Looking for the Carnival of Mathematics?
It’ll be up in a few hours. Patience. I am generally slow, and the response this time was large.
Teaching vs Comp Time
Teaching is hard.
A friend, ATR at a closing school, had a comp time position. Comp time = “compensatory time,” ie, a semi-administrative position that a teacher has in lieu of some portion of their teaching load. My friend, I believe had a “.4” meaning that 40% of his teaching time (2 classes) were replaced by administrative duties. All of his “professional time” (6-R) should have gone to the same administrative duties, and 40% of his preparation time as well.
And then he got a new job in a school that is not being phased out, and he had a regular, full schedule. He claimed to love being back to teaching full-time, but he had a lot to groan about, and I had fun ribbing him about finally working an honest day. Glass houses, though.
Me, I work comp-time. I have a .3, 30% (I teach 3 and a half classes – that half class business is real). If I were Chapter Leader in a big school I would get relieved of 1 class for that, but no, my school is small. I get my .3 for doing the programming (scheduling) in my school, and related tasks. I work hard at it. It’s difficult. And I don’t mind saying that I do a tremendous job.
Until this term. We lost a teacher in my department, and we will be hiring via open-market this Spring for next September, but in the meantime her program got divided up, and I, for this term only, am teaching a full, regular program.
Like my friend said, teaching is far more rewarding than administrative work. It’s great being with the kids. I now have three sections of algebra instead of one, and I can modify what I am doing, I get more feedback, etc. etc.
But it’s exhausting. (more beneath the fold –>) Read more…
Privilege
I found this on Jose Vilson’s blog. From: What Privileges Do You Have? – based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. (If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.)
I was shocked at how many I highlighted. I don’t think of myself as having had a privileged upbringing.
1. Father went to college.
2. Father finished college. (and grad school)
3. Mother went to college.
4. Mother finished college. (to become a teacher, never did though)
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children’s books by a parent.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 assuming that sport counts.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 assuming that sport counts.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp (3 years)
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels. (nothing resort-y)
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child. (2 paintings my mother loved, and then some great stuff by a cousin)
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16. (Miami Beach, to visit grandparents, and one trip to Disney Land)
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.
A lot of the $$ related ones don’t apply, but lots of the other “rich cultural environment” do. Privileged upper middle class? Not how I think of it, but certainly how it looks based on this survey.
Teacher Pay Scale – Yonkers, NY
As I find them, I will post teacher pay scales, concentrating on communities not so far from NYC.
For the New York City Department of Education salary schedule, click here.
For a guide to salaries on this blog, click here. (I am aware that they are mostly 2006 – 2007. I will be updating most of them).
Yonkers borders the Bronx. It’s a pretty big city: 200,000 people, a bit more than half white, about a quarter Hispanic, 17% Black. There is a real range in income: 13% live below the poverty line, but the median family income is over $50k.
It also has a large school system. Over 30 elementary and middle schools feed 8 high schools, with 25,000 students. That makes it about the size of one NYC school district. (NYC used to be divided into about 35 of them)
Yonkers’ salary schedule is below the fold ———–> Read more…
Puzzle: sum freedom
(this is a reprise of a previous post)
Revised to yield a unique answer!
Sorry to all who already dug in
Three perfectly logical prisoners are seated facing each other, with hats on their heads. Each hat has a counting number {1, 2, 3, 4, …} on it, and each prisoner can see the hat of the other two prisoners, but not his own.
The warden says, “I will set free the man who can tell me his own number, but execute any man guessing incorrectly.”
They look back at him in stunned silence.
“OK, a hint. One of your numbers is the sum of the two. Alan?”
— “I don’t know my number.”
“Bert?”
— “I don’t know my number.”
“Graham?”
— “I don’t know my number.”
“Alan?”
— “I still don’t know my number.”
“Bert?”
— “My number is 78 26.″
And he went free. What were Alan and Graham’s numbers? (And how did you discover this?)
Spoiler treatment: (Please use the comments section for questions, clarifications, comments) (Please post answers here, instead).
