Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 58

• Do we have fair elections? Can we? Do we have equal representation? Can we?

  By ljd42 on June 1, 2019

  

  Continuing with my 50th reunion, check out this map of Pennsylvania’s second Congressional district, which is actually not the most gerrymandered in the country, although it’s in the running. It illustrates what I had expected when I decided to go… Read More ›

• Still more about the reunion. (Will it ever end? Yes, it really will… but not yet.)

  By ljd42 on May 31, 2019

  

  “True-blue American Yalie George Bush versus pinko-Crimson Harvard Mike Dukakis.” That‘s what some Republicans were saying back in 1988 when George H.W. Bush was running against Michael Dukakis. The color prejudices are understandable, and maybe even the college prejudices, but… Read More ›

• “We were going to change the world. What went wrong?”

  By ljd42 on May 30, 2019

  

  Not everything went wrong. In many ways we did change the world. Continuing to describe my 50th reunion of the Harvard Class, let’s move on to a Tuesday symposium titled “We were going to change the world. What went right?… Read More ›

• “Vote early and often,” he said; “support whoever the Democratic nominee is.”

  By ljd42 on May 29, 2019

  

  No, it wasn’t a political rally. It was a reunion: the 50th reunion of the Harvard Class of 1969. One speaker, Bob Hughes, exemplified a running theme of the entire reunion by pointing out what we can do:  “Vote early… Read More ›

• Vietnam War legacy, Al Gore, and more: The first 24 hours of the reunion

  By ljd42 on May 28, 2019

  

  Exhausting and overwhelming! That’s what the first day of my 50th Reunion was like. Not so much for the usual reason that exhausts and overwhelms us introverts — too many people — but because of the intensity of the experiences… Read More ›

• We all love long words.

  By ljd42 on May 26, 2019

  

  We all love impressively long words, don’t we? We especially love words from languages like German and Turkish, which are known for harboring such beasts —like Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän and muvaffakiyetsizleştiricileştiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmişsinizcesine. But those are not particularly natural words in German and Turkish respectively,… Read More ›

• Tolkien, the movie

  By ljd42 on May 24, 2019

  

  The new biopic, Tolkien, was clearly written for me. But you’ll enjoy it too. What, you may wonder, do I mean by claiming that it was written for me? Of course that is not literally true: the film-makers don’t know… Read More ›

• How many ml in a liter?

  By ljd42 on May 23, 2019

  

  So I’m in a certain store in Jamaica Plain today — name kept anonymous to protect the oh-so-innocent — and I ask the clerk if they sell Hennessy Privilege (a cognac, for those of you who don’t know). She says… Read More ›

• High School SCOTUS

  By ljd42 on May 21, 2019

  

  Can high-school students conduct an excellent interview and write an excellent article about it? Anna Salvatore and Joe Hanlon certainly can! No, I have never taught these two. I have never even met them. But I highly recommend Anna’s blog, High… Read More ›

• A Raspberry Pi class

  By ljd42 on May 19, 2019

  

  This time the student teaches the teacher! I had a great time yesterday at MakeIt Labs in Nashua, participating in a four-hour class taught by a former student of mine, Johnathan Vail, who was in two or three courses of… Read More ›

• The Odd Clauses

  By ljd42 on May 17, 2019

  

  As you know, the President of the United States takes an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” And of course our current president does that faithfully — right? — but not everyone is familiar with… Read More ›

• “Math teachers should be more like football coaches.”

  By ljd42 on May 15, 2019

  

  As you probably know, John Urschel is both a professional mathematician (at MIT, no less) and a recently retired professional football player (in the NFL, of course — recently retired from the Baltimore Ravens). What a combination! A few days… Read More ›

• Arabic numerals? Oh, no!

  By ljd42 on May 14, 2019

  

  Did you hear that they’re teaching Arabic numerals in public schools? I’m shocked, shocked. In America, no less! What is this world coming to? A recent poll showed that 56% of Americans don’t want public schools to teach Arabic numerals…. Read More ›

• Why do Americans think that Asians mix up R and L?

  By ljd42 on May 12, 2019

  

  Speaking of Asia, why do so many Americans think that Asians mix up R and L? (Asians? East Asians? Chinese and Japanese? How far does this stereotype go?) Before we answer this question, I need to point out a more… Read More ›

• Writings by a former Weston student

  By ljd42 on May 10, 2019

  My former student Julia Metraux is a staff writer for The Tempest, an online magazine that describes itself like this: The Tempest is the guide for diverse women to share, feel, and claim their voices – and power. We’re the… Read More ›

• William’s iPad

  By ljd42 on May 9, 2019

  

  William is helping with the iPad:

• Back from New York, Part 4: Food, transportation, and ethnicities

  By ljd42 on May 8, 2019

  With one notable exception, Barbara and I enjoyed our meals in New York. We had decided to try to pick walkable destinations whenever possible, and that wasn’t difficult since our hotel’s Murray Hill neighborhood contained a bunch of restaurants that… Read More ›

• Back from New York, Part 3: Museums

  By ljd42 on May 7, 2019

  We were in Manhattan, after all, so we spent a portion of each day at a museum. I’ve already reported on the Tolkien exhibit we saw at the Morgan. The next day we went to the National Museum of Mathematics,… Read More ›

• Back from New York, Part 2: The High Line

  By ljd42 on May 5, 2019

  

  On May Day I wrote about the Tolkien exhibit and promised to discuss the rest of our NYC trip in my “next post.” Unfortunately that task turned out to be far too big for one post, so it is being split among… Read More ›

• Puzzle of the Week

  By ljd42 on May 2, 2019

  

  It’s a dark panel in a dark elevator, so I’m not sure how well you can see the details, but this is the elevator panel in the hotel where Barbara and I have been staying in NYC. The puzzle is… Read More ›

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