Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 33

• Should “exam schools” exist?

  By ljd42 on July 1, 2021

  Boston Latin School. Stuyvesant High School. Two of the very finest public schools in the nation. Should they exist? 50 years ago I would have been taken aback by the very question. Of course they should exist! Who would doubt… Read More ›

• Should we be teaching applied math in high school?

  By ljd42 on June 28, 2021

  “Of course we should,” I hear you say. “What good is math if it doesn’t have any read-world applications?” Let me unpack your reply. In one short paragraph it brings up at least half a dozen responses. We’ll discuss a… Read More ›

• Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir, by Ruth Reichl

  By ljd42 on June 26, 2021

  Are you old enough to have heard of Ruth Reichl, former restaurant critic for the New York Times and former editor-in-chief for Gourmet Magazine? If you haven’t read her work—which now includes a whole bunch of memoirs, a couple of… Read More ›

• What language do they speak in Scotland?

  By ljd42 on June 24, 2021

  Scottish, you say? English? Gaelic? Scots? All of the above? Sounds like a simple question…but it isn’t. In the newly elected Scottish Parliament, where members were allowed to take their oaths in the language of their choice, the following languages… Read More ›

• The Burglar in Short Order, by Lawrence Block…plus a comment about reviewers

  By ljd42 on June 22, 2021

  Perhaps you are familiar with Lawrence Block’s oeuvre. If so, you’ll think you know what the title of this book means: it must be the latest in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series, and Bernie must be taking a job in a… Read More ›

• Looking forward (mostly) to another summer of teaching remotely

  By ljd42 on June 20, 2021

  Tomorrow I will meet my teaching assistants, and two days later I will meet the students in my class. I am looking forward to both. Actually, there are several errors in that short paragraph: My teaching assistants are actually called… Read More ›

• The Art of Violence, by S.J. Rozan

  By ljd42 on June 18, 2021

  Unusually so for an S.J. Rozan novel, there’s not a whole lot about Chinese-American culture in this one. But it’s fascinating nonetheless. Rather than Chinese-American culture, this time it’s the New York City art world that the reader learns something… Read More ›

• All the Devils are Here, by Louise Penny

  By ljd42 on June 16, 2021

  Maybe you’re not a Louise Penny fan, though I don’t know why you aren’t. If you aren’t, why aren’t you? It’s possible, of course, that you subscribe to the snobby belief that any New York Times bestseller can’t possibly be… Read More ›

• The “Ich bin ein Berliner” myth. Admit it, you’ve always believed this urban legend, haven’t you?

  By ljd42 on June 14, 2021

  You know JFK’s famous speech in 1963, where he said “Ich bin ein Berliner,” where the American pedants and English-language German books all claim that it really means “I am a jelly donut,” not “I am a Berliner” as Kennedy… Read More ›

• Inherit the Shoes, by E.J. Copperman

  By ljd42 on June 12, 2021

  This is a genuinely funny mystery. We need funny these days, don’t we? If you haven’t heard of E.J. Copperman, read my reviews of two of his earlier books: The Question of the Missing Head and its sequel, The Question… Read More ›

• Punching down or punching up?

  By ljd42 on June 10, 2021

  “Why do we have to have a Black History Month?” whined one of my less favorite Weston students in February of 2016. “Why don’t we have a White History Month?” “Because,” I replied without taking time to think, “every month… Read More ›

• All Girls

  By ljd42 on June 8, 2021

  As you can tell from the title, this novel is about an all-girls school. Or maybe you can’t tell that, but it’s still true. We’re not talking about a working-class Catholic girls’ school from South Boston, but a traditionally preppy… Read More ›

• Yikes! Lying with statistics! About COVID! And from Massachusetts officials, no less!

  By ljd42 on June 6, 2021

  Apparently schools are magical places where kids don’t get COVID. You know, because youth. To prove this, the Mass Department of Public Health has just released this informative graph: Look at the bars. As you can tell from a mere… Read More ›

• Finding Freedom (Freedom, Maine, of course—were you thinking of something else?)

  By ljd42 on June 5, 2021

  Did you go to summer camp in Freedom, Maine? I did. And at least two of my students did. The summer camp in question is Hidden Valley Camp. (No, nothing to do with ranch dressing, as some people claim to… Read More ›

• Kafka on K-12 math education

  By ljd42 on June 3, 2021

  What, you may wonder, did Franz Kafka have to say about K–12 math education? Probably nothing, you might say to yourself. But you would be wrong. At least according to Ben Orlin. As you know, Kafka’s second-most-famous novel, The Trial,… Read More ›

• Avoid a risk in eleven languages!

  By ljd42 on June 1, 2021

  Look at the image below. How many of these eleven languages can you identify? No fair asking Dr. Google! And I don’t think we can count English, since if you’re reading this blog you obviously can identify English. So how… Read More ›

• Vichit-Vadakan

  By ljd42 on May 30, 2021

  When you watched the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions last week, you noticed the outstanding performance of finalist Veronica Vichit-Vadakan. And you probably wondered about her last name. You figured that there were several possibilities: perhaps she has a parent named… Read More ›

• Nine Nasty Words

  By ljd42 on May 29, 2021

  John McWhorter is a well-known (at least in certain circles) public intellectual, mostly because of his first-rate podcast, Lexicon Valley. His latest book, Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever, is a lively but scholarly account… Read More ›

• A Conspiracy of Bones by Kathy Reichs

  By ljd42 on May 27, 2021

  Don’t read this Temperance Brennan novel if you are a lover of Fox News and/or think that Trump really won the 2020 election! Even though political issues take up only about 3% of this forensic mystery, you’ll still be too… Read More ›

• Restaurants need more business on Tuesdays. So we had to go eat at Tavolo last night.

  By ljd42 on May 26, 2021

  Restaurants need more business on Tuesdays. So we had to go eat at Tavolo last night. I know, it was quite a sacrifice, but somebody had to do it. Barbara had a margherita pizza with a side of house meatballs… Read More ›

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