Solutions: sum freedom
I have revised this problem to make the answer unique. Apologies to all who already ‘dug in.’ -jd
This is the space for answers to the “sum freedom” puzzle. For questions, clarifications, comments, post back at the puzzle.
Three perfectly logical prisoners are seated facing each other, with hats on their heads. Each hat has a counting number {1, 2, 3, 4, …} on it, and each prisoner can see the hat of the other two prisoners, but not his own.
The warden says, “I will set free the man who can tell me his own number, but execute any man guessing incorrectly.“
They look back at him in stunned silence.
“OK, a hint. One of your numbers is the sum of the two. Alan?”
— “I don’t know my number.”
“Bert?”
— “I don’t know my number.”
“Graham?”
— “I don’t know my number.”
“Alan?”
— “I still don’t know my number.”
“Bert?”
— “My number is 78 26.″
And he went free. What were Alan and Graham’s numbers? (And how did you discover this?)
Blog Evolution meme
On a Thursday in October, Lynet tagged me with the blog evolution meme. Lynet’s not her real name, but she is Australian (I think), and so, apparently, is the meme. Or at least it is not NY Teacherish, because it hasn’t made the rounds of the blogs I read…at least I don’t remember it
I’m supposed to pick five posts from my archives that display how my blog has evolved over time, and then tag five more people to do the same. I did something similar almost a year ago with this “state of the blog” post.
This blog started as a vehicle to discuss teaching in NYC. Not the lesson planning part, but the dealing with administrators part, the dealing with abusive new policies, and so forth. As such, I immediately set out to be fiercely critical of the New York City Department of Education and the Mayor who runs it, and constructively critical of the United Federation of Teachers, which does an uneven job in protecting us and helping us stand up for ourselves. Here are three posts from the first two months of this blog that engage this theme: Recruitment Incentives, my first real post — Let Nadelstern Write (iow, let’s not allow this lousy excuse for an education bureaucrat waste union delegates’ time) — Smaller Classes.
Several months in, my love of math and teaching math started to leak to the surface. I am fond of puzzles; I started posting them (though most people call my puzzles ‘problems,’ I don’t think of them as problems if they are fun). I eventually got to actual lesson stuff, too, but puzzles are my passion. Here is my first puzzle, and my first big hit puzzle. That quadrilateral puzzle has been visited over 4,000 times. A ‘Love’ly Math Puzzle (my first) — jd2718 Goofs (even mistakes become puzzles) — Puzzle: proving a quadrilateral is a parallelogram (one of my best).
I am concerned with teachers’ questions. Oftentimes we do not have great sources of information. I posted links to the NYC contract, and noticed that there were lots of hits for the salary scale, and questions about other district’s salaries. So I started posting them, as well. Here are my NYC teacher contract links, my first non-NYC salary link, (most are one year out of date – maybe I can update this week) and a link to the Yonkers salary scale. Yonkers? Yonkers is not on this site! But it will be within a week. The link is dead now, it will go live soon. Check back. (Done – jd 2/19/08)
There is a Carnival of Education, which is a natural, right? And then a Carnival of Mathematics, even more so. And a Teacher’s Pot Luck that I sometimes forget about (sorry Ms Whatsit!) But in Spring 2007 I became a regular host for Mathematics (9 and 18 and 27 coming here), but more or less withdrew from Education.
Somewhere along the way, I lost focus. Not badly. But now I branch out. Culture. Travel. Politics. Food. Here’s one of each: La Faute á Fidel — Visiting Alonissos — Super Tuesday — Marrow Bone/Root Vegetable/Lentil Barley Soup.
OK, now some tags. Remember, it asked for five posts. I just went a little nuts, you don’t have to. Also remember, I sat on this 4 months, there’s no urgency here. Darmok of Ancora Imparo. Fred Klonsky of PREA Prez. susieJulie of Mildly Melancholy. Jose Vilson of Jose Vilson. Denise of Let’s Play Math.
