Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 64

• “We don’t work with greasy machines!”

  By ljd42 on October 26, 2018

  

  “In the Mathematics Department we don’t work with greasy machines,” replied one of my undergraduate math professors with a sneer. “You’re going to have to go to the Applied Math department if that’s what you want to do.” That was… Read More ›

• What is Modern Standard Arabic?

  By ljd42 on October 24, 2018

  

  Three months ago I wrote a post about whether Chinese is a language (a language vs. a family of languages). Now it’s time to ask a comparable question about Arabic: is it a language? It’s a comparable question because naive Westerners… Read More ›

• Is it “Music City” or “Athens of the South”?

  By ljd42 on October 19, 2018

  

  Yes, this is the Parthenon. But no, we’re not in Greece. This is the Parthenon in Nashville, not the one in Athens. Barbara and I just got back from a three-day visit to see our niece, Aviva, who is currently… Read More ›

• International Pronouns Day

  By ljd42 on October 17, 2018

  

  As everyone knows, today is International Pronouns Day. Why, you might ask, does such a day exist? There’s no International Adjectives Day, after all. Or International Verbs Day. What’s so special about pronouns? It’s all because English has these gendered… Read More ›

• New Guinea to New Jersey, 1943

  By ljd42 on October 16, 2018

  

  No, I’m not old enough to remember World War II. But I can reprint a letter that my dad, then stationed in New Guinea, wrote to my mom in 1943: This was four years before I was born. (In New… Read More ›

• Do Trump supporters have empathy?

  By ljd42 on October 15, 2018

  

  What does brain science show about whether Trump supporters have empathy? Three days ago I published a post, “Red Brain, Blue Brain,” about a recent Hidden Brain podcast. I discussed some conservative/liberal generalities, but nothing specifically physiological or anatomical. Now it’s time… Read More ›

• Elderly?

  By ljd42 on October 14, 2018

  

  How old is she? From Edmund Crispin, The Moving Toyshop (1946):

• Red brain, blue brain

  By ljd42 on October 12, 2018

  

      They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. Remember who said that? I’m sure you do. You probably also remember that it’s a certain well-known Republican talking about immigrants from Mexico… Read More ›

• The Magician King

  By ljd42 on October 11, 2018

  The Magician King is the sequel to The Magicians, which I reviewed on September 1. As the second book in Lev Grossman’s trilogy, it follows closely after book #1 and appropriately leaves the reader hanging, waiting for #3. Darker and more mature than The… Read More ›

• A later start time

  By ljd42 on October 10, 2018

  

  Weston students, parents, and teachers: Is the later start time working? Let me know!

• Feedback from 46 years ago

  By ljd42 on October 7, 2018

  

  Going through some old papers, I came across a summary of student feedback from Relations & Functions, a course I team-taught at Lincoln-Sudbury (L–S). This was more-or-less equivalent to today’s Honors Precalculus, and it’s instructive to consider the similarities and… Read More ›

• Pandas!

  By ljd42 on October 6, 2018

  

  Giant panda overload this week! Earlier in the week came the first episode of Martin Yan’s newly revived TV series, Yan Can Cook. The new series, Spice Kingdom, is described as “a 13-part series that explores the many aspects of how food and… Read More ›

• The cat on the (purple) mat

  By ljd42 on October 5, 2018

  

  Douglas looks so handsome on his purple mat, even if he’s deliberately ignoring the Rubik’s Cube:

• She Was the Quiet One

  By ljd42 on October 4, 2018

  

  Is Odell Academy supposed to be Phillips Exeter Academy? All signs point to that, but there’s no direct evidence. Odell is the site of Michele Campbell’s new novel, She Was the Quiet One, a title that develops new meanings as you continue… Read More ›

• Where to store your rage and keep ire away

  By ljd42 on October 1, 2018

  

  Credit to Nigel Fabb via Arnold Zwicky for this photo of the Metropolitan Rage Warehouse in Cambridge, where you can store your rage and keep it safe from anyone’s ire:

• Urban nature

  By ljd42 on September 30, 2018

  

  What do you see here? Your eyes are probably drawn first to the renovated Baker Chocolate Factory building that dominates the top half of the photo. Then you look at the bottom half and see more urban landscape — some… Read More ›

• Something Wonderful

  By ljd42 on September 28, 2018

  

  You need the subtitle. The full name of the book is Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution, which gives you a pretty good picture of the subject of the book. As I grew up in the ’60s, I was… Read More ›

• Heavenly Creatures

  By ljd42 on September 27, 2018

  

  Wow! Just saw this 1994 film — what took me so long? — and now Heavenly Creatures will clearly be added to the list of my top ten all-time favorite movies (though I’m not yet sure which entry it will displace)…. Read More ›

• A small job

  By ljd42 on September 18, 2018

  

  As you can see, we badly needed a new ceiling in our guest room. We also needed a ceiling light, not to mention a fan. And while we were at it, we also needed a new ceiling and new light… Read More ›

• Learning in depth: high school SCOTUS blog

  By ljd42 on September 16, 2018

  If you didn’t listen to the NPR report Why a High High Schooler Started Covering The Supreme Court, on this morning’s Weekend Edition Sunday, you should definitely do so! Do it right now, before you forget. OK, now that you’re… Read More ›

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