Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 19

• Where can I sit?

  By ljd42 on November 3, 2022

  

  I went up to the den to sit and read in the easy chair, with my feet on the ottoman. But Flicka, of course, was occupying the ottoman again, and William left no room in the easy chair, which was… Read More ›

• Every Last Fear

  By ljd42 on November 2, 2022

  

  Ordinarily you would never expect me to want to read a book with that title. Ordinarily I would never expect to want to read a book with that title. But it had been recommended to me by a reader I… Read More ›

• Were math skills truly destroyed by the pandemic? What is the solution?

  By ljd42 on October 31, 2022

  

  “Disrupted learning during the pandemic brought student achievement among students in Boston and statewide to the lowest levels in a decade or more, according to new data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.” So began an article in the… Read More ›

• Yikes! Rear-ended in my own driveway!

  By ljd42 on October 29, 2022

  

  Bang! What was that? At 7:10 Thursday evening, just as we were about to sit down to dinner, Barbara and I heard a loud bang that appeared to come from our driveway! Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. So… Read More ›

• How many Massachusetts cities and towns can you name?

  By ljd42 on October 28, 2022

  

  Well, at least I beat Steph Solis. But she’ll probably remind me that “it’s not a competition” if she ever sees this. So here’s the situation. Axios Boston posted a link to a site where you can test yourself by… Read More ›

• I’m shocked, shocked! Middle-schoolers were hiding Satanic messages in their mural!

  By ljd42 on October 27, 2022

  

  Take a look at the mural, designed and painted by a high-school student for the Child and Adolescent Health Center at Grant Middle School in Grant, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids: I’m sure you can see the Satanic messages…. Read More ›

• “When napping on the ottoman…

  By ljd42 on October 25, 2022

  

  …it’s very important to show off your extra toes, and to sprawl out so there’s no room for anyone else to sit there.” So says Flicka.

• The woman in the library handed me The Woman in the Library.

  By ljd42 on October 24, 2022

  

  This is the second time in less than a month that I’ve had to use typography to disambiguate the title of a post. This is the better of the two examples, both because it contains the very same phrase twice… Read More ›

• How to build a metaverse

  By ljd42 on October 22, 2022

  

  Cats may have nine lives. You don’t, but at least you can have a Second Life. Second Life, as you probably know, is an example of a metaverse. Do not confuse this with the new name of Facebook’s parent corporation,… Read More ›

• Think globally, eat locally…at Tavolo.

  By ljd42 on October 20, 2022

  

  Another delicious destination last night, all of half a mile away, a relaxing evening at one of our neighborhood’s pair of favorites: Chris Douglass’s Tavolo Ristorante. We started with rosemary focaccia, which always comes with chili flakes, parmesan, and evoo…. Read More ›

• Reading Latin and Ancient Greek for fun and profit. For what? Fun? Yes, fun. Really. And the profit was purely intellectual, not financial.

  By ljd42 on October 19, 2022

  

  Even in my circles, Latin and Greek are not exactly common topics of conversation. Friends and relatives are surprised whenever I read something in Ancient Greek—or even in Latin—for fun. OK, I’m weird. But you probably knew that already. What… Read More ›

• “A round kitty bed…

  By ljd42 on October 17, 2022

  

  …is the perfect shape for curling up in,” says William. “Circles rule!” he added geometrically.

• Do you say Shábbos or Shabbát?

  By ljd42 on October 16, 2022

  

  Shabbos (stress on first syllable, second vowel “o,” ends in “s”) or shabbat (stress on last syllable, second vowel “a,” ends in “t”)? Why can’t we agree on how to pronounce Hebrew? How about beth, bet, or beis? Shibboleth or… Read More ›

• Revisiting Jane Langton

  By ljd42 on October 14, 2022

  

  No, not revisiting her in person: she died four years ago, and I had never met her. The title of this post means that I have just finished rereading two of her Homer Kelly novels. If you know the first… Read More ›

• Why was this esteemed professor fired?

  By ljd42 on October 12, 2022

  

  Apparently because his organic chemistry course was difficult (“too hard,” some students said). Organic chemistry, of course, is supposed to be difficult. So there must be more to the story than that. But what is the rest of the story?… Read More ›

• Standardized tests: what (if anything) do MCAS results tell us?

  By ljd42 on October 10, 2022

  

  You can readily find both sides of the ongoing MCAS debate, a debate that has been ongoing for 30 years now. Like many—most? all?—other states, Massachusetts has a threshold score on a set of standardized tests as one of its… Read More ›

• The library had Something to Hide.

  By ljd42 on October 8, 2022

  

  No, no. The typography is wrong in that title: it should be “The library had Something to Hide,” not “The library had something to hide.” Something to Hide is the latest novel by Elizabeth George; I had to wait for… Read More ›

• So you think you don’t have an accent?

  By ljd42 on October 6, 2022

  You do have an accent—even if you think you’re speaking unaccented English. And you do speak a dialect—even if you think you’re speaking “ standard English.” In an amazing three-part must-see video, dialect coach Erik Singer takes us through a… Read More ›

• Remember the Ebonics controversy?

  By ljd42 on October 4, 2022

  

  Just over a couple of decades ago, the whole country was buzzing about something called Ebonics, now known as AAVE (African-American Vernacular English). You may or may not remember this, depending on your age and ethnicity. Go watch this short… Read More ›

• Have you read For Whom the SUV Rolls and Farewell to Legs?

  By ljd42 on October 2, 2022

  

  Those two titles may remind you slightly of a couple of books by some guy named Hemingway, who was famous mostly for his many six-toed cats. Actually, however, I cheated slightly: the first title is really For Whom the Minivan… Read More ›

• ‹ Older Entries
• Newer Entries ›