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 ›
Weston
The Winter's Tale
I’ve never read it; I had never seen it before last night. The Weston High Theater Company is currently performing one of Shakespeare’s less well known plays, The Winter’s Tale. It’s very definitely worth seeing, with several outstanding performances and… 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 ›
Ah, that explains it
Some thoughtful reflections on the election — from Grover Norquist, best known for being head of Americans for Tax Reform, as well as being a distinguished alumnus of Weston High School and a close Republican colleague of Karl Rove: Nobody… 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 ›
Former students
Now that I’ve been teaching in Weston for almost ten years, I seem to be running into a surprising number of former students of mine (from Lincoln-Sudbury, but now through other connections). Weston isn’t exactly far from either Lincoln or… Read More ›
Mathematica and Maple
At Weston High School we’re considering the use of mathematical symbol-manipulation software such as Mathematica or Maple. Our theory is to pick one of these for a trial run for a year — just one copy per teacher, for use… Read More ›
Continuity and retention in math classes
I’m sure we’re not alone in finding that there’s distressingly little retention from year to year in our math classes. One of the big differences between honors and non-honors (“college-prep”) classes is that most students in the former can be… Read More ›
They're nerds in a good way
As usual, I picked up Barbara after work, and we asked each other, “How was your day?” I relayed three brief anecdotes to her: Just before one of my classes was about to start, I overheard one student say to… Read More ›
Weston supports its schools
On Saturday the residents of Weston voted to override the restrictions of Proposition 2½, thereby providing another year of adequate funding for its schools. Yes, I know that “they can afford it,” but in all too many well-to-do towns the… Read More ›
Rating high schools
What kind of metric should we use in order to rate high schools (assuming, of course, that we should rate high schools comparatively, which is a big assumption). According to Newsweek, we should be calculating A/S, where A is the… Read More ›
Math and Magic
The Weston High School Math Club just returned from an enjoyable and informative talk on “Mathematics and Magic Tricks,” presented by Prof. Persi Diaconis of Stanford University and sponsored by the Clay Mathematics Institute. As always — well, as we… Read More ›
Urinetown
Yesterday I saw Weston High School’s production of Urinetown. It was exceptionally well done, with excellent acting, singing, and dancing, as well as a first-rate performance by the tiny orchestra in the pit. Time flew by, and the two-and-a-quarter hours… Read More ›
Big Picture Curriculum Day
Today was the assigned date for the Math Department’s Big Picture Curriculum Day, which meant a full-day workshop with no math classes. Although we were not thrilled about having to miss two consecutive days of math classes — especially troublesome… Read More ›
Career Day
Just completed another successful Career Day at Weston High School. We started with keynote speakers: Barry and Eliot of Jordan’s Furniture — actually only Eliot, as Barry didn’t show up — or maybe it was Eliot who didn’t show up… Read More ›
Not too much eye contact
I wonder how many Weston students would want to go to Pensacola Christian College. Check out the fascinating article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, which reports an interesting set of written and unwritten rules: At Pensacola any physical contact… Read More ›
Homework: punishment or reward?
More than 400 students at Weston High School are participating in the Relay for Life, a fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society. Everyone is justifiably enthusiastic about this, since it’s a community effort supporting an excellent cause. But that’s not… Read More ›
Getting help from tutors and parents
“Everyone in Weston has a math tutor,” says my neighbor in Dorchester. “Kids in Weston do well in math because they all get help from their parents. And they all take math courses outside of school.” Of course this is… Read More ›
Taking the mission seriously
Earlier this year I tried to figure out whether I had a common mission in all the math classes that I teach. Here’s what I eventually came up with: To empower all students to represent the world quantitatively and to… Read More ›
George Bush, student of English
One of my students is having great difficulty understanding the abstract ideas of additive and multiplicative inverses and identities, especially in the context of matrix algebra. Finally he’s so frustrated that he exclaims, “I feel like George Bush in an… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 