usually read books just on the basis of advertising, so I first checked with my colleague the music teacher before I decided to read the new book with such intriguing ads: Daniel J. Levitin’s This is Your Brain… Read More ›
Unnecessarily difficult
A few years ago, one of my former students from Honors Precalculus informed me that my course had been “unnecessarily difficult.” An interesting phrase. “What does that mean?” was my puzzled response. Let’s call her Rachel (not her real name)…. Read More ›
Overzealous adults
Kathryn Cramer writes about the new book, Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedon We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry, by Leonore Skenazy. I’ve reserved a copy through the Minuteman Library Network; maybe I’ll write a review in this… Read More ›
The forest or the trees?
I was just thinking about some of the difficulties that many high-school students have when attempting to learn math. Aside from those who face external obstacles — such as brain damage, severe emotional problems, or extremely inadequate teaching — we… Read More ›
Linguistics, mathematics, and the general public
Just about everyone can speak, so we all have an opinion about language. Just about everyone can count, so we all have an opinion about math. Everyone’s an expert. After reading uninformed opinions about both, I decided to compare and… Read More ›
"You must be a Democrat."
The thorny question of grading took a new twist yesterday afternoon. I’ve discussed grading before — in my posts of 11/30/2005 and 12/20/2007 — and I’m not going to rehash those arguments. Sometimes I’m wrong, but on these issues I’m… Read More ›
Fourth in the Commonwealth
Congratulations to the Weston High School math team for their excellent showing in the state playoffs on Friday in Shrewsbury! We finished fourth in the state among medium-sized high schools (the schools with which we compete) and will therefore be… Read More ›
The Seventh Annual Fractal Fair
Seven is a lucky number, so no one was surprised that the seventh annual Fractal Fair at Weston High School turned out to be the best one so far. Of course there were many great exhibits in each of the previous fairs, but… Read More ›
Birthday/Sel de la Terre
Over the past few weeks, a number of my sophomores have been trying to figure out my birthday. All they knew was that it was somewhere in February. Even though I had told them that one of my students (now… Read More ›
Parental communication
Here is a strange note that I received from a parent of a 16-year-old student [names changed to protect, etc., etc.]: Mr. Davidson — Jimmy had trouble with the math project and would like to email you as soon as… Read More ›
Predictably Irrational
I generally find that non-fiction works are difficult to follow in the audiobook format. Perhaps it’s because non-fiction books remind the reader of college lectures, so there’s an impulse to take notes. Perhaps it’s because they tend to be dryer… Read More ›
Playing suburban patty cake
Catching up on a blog written by fellow Dorchester resident Candelaria Silva, I came across a post from a year and a half ago, “All White People, All the Time,” which caught my eye for several reasons: first of all,… Read More ›
The Numbers Behind Numb3rs
My students sometimes ask me whether the mathematics in the television show Numb3rs is real. This question, among others, is explored in a fascinating book, The Numbers behind Numb3rs: Solving Crime with Mathematics, by mathematicians Keith Devlin and Gary Lorden…. Read More ›
Dump “No Child Left Behind” Completely?
Yes, dump NCLB completely. But first read Brian Harvey’s brief article in the Blue Sky: New Ideas for the Obama Administration publication out of the UC Berkeley Law School. He’s right, of course.
Learning Strategies 