Recent Posts - page 117

  • Watch Your Back!

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    I recently read another funny novel by Donald Westlake, Watch Your Back!, and I can recommend it to anyone with a sense of humor. Though nominally in the thriller genre, this entrant in the Dortmunder series manages to combine convincing… Read More ›

  • Once again, addressing the achievement gap

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    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 ›

  • Cruciverbalism

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    If you have any interest at all in crossword puzzles, you will definitely enjoy Cruciverbalism: A Crossword Fanatic’s Guide to Life in the Grid, a small but well-written book by Stanley Newman and Mark Lasswell. Fascinating, amusing, and full of… Read More ›

  • Arsenic and Old Lace

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    Arsenic and Old Lace is definitely a classic film, so that means I’m supposed to like it — right? I don’t know why I had never seen it before, but I finally got around to it the other day. Unfortunately… Read More ›

  • Off by two ems

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    There’s a flaw in the typography of the sign outside my dentist’s office. It’s neatly lined up in two columns, starting something like this [names changed to preserve anonymity]: John Smith, DMDMary Jones, DDSJoe Gummer, DDSRhonda Radical, DDS    General DentistryDental… Read More ›

  • The Rottweiler

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    The Rottweiler is another excellent book in Ruth Rendell’s collection of thrillers (as distinguished from her Wexford detective novels). There is a richly developed cast of characters, including one who is the favorite suspect of the police but who the… Read More ›

  • Excellence without a Soul

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    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 ›

  • Somersault

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    We tried to watch Somersault, acclaimed all over Australia. It looked like it might be of interest to film buffs and to anyone who works with teenagers (or anyone who has a teenager in the family). But neither Barbara nor… Read More ›

  • 7+2=10

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    I just came across this clipping I had saved from the Boston Globe some years ago. Unfortunately, I don’t know the date, and it’s not really worth the trouble researching it. It quotes Joe Cazazza. who has finally retired from… Read More ›

  • A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines

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    Too often the books I review are mysteries (or novels in related genres, such as psychological thrillers). But not this time (and not next time either). Today we’re talking about a straight, mainstream novel — more or less. As you… Read More ›

  • Hey, Verizon, $.02 does not equal .02¢

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    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”

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    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 ›

  • New Year's Eve at the Ashmont Grill and High Fidelity

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    To celebrate the New Year, Barbara and I just had dinner at the Ashmont Grill, which offered a special menu for New Year’s Eve. Although we hadn’t really intended this to be a “going out in public” experience — like… Read More ›

  • Somebody Else's Music

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    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 ›

  • An obligation to vote?

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    Everyone knows about the 2004 decision of the Massachusetts supreme court legalizing gay marriage, and everyone knows that laws banning gay marriage have been passed in many states and are in the pipeline in others, but out-of-staters may not be… Read More ›

  • Elmira 2006

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    This year’s trip to Elmira was not nearly as interesting as last year’s.

  • Poincaré

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    On NPR’s All Things Considered tonight, there was actually a report about a math problem! To quote science correspondent David Kestenbaum’s report on the Poincaré Conjecture: The journal Science’s “breakthrough of the year” for 2006 is the solution of a… Read More ›

  • The Lincoln Lawyer

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    Recently I read The Lincoln Lawyer, by Michael Connelly, on the strength of an enthusiastic review in the Boston Globe last year. I was not disappointed. Maybe the Globe review explained the title, but if so I didn’t remember. Is… Read More ›

  • Windows Vista

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    I’m shocked, shocked, to see Microsoft labeled as “imitator, not innovator” in the review of Windows Vista in the New York Times of all places.

  • Balance or integration?

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    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 ›