New wordpress features
WordPress did it again. They supplied another stats feature that I was meaning to ask for. Now we can see top search terms, top referrers, top post/page, and top link out by day, by week, by month, by quarter, by year, or by ever.
Below the fold are my top 27 (in honor of Friday’s Carnival of Mathematics #27, hosted here) all time search terms: Read more…
The Democratic race from here
Still more election posts, since I haven’t been horrible yet. Huckabee bows out March 5 (my prediction), but that’s not so interesting now.
Dems – Obama wins Wisconsin, less than 10 points, but that changes nothing (if Clinton pulls it out, unlikely but possible, it’s by a point or two, and deflates Obama’s momentum, but doesn’t decide the race either).
Clinton wins March 4, but don’t know how big. Vermont, with no polls yet (?) goes for Obama. Figure Ohio by 20, Texas by 10 (that’s today’s polls). Changes nothing. Mississippi and Wyoming (Obama), pause, Pennsylavania April 22. Then single state races. Starting with PA, either Obama will win almost all of them, or Clinton will keep it knotted up. And in April, or May, or even June (but I don’t think that late), the superdelegates will force the issue and start 1) committing, and 2) pressuring the weaker of the two to drop.
Who? Looks like Obama today, but that’s today. My friend’s kid plays chess. Last week she took a big lead on a higher-rated player, and offered a draw. She was happy to have drawn a strong player, he was happy to escape with half a point. And if this were chess, Obama would be offering a draw. But he can’t. He needs to stay ahead, open a little space. Tie here goes to Clinton.
My prediction? Wisconsin – BO 7; Rhode Island – HRC 10; Vermont – BO 10; Texas – HRC 10; Ohio – HRC 20; Wyoming (following week) – BO 15; Mississippi – BO 20. (delegates tied or edge to Obama)
April 22 Pennsylvania – HRC 15; May 6 North Carolina – BO 25; Indiana – BO 15; May 13 West Virginia – BO 10; May 20 Oregon – BO 20; Kentucky – BO 10; Memorial Day – Clinton concedes.
Logic textbook
Mathematics Carnival coming
here. This Friday.
You know, or you have two bits of evidence, that I’ll jazz it up nicely. But nothing good happens without your submissions.
- Pure math.
- arithmetic
- Teaching math
- Math you remember from school
- Computer science
- applications
- math humor
- math history
- puzzles
Send your link to me by e-mail at (this blog name). That’s at (gmail) (dot) (com). Or use the submission tool. Just do me a favor. I am a high school teacher, and if your topic is fairly advanced, take a sentence or two to describe what I’m looking at.
xkcd has a blag?
why? wasn’t the webcomic funny enough? did we really need another enormous time-sink?
Don’t go there. Don’t spend the next 11 hours reading the blag. And don’t even think about carefully checking the formulae and calculations, including Randall Munroe’s and those from the nutso comment-writers.
I won’t be held responsible.
Next stop, Wisconsin
The Democratic race continues. Tuesday is Hawaii caucuses (should go easily to Obama) and Wisconsin. I thought Hillary was pulling out of Wisconsin to look ahead to March 4 in Ohio and Texas. But no. She’s set up shop in Wisconsin. Running some ‘negative’ anti-Obama ads.
Folks, it is certainly possible that this race wraps up in Wisconsin. But even with a big Obama victory it probably continues to March 4. And the only recent poll I see points to a moderate, not a big, Obama victory.
This election probably continues. It continues past Ohio and Texas. Pundits are reading their own spin. But here’s my read: Wisconsin is a freebie for Clinton. If she squeaks out a win, big headlines that there is a race again. If she loses, probably has no effect, except for putting pressure on Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
If she wins Texas and Ohio big, it’s even again. And I assume that she has an advantage in an even race. If she wins small in Texas and Ohio, today’s arguments that we are an inch short of annointing Obama continue, and she will feel more pressure to concede, but I think it would take actual losses March 4 to get her to seriously consider that. And polls show her, for now, with comfortable leads in Ohio and Texas.
click for more —> Read more…
No-carry subtraction
Does anyone else do this:
3418 – 1279 = 3418 – 1300 + 21 ?
