Recent Posts - page 67

  • The Marriage Pact

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    What a strange (and disturbing) book! It’s one of those novels that grip my attention and refuse to let go — so I feel compelled to read to the end — and yet I certainly can’t say that I enjoyed… Read More ›

  • State Math Champions!

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    Congratulations to the Weston High School Math Team for their extraordinary performance yesterday in the medium-sized high schools’ playoffs for the Massachusetts state math championship! Weston finished #1 among all the medium-sized schools in all the state math leagues, and far… Read More ›

  • Felicia Day: You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)

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    Continuing with the gaming theme that played a major role in Player by Proxy, Ready Player One, and The Chalk Artist, now we need to talk about Felicia Day’s amusing and engaging memoir, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost). As you know… Read More ›

  • Ready Player One (the book)

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    Flashback to two months ago: apparently I was the only living person who hadn’t yet heard of Ernest Cline’s Ready, Player One. Now everyone has heard of it, since Spielberg’s film adaptation has just opened. As I’m not going to be seeing… Read More ›

  • Finally… the 16th Annual Fractal Fair

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    Our plans for the 16th annual Fractal Fair at Weston High School looked good. All was supposed to go smoothly, just as the previous 15 fairs had. Why not, after all?           But the weather did… Read More ›

  • Bach’s Big Birthday Bash

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    I’d like to give a well-deserved shout-out to my students Laura and Thea for their excellent performance at yesterday’s Boston Bach Birthday Bash celebrating J.S. Bach’s 333rd birthday! Yes, it’s a few days early for Bach’s actual birthday, but that’s… Read More ›

  • What happened to the Combat Zone?

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    Yesterday evening, Barbara and I went to an excellent talk by author Stephanie Schorow about her new book, Inside the Combat Zone: The Stripped Down Story of Boston’s Most Notorious Neighborhood. Thank you, Joyce Linehan, for hosting this event at Ashmonticello!… Read More ›

  • Duolingo

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    For dual reasons (appropriately enough) I have made myself a commitment to pursue several months of language lessons on Duolingo, which describes itself as “the free science-based language education platform that has organically become the most popular way to learn… Read More ›

  • The Chalk Artist

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    I know the characters in this novel. Not literally, of course. But it feels as if I know them. Local author Allegra Goodman brings her characters to life as real people. I’m sure it helps that so many of them are like… Read More ›

  • Player by Proxy

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    Online gaming? “IRL”? What’s real life anyway? What’s the virtual world? Is it really possible to be literally addicted to technology? Questions like these are much discussed these days, and they are addressed in the Weston High School Theater Company’s excellent ensemble-written… Read More ›

  • The Body in the Casket

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    A cleverly worded summary of The Body in the Casket could easily lead you to think that it was describing an Agatha Christie mystery. As you can tell from the image of the cover, it’s actually a Katherine Hall Page mystery, not… Read More ›

  • John Green

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    At the recommendation of several of my students, I recently read two of John Green’s YA novels: The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down. Verdict: Generally very positive. In particular, Green convincingly presents both the characters and their issues. The… Read More ›

  • What’s wrong with Google Classroom?

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    Google Classroom? What’s that? If you aren’t currently a student, teacher, or administrator in a school setting, you probably haven’t heard of it, although you may be surmising that it’s part of Google’s plan to take over the world. (Not… Read More ›

  • Revisiting The Industry

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    It was time for our annual visit to The Industry, Dorchester’s best restaurant. I say “annual,” but it was only our second visit: I first reviewed it shortly after it opened, about seven months ago. It’s still great. Before commenting… Read More ›

  • Retiring

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    I am retiring in four months. To paraphrase a colleague whom I have never met, “I will be retiring from Weston, not from education.” After 21 years at Weston — and 44 years altogether in teaching — it’s time. I told… Read More ›

  • Shadow of the Lions

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    Thirteen years ago [has it really been that long?] I wrote an essay called “Literature & math: imaginary gardens with real toads.” The phrase following the colon quotes from Marianne Moore’s characterization of poetry, but I was connecting it with math in… Read More ›

  • Spirals & fractals at the MoS

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    Another museum visit on my staycation was to the Museum of Science: the special exhibit Numbers in Nature, continuing through April 25. My capsule summary is that it is generally high in quality but low in quantity. Yes, I agree that… Read More ›

  • DreamLand Wax Museum

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    Sometimes a Groupon just leaps out at you and demands to be purchased. It’s a bah-gain, after all, so how could you resist? That’s how Barbara and I ended up visiting Boston’s DreamLand Wax Museum as part of our staycation this week…. Read More ›

  • Why teach programming/coding? For the nth time…

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    This seems to be an endless debate: why should we teach programming? (Or coding, if that’s what you prefer to call it.) We have to split the question into at least three versions, and probably more: Why should we offer… Read More ›

  • Still Life

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    What a beautiful collection of locally grown early-Autumn produce provided by one of my colleagues (looks like a still life, doesn’t it?)