Recent Posts - page 92

  • 21 things that will be obsolete by 2020…or will they?

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    Johns Hopkins professor Shelly Blake-Plock recently wrote an essay listing 21 things (in school) that will be obsolete by 2020. Will they really? Of course there were many doubters, including me. But before we get to the doubts, let’s look at… Read More ›

  • Strategies, techniques, and tricks

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    Why have I been surprised at the way that many teachers use the word “strategy”? And why does it bother me when teachers refer to “tricks”? Well, I’m glad you asked, so I’ll tell you why I believe that in… Read More ›

  • Jane Austen in Scarsdale: or Love, Death, and the SATs

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    This satirical novel is an irresistible book for anyone who lives or works in a town like Weston. (I know, the title says Scarsdale, but they’re close enough.) Paula Marantz Cohen has updated Jane Austen’s Persuasion by moving it 200… Read More ›

  • Bay State Model Railroad Museum

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    A few weeks ago I returned to the oddly named Bay State Model Railroad Museum for its excellent Open House. The reason I say it’s oddly named is that it’s not a museum in the conventional sense; it’s really the headquarters… Read More ›

  • London Under

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    I first picked up this fascinating book by Peter Ackroyd because I thought it had something to do with the London “Underground,” otherwise known as its subway system. And indeed several parts of the book do concern the Underground. But the… Read More ›

  • The Last Samurai

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    Don’t you just hate it when someone writes a book review without having actually read the book? Of course I’m not going to do that…but I do need to give a preliminary comment about Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai (not… Read More ›

  • The distance formula

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    What are the pros and cons of teaching the distance formula? I can think of two of each: Pro #1: It’s useful and convenient. Pro #2: Future teachers may expect your students to know it. Con #1: It’s nothing but… Read More ›

  • Khan Academy revisited

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    Khan Academy used to be a good idea. Maybe it still is; I haven’t made anything like a thorough review of their hundreds of offerings, so it’s impossible for me to tell. But I’m skeptical. Before examining the reasons for… Read More ›

  • Teaching science through language

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    We like to claim that linguistics is a science, but I’ve never before seen any explicit discussion of using it to teach scientific principles. An intriguing abstract from Anne Lobeck suggests some possibilities along those lines, particularly pointing out that linguistics… Read More ›

  • Why asking questions might not be the best way to teach

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    Some years ago, one of my students asked me this question: “Why is it that whenever I ask you a question, you always respond by asking me a question?” I was tempted, of course, to say “Why do you think… Read More ›

  • Among Others

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    I wish I had read Jo Walton’s Among Others when I was a teenager. Since this novel wasn’t written until 2011, I couldn’t have that opportunity. It would have had a big impact on my life. So I had to settle for… Read More ›

  • Significant figures

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    Math teachers and science teachers never agree about significant figures — neither about their importance nor about how to use them. Math books and competitions tend to ignore the issue, or else they promulgate arbitrary rules, such as “answers must… Read More ›

  • The City and the City

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    What an unusual novel! It’s billed as science fiction, but it isn’t really. It’s more like…well…geography fiction, or government fiction, or some other nonexistent category. This fascinating story takes place in the present day (more or less) in a  fictional… Read More ›

  • “What Math Students Say”

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    How many times have you heard math students say these things? (She isn’t one of my students, but she certainly could be.)

  • The WWW Trilogy

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    Yes! If you want to read a science fiction novel that holds your attention and makes you think, you should definitely read all three books in Robert J. Sawyer’s WWW Trilogy: Wake, Watch, and Wonder. Like much of hard science… Read More ›

  • Another math summer camp

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    You’re looking for a two-week math summer camp, aren’t you? Or perhaps you know an advanced student for whom this would be just the thing. While I don’t have any first-hand knowledge of the Mathematica Summer Camp, it does look… Read More ›

  • Excellent tech support

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    I know, I know, the title sounds like an oxymoron; no one ever gets excellent tech support. Mostly we like to grumble about how bad it is, and justifiably so. Mark Bernstein wrote an apt observation about this matter (on… Read More ›

  • The Other Wes Moore

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    By this point you’ve probably heard of Wes Moore, as he has been making quite a splash in the mainstream media from NPR to Oprah. After hearing him on NPR, I just had to read his non-fiction memoir, The Other Wes… Read More ›

  • Levels vs. tracks

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    Adult friends often ask me about “tracking” at Weston. Apparently they’re referring to their own high school experiences, in which a student entered high school in a certain “track,” such as honors or business, and then remained there forever. This… Read More ›

  • Shades of Grey

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    Don’t read Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey if you dislike offbeat science fiction. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf come to mind…although Fforde’s novel is a bit more down-to-earth, so to speak. Maybe it should be considered… Read More ›