For the last few months it has seemed that nobody in Massachusetts appreciates teachers (I’m talking to you in particular, Governor Baker). But then I spotted this sign on someone’s front lawn during my walk today. It is on Msgr…. Read More ›
Teaching & Learning
Code-switching, code-meshing, and linguistic bias in the classroom
Catherine Savini has an interesting piece in a recent issue of Inside Higher Ed. Although it’s aimed at college professors, it applies equally well to secondary educators. The issue is a familiar one: how to respond to students who don’t speak or… Read More ›
Gym Jordan, grammar expert
Leading Republican congressman Jim Jordan is well-known as an expert on “pronouns“:
A number theory discovery by a 12-year-old Nigerian boy! And one by an 11-year-old Massachusetts girl!
Everyone knows the stereotype: mathematical discoveries are made by white and Asian males in their 20s and 30s. Right? Well, like all stereotypes, there’s a certain amount of statistical reality that supports this impression and obscures all examples to the… Read More ›
Harvard, Homosexuality, and the Shaping of American Culture
The title of this post is actually only the subtitle of the book, as you can see in the image of the cover. But “Harvard, Homosexuality, and the Shaping of American Culture” is more specific than the book’s main title,… Read More ›
Why are you still here?
A positive — dare I say uplifting? — story about Zoom learning as we close out annus horribilis 2020! From Patrick Honner: It was the last day of school in 2020 and my students were in breakout rooms finishing up a… Read More ›
Dr. Fauci recalls taking ancient Greek, Latin, and philosophy…
My cousin Mike Laskey interviewed Dr. Fauci on a podcast! Among other important things, we learn that Dr. Fauci was most heavily influenced by his college courses in Greek, Latin, and philosophy. As you can surmise from his public persona,… Read More ›
Who reads poetry anyway?
Most likely you expect that I’m going to answer the question in the title by saying “Not me. I don’t read poetry.” If you’re a pedant — or if you believe that I am — you expect that I’ll say… Read More ›
The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book
I just wish this book had been published 20 years ago! Alex Bellos has compiled an amazing collection of language-related puzzles in the Language Lover’s Puzzle Book, released a few month ago in the UK and more recently elsewhere in the English-speaking… Read More ›
When will I ever use this in real life? (No one ever “solves for x”! (Or do they?))
As I wrote eight years ago, it seems that I discuss this topic every couple of years. But there’s always a new reason to do so. Here is the 2020 reason, expressed in this cartoon: What we have here is a… Read More ›
A number of galactic proportions
Take, say, 73 little cubes (blocks or ordinary D6 dice). Could you arrange them into three perfect cubes? I’ll wait while you try to solve this problem… OK, you probably started by taking 64 of them to make a 4×4×4… Read More ›
Sorry, but we’re just not going to be able to get rid of the Electoral College.
Finally the American people have woken up and understand the Electoral College (EC), or at least its importance. Well, at least somewhat. My Quantitative Reasoning (QR) students at the Crimson Summer Academy (CSA) certainly understand it: how many electors each… Read More ›
Is this the life of a typical college freshman during the pandemic?
Even without actually doing anything, I’m exhausted just from watching this four-minute video! This is definitely not the life of a typical college freshman as portrayed in the media. So the question remains: how many freshmen — excuse me, “first-years” — are… Read More ›
Really? You’re saying Ranked Choice Voting is too hard for adults in Massachusetts?
My former Quantitative Reasoning (QR) students know that Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is superior to First Past the Post (FPTP), the system we use in Massachusetts for most elections. So why did Massachusetts adults vote it down by a convincing… Read More ›
Is it easy to teach an interactive map class online?
Nine months ago I wrote about a mapping workshop at the Boston Public Library. That was before the pandemic, even if it feels like the pandemic has been going on for a couple of years now. Why, you may ask,… Read More ›
What’s wrong with spelling reform anyway? And what about the Shaw Alphabet?
I’ve heard that there are some people who think that English spelling is difficult. In fact, I think I know a couple of them. But nobody has to spend years learning how to spell Spanish words, so why do we… Read More ›
What’s so special about the Mandelbrot Set?
Nobody tires of Mandelbrot Set images, especially the zoomed-in ones. But there aren’t very many non-mathematicians who can explain them — though I hope my former Precalculus students can do so. For everyone else, you really need to watch a… Read More ›
Is this really what (male) math professors are like?
The philosophers in the program were kind and excellent teachers, but the math professors I met in those days were somewhat less skilled at teaching or relating to people. One told us that we should think of him as a… Read More ›
How do I know that they know?
What do we lose by teaching remotely? Here is another follow-up inspired by Patrick Honner in this age of COVID. Honner makes the following important observation: When I taught the IVT last week, I couldn’t walk around class and look… Read More ›
National Museum of Math: new comments
What’s wrong with the National Museum of Math??? A lot, apparently, including race and class discrimination as well as horrible management policies. I wrote a mixed review of this museum last year. I had observed that a lot of the… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 