Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 15

• Kapow

  By ljd42 on April 4, 2023

  

  A few months ago I observed that we now have three Thai restaurants along Dorchester Avenue between Lower Mills and Fields Corner! The oldest of these closed briefly a few months ago and recently reopened under new management with a… Read More ›

• The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling

  By ljd42 on April 2, 2023

  

  That’s the title of a seven-episode podcast about the attacks on J.K. Rowling from both the left and the right—originally from the right but now mostly from the left. Personally I think that both groups of critics are wrongheaded and… Read More ›

• Which trig is which?

  By ljd42 on March 31, 2023

  

  A friend of mine claims to have had a bad experience with trigonometry in high school. Is this because she had a bad teacher? (Most people blame their teacher.) Or is it because she was a bad student? Or is… Read More ›

• Which do we want, democracy or fascism? Pick one. (Wait…isn’t this supposed to be a book review?)

  By ljd42 on March 29, 2023

  

  Jo Walton claims to be an optimist. So does Margaret Atwood. Keep that in mind while reading their dystopian novels. If you take the long view, you can see what they mean, but it’s all too easy to imagine that… Read More ›

• S&W, Take Two

  By ljd42 on March 27, 2023

  

  Exactly a month ago I published a review of Smith and Wollensky in this blog. It was based on a single visit, and it was definitely not a 5-star review. More like a 3.5, and that was apparently not satisfactory… Read More ›

• Not a cat chair

  By ljd42 on March 24, 2023

  

  If you think about the word cathedral—as one does—you imagine that it must have originally meant “cat chair,” since you know that hedra is ancient Greek for “chair.” Right? Well, not exactly. But now, at least, you want to read… Read More ›

• One Hour Photo

  By ljd42 on March 22, 2023

  

  Not your typical Robin Williams movie, One Hour Photo is an intense psychological thriller. Most of it takes place in a fictional big-box store called SavMart, which I first thought was supposed to be Target but eventually was clearly WalMart…. Read More ›

• Are you really saying that they mistaught me—not just in one but in two courses in 11th grade?

  By ljd42 on March 20, 2023

  

  They taught it once. They taught it twice. They taught it thrice. So, in the well-known (or perhaps no longer so well known) words of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (definitely better known as Lewis Carroll), it must be true: “Just the… Read More ›

• The English understand wool.

  By ljd42 on March 18, 2023

  

  Helen DeWitt is one of my favorite authors. That’s what I decided after reading her first novel! Actually I decided it at the halfway point. She may be one of my favorites, but she has never achieved true popularity; she’s… Read More ›

• “Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.”

  By ljd42 on March 16, 2023

  

  You’ve always wanted to learn the truth about the interaction between numbers and names, haven’t you? James Propp will be your teacher. In this month’s Mathematical Enrichments, he makes this observation:  Poincaré once wrote “Mathematics is the art of giving… Read More ›

• Monopoly

  By ljd42 on March 14, 2023

  

  Of course I played Monopoly a fair amount as a preteen, teen, and young adult. I even played it a bit as a not-so-young adult. The political implications were never in the front of my mind—except for the one summer… Read More ›

• More Bones

  By ljd42 on March 12, 2023

  

  Why do I continue reading Kathy Reichs’s Temperance Brennan novels? Because I enjoy them, of course! They hold my attention; I like the geeky details of the forensics; and I’m always interested in the character development through the series. Cold… Read More ›

• Do we still think it can’t happen here?

  By ljd42 on March 10, 2023

  

  Ron DeSantis wants to tell me what to teach. And what not to teach. Even though he has broken with Donald Trump, he is following in the Trumpian footsteps. Maybe it’s only half of current Republicans who have authoritarian impulses,… Read More ›

• Ginnels, jitties, snickets, and twitchels

  By ljd42 on March 8, 2023

  

  We’ve all had this experience. You hear or read an unusual word that’s completely new to you—and then, a day or so later, you hear or read it again! Is it a coincidence? It just happened to me with the… Read More ›

• Keep your language!

  By ljd42 on March 6, 2023

  

  Over 97% of Americans are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants—even if some so-called conservatives don’t want to admit it. But many of us who grew up with immigrant parents or grandparents are unable to speak or read the language(s)… Read More ›

• Happy ἐξελαύνω Day!

  By ljd42 on March 4, 2023

  

  This is my not-quite-annual “march forth” post wishing everyone a happy Exelauno Day. In case you’ve forgotten, here is my post from a year ago, which happens to be mostly about learning Ukrainian (!) but opens with remarks about Exelauno… Read More ›

• Can you own a plot?

  By ljd42 on March 3, 2023

  

  “Not another story-within-a-story!” said I to myself, said I. Why am I suddenly reading so many novels with that particular structure? Must be something in the water: a plot by some nefarious organization. By this point you’ve realized that it’s… Read More ›

• Popular culture, math, and computer science

  By ljd42 on March 1, 2023

  

  This puzzle comes from mathematical physicist John Baez. That’s John, not Joan (she is not a mathematical physicist, as far as I know), though they are in fact first cousins. You don’t normally expect that a physicist with a Ph.D…. Read More ›

• S&W

  By ljd42 on February 27, 2023

  

  That stands for Smith and W… …Relax: the W doesn’t stand for Wesson! It stands for Wollensky, of course. Normally Barbara and I would never go to such a high-end restaurant, but this was a special occasion. We had dinner… Read More ›

• What’s so beautiful about algebra?

  By ljd42 on February 26, 2023

  

  “Nothing,” say some of my students. “You can always find the value of x,” say some others. “It’s useful in real life,” says one. “No it isn’t!” says another. By this point we’ve moved far afield from the original question…. Read More ›

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