No, it’s not what you think. Of course there are romantic pairings in high school, and there’s no point in considering them inappropriate. But that’s not what this post is all about. The question is whether a precalculus class that’s… Read More ›
Teaching & Learning
Once again, addressing the achievement gap
We had a day-long workshop last week on the achievement gap, which I’ve discussed in various earlier posts. What troubles all of us is that our black and Latino students (mostly from Dorchester, Roxbury, and other Boston neighborhoods) get significantly… Read More ›
Excellence without a Soul
I highly recommend Excellence without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education, by Harry Lewis. Though nominally about Harvard, it’s really about a much larger domain, including not only elite universities but also elite public high schools such as… Read More ›
Hey, Verizon, $.02 does not equal .02¢
You have to listen to this actual mind-boggling conversation between a Verizon Customer Service manager and a Verizon customer. Here is the first astonishing excerpt: Customer: Do you recognize that there’s a difference between point zero zero two dollars and… Read More ›
“Don’t think about thinking, it’s not on the test”
On NPR’s Morning Edition today there was a story about education and standardized testing, which included a debut performance of “Not on the Test” — a “gentle lullaby for students across the country” by Tom Chapin and John Forster. Do… Read More ›
Somebody Else's Music
I just finished reading Somebody Else’s Music, by Jane Haddam. One of the best in her Gregor Demarkian series, it is distinctly darker than its predecessors. Most interesting to a high-school teacher is its theme of high school as real… Read More ›
Balance or integration?
In many school districts, including Weston, we try to resolve the Math Wars by promoting a balance between skills and concepts. We tend to adopt the party line as promoted by former Education Secretary Richard Riley: We are suffering here… Read More ›
Scheme overheard
This would be a pretty surprising remark to overhear at the next table at a random Chinese restaurant: I’m really enjoying programming in Scheme. At first I hated it, since it was so different, but now I really like it…. Read More ›
Misoverestimating minority populations
It worries me that people so consistently overestimate the populations of all minority groups. We know that estimation is difficult, but the magnitude of the errors that I see has genuine political implications for us as citizens. This isn’t just… Read More ›
Honor Roll
A local suburb, Needham, has decided to stop publishing its High School’s honor roll in the newspaper. Is that a good idea? An article in the local paper explains the reasoning: “We’ve collected valuable data on the issue,” [High School… Read More ›
The Supremes
I’m shocked (but not really surprised) that nobody on Jeopardy the other night knew that Earl Warren was the Chief Justice of the United States for the Supreme Court’s Miranda decision. Isn’t that part of being a well-informed American citizen?… Read More ›
Homework, oral traditions, and religions
Many questions can be raised concerning homework, such as why it is given and what its purpose is. I’ve discussed these big issues in an earlier post. Here I just want to mention a smaller but still significant issue —… Read More ›
Sudburyopoly
I am told that there is an unfortunate preposition in the game of Sudburopoly, where the first half of the slogan of Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School is misstated as “Think of yourself,” rather than “Think for yourself.” I know a… Read More ›
Connecting math with other disciplines
From time to time we try to connect our math teaching with other disciplines. Often this happens naturally — physics examples in precalculus, biology examples in Algebra II, etc. It’s no coincidence that both of these other disciplines are scientific… Read More ›
Leaving the answer blank
If you don’t know the answer, should you leave it blank or should you guess? An argument can be made on each side: On the one hand, many tests (such as the SAT and the AMC) penalize random guesses by… Read More ›
Using Scheme in the so-called real world?
This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post about replying to student questions concerning applicability of a math topic in the “real world.” At Weston we get a similar question with regard to our selection of Scheme as the Math Department’s… Read More ›
Using math in the so-called real world?
So what do we say when we hear that all-too-familar question, “When am I ever going to use this in the real world?” [Grammatical footnote: logically speaking, that sentence should have two question marks at the end, one before and… Read More ›
Sig figs
Science teachers — and science textbooks — generally insist on careful attention to significant figures. Math teachers — and math textbooks — generally pay no attention to them. Here are two representative examples: Our Algebra II textbook contains a word… Read More ›
Teaching linguistics in high school
At Lincoln-Sudbury in the 1970s I taught a rotating sequence of linguistics courses along with my primary assignment of teaching math. As my undergraduate and graduate work were in linguistics, it was a natural fit. In my ten years teaching… Read More ›
Yearbooks and gender
What is it about yearbooks that makes boys unwilling to serve as editors? Year after year, when I look at the list of Weston High School yearbook editors, what do I see? Pulling out four recent yearbooks at random, I… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 