Recent Posts - page 119

  • 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 ›

  • Black Maps

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    Black Maps, by Peter Spiegelman, is clearly not for just any random reader of mysteries. It combines the loner private eye — traditional in the noir side of the genre — with the much less hot-blooded (and tiny) sub-genre of… Read More ›

  • The Russo-Japanese War (of the condiments)

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    My colleague Boris gave me a jar of horseradish mayonnaise imported from Russia. Having enjoyed it on roast beef sandwiches, and even ham sandwiches, I decided to do a comparison with the Japanese equivalent, purchased at Kotobukiya in the Porter… Read More ›

  • Scheme overheard

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    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 ›

  • Brainiac

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    All the word geeks, game show geeks, and trivia geeks out there should go read Brainiac, by all-time Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings. Part autobiography, part history of game shows and trivia contests, this fast-reading book is fun to read and… Read More ›

  • Misoverestimating minority populations

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    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

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    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 ›