(2118 + 21 = 2139)
Funny arithmetic samples
See yesterday’s post and comments. Click photos for larger images. Is that “scaffold division?” Notice that 36 goes into 6552 first 100, then 30, then 20, then 20 then 2 more times…
The many ways of arithmetic
… are coming around to haunt me.
I rediscover Greenleaf Division – in a student’s scrap work
I just added two algebra classes for the second term, helping cover the wonderful teacher who is moving to Alaska, until we hire from the open market (I hate that name) in April for next September. Comp time lost… It’s ok. Teaching is harder, but it feels better to be in the classroom fulltime. Exhausting, but better. I’m going to write more about that…
Anyhow, I am getting to meet my new students. Some games, some quick quizzes. So here it is, Sunday night, grading, and what do I find?
Who will correct mistakes in non-standard algorithms?
Q: 180 gallons of a 40% mixture, dilute it to 36% (original was wordier). One kid sets it up perfectly, just like we’ve been talking about over at Vlorbik’s:
and then everything went wrong. I stared for maybe 30 seconds before I understood (and I am usually very very fast).
(non-standard multiplication and division beneath the fold–>) Read more…
Didn’t we win an election to change course?
The Democrats swept the midterm elections, and anti-war sentiment was a big part of that. So what have they done to end the war?
Matt Taibbi discusses in Rolling Stone. Ugly question, ugly answer.
Maine – bigger than we think?
Maybe. Today’s caucuses only choose 30 delegates, but they could matter.
This contest could continue to the Convention. Conventional wisdom today, wouldn’t you know. But there are scenarios that end it early.
A win in today’s caucuses doesn’t guarantee that Hillary will hang on until Denver, but it makes it much more likely.
An Obama quick sweep scenario has him winning all ten contests between Super Tuesday and March 4 (Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, Vermont) and then drawing or nearly drawing those states, and generating pressure on Clinton to concede for the sake of party unity. She could stop that scenario by winning big in Texas and Ohio (quite possible). But winning ten in a row will probably help him in those states.
But she could stop this sort of talk sooner. If she stays competitive in a few of the intervening races, it is not likely that she will be forced out fast. Yesterday she was trounced in Washington, Nebraska, and Louisiana (better than 2:1 in the first 2, by over 20 points in Louisiana). Tuesday she will lose, probably big, in Virginia, Maryland, and DC. Her best chance at breaking Obama’s run is Maine today (or maybe Wisconsin a week from Tuesday).
Maine could break up the streak.
Math and Woody Guthrie
Over at MathTrek, Julie J. Rehmeyer beautifully explains how mathematics was used to restore a live Woody Guthrie recording, on wire!
Make sure to listen to the before and after clips. I kind of wish Julie had more details about the math, but that could have made the post too technical.
And, oh, yeah. The restored version? It won a Grammy.
Carnival of Mathematics – First Anniversary Edition
It’s over at 360.
It opens with a brief discourse on the number 26 (this is also the 26th edition), but ponder, for a moment, that 360 instead. Days in a year (almost). Seconds in an hour. Degrees in a circle. 
And a Carnival of Mathematics that will likely never happen. Technology, media, change too fast. It is inconceivable that the Carnival will be around in this form for number 360. But you can bank on 36 in a few months.
My favorite new-for-me post is Mark Dominus’ famous mathematical goof post (showing that even mathematicians forget to consider all cases from time to time; and also showing that sometimes just because someone is famous, that doesn’t mean they are always right).
A commenter, Kaz, has a post on Peano and poetry. I would command you to go look, but I can’t. So I urge you to examine the post wherein the author, using only 5 simple postulates, proves that no cat is the god of itself.
Union video
Where I work there’s a few different unions. The steward for one of the other one’s sent me this.
I thought some of you might like it.
JD2718 