UFT HS VP special election
UFT HS VP Frank Volpicella has retired. This coming Monday the Executive Board will vote on his replacement. The two nominees are Leo Casey (supported by the Unity caucus), and me, nominated by New Action.
I am assuming the vote will be down caucus lines, and that I will lose by about 81-8. All the same, it’s a chance to speak to some responsibilities of the HS VP, which I will do in the coming week.
New Teacher Handbooks now available
I hate it when my union gets things wrong, and love it when they get things right. I don’t think Jeff Zahler wrote this, but it went out as an e-mail under his name. The credit is his:
The new, updated edition of last year’s popular New Teacher Handbook has been printed and is now being distributed to borough offices. Over the next month, the district representatives will be getting copies of the handbook to their chapter leaders, who should give a copy to each 1st or 2nd year teacher in their chapter in person if possible. Please use that contact to offer your support to our newest members. Let your DR know how many copies of the handbook you will need.
Forget for a moment that the handbook is a reasonable piece of literature, with a lot of information. Look at the communication he encourages:
- Borough Office to DR (that link is already strong)
- DR to Chapter Leader
- Chapter Leader to member [edit: and new members, and in person!]
These are the routes of communication, back and forth, that we have allowed to weaken, that we must strengthen, in order to reinvigorate the United Federation of Teachers. Practice using them with something easy (today it’s a nice piece of literature), and they will be in better shape the next time we need them for something hard.
Disproof of Pythagorean Theorem
Go, run, look for yourself:
![[_MG_7916.jpg]](https://i0.wp.com/bp0.blogger.com/_leh5GVVI6_c/RiFlxZQk9-I/AAAAAAAAAIc/eIjIreIuebw/s1600/_MG_7916.jpg)
![[_MG_7917.jpg]](https://i0.wp.com/bp3.blogger.com/_leh5GVVI6_c/RiFmFJQk9_I/AAAAAAAAAIk/QC8EttsGGr8/s1600/_MG_7917.jpg)
Richard Mason watches mathematical certainty slip away.
This certainly spins that Greek theory on its head.
Teaching isn’t a temporary job… or it shouldn’t be
But some days it sure seems like a temp job. How many newly certified teachers are in your building? If you are in New York City, the number is probably high. And it’s probably been high year after year, as new teachers leave. Is the rest of the country all that different?
Blame the schools, the local, state, or federal government, television, TFA, bad alternative certification programs, or weak teachers themselves? Sure, they are all responsible. I mean, who thought that a 2 or 3 year commitment was a good thing to ask for? Someone who likes unstable schools, that’s for sure. And many new teachers are lousy? News bulletin – that’s not news. I was horrible. So were many of you. We deserved support (that too few of us found).
But today let’s talk about us, about teachers. Not temporary teachers. Teachers who are in it for the long haul. Having temps shuffling in and out is horrible. It deprofessionalizes us. It destabilizes our schools. It cheats our students from consistently having experienced teachers. Let’s do something about it. Let’s help some of these new teachers stay. How about today?
- share lessons with a new teacher
- show a new teacher how to find supplies, or find them for him
- help a new teacher stay out of a bad supervisor’s way
- let a new teacher know about their rights
- if you can’t do anything else, show some sympathy
- help a new teacher with a difficult kid
- and challenge other more experienced teachers with this list.
It’s not about being nice. It’s resisting. From the grass roots.
I missed a few
Have you already finished reading all 52 posts in yesterday’s carnival? Need some more math posts? Try these:
Ever wonder how to start trig? Math Teacher Mambo posts a discussion, then posts some pictures. Unit circle, unit circle, rah, rah, rah! (Read the other stuff, too. Greek, learning logs, em-pi-nadas (boo, hiss).
Have you heard about the Excel bug? Answer should be 65,536, but 100,000 pops out instead. Other bloggers found it first, but no one has explained it nicer than Good Math, Bad Math (aka MarkCC).
E, of the eponymous (did I use that big word right?) E’s Ponderings, ponders a bit on whether ed schools should do more to keep train wrecks from even starting in a classroom. I am at once sympathetic and suspicious.
A bunch of bloggers have linked 2007’s Ig-nobel prizes (issued by the Annals of Improbably Research, a brainless group that once turned down a fine limerick I sent in.) So, they can sometimes miss talent, which takes nothing away from the ‘Iggys.’ [If you think I am kidding, compare this nice post (Featured in CoM #17) with this infamous one (from the annals of improbable research’s (we)Blog).]
There’s lots of math out there, folks. Just look, you’ll find something.
Carnival of Math #18
You’ve reached the midway! This edition of the CoM is a doozy, with loads o’ math fun.
(notes to contributers: 1) Thank you. 2) If you contributed more than one item, I might have only used the most recent. It’s kind of big… 3) If you didn’t mean to contribute, but something of yours ended up here, I’m the person to yell at.)
(Notes to everyone: 1) Scroll, 2) Click, 3) Enjoy, 4) Repeat. If you like, go ahead, submit to the next. It’s appearing at Good Math, Bad Math (MarkCC’s blog) 13 days from now, and you can use the submission tool or maybe Mark will post alternate directions)
A Neighborhood of Infinity
Arboreal Isomorphisms from Nuclear Pennies
Game; Data Structures
“But who cares about nuclear coin reactions? … Believe it or not, each coin shuffle above corresponds to an isomorphism between certain types and solving the puzzle above actually demonstrates a really neat isomorphism between tuples of data structures.”
MathTrek
Beating the Bush for Patterns
Scientific Modeling
“In Africa’s Kalahari Desert as well as some areas around the Mediterranean, trees and bushes grow in clumps scattered in seemingly random locations across an otherwise barren landscape. Two new studies have discovered a fractal pattern in this seeming randomness, and they offer a novel explanation of how it comes about.”
Pissed Off
Calculators
Secondary Mathematics Education
“Kids don’t learn arithmetic anymore. Adults are forgetting everything they ever knew about it because calculators will do the computations for them”
johnkemeny.com
Car Car = Fuelish Hyperbole
Modeling
“…a practical problem in automotive gas economy which involves a pricing anomoly, a Greek mathematician who may have tutored Alexander the Great, and an 18th century Scottish math professor who almost loses his job by taking an unauthorized 2-year sabbatical…”
Pencils Down
Choking Down Technology
Secondary Mathematics Education; Texas Instruments
“…recent happenings… my attendance at a T3 conference for pre-service math teachers. I’m not sure “conference” is the right word; in truth, it was a two day sales pitch”
Halshop
Class of 64
College Math Instruction
“A class with 64 students? That sounds like an institutional problem. How can you possibly be pedagogically effective with a class that large?”
The Jose Vilson
The Common Factor
Elementary Mathematics
“I’ve grown more excited about the possibilities I have to nurture and inspire the kids I have….I was teaching the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic with the 6th graders…”
Michi’s Blog
Coq and simple group theory
(see title)
“Trying to make the time until my flight leaves tomorrow go by, I played around a bit with the proof assistant Coq. And after wrestling a LOT with the assistant, I ended up being able to prove some pretty basic group theory results.”
TerryTao
The Crossing Number Inequality
Graph Theory
“Today I’d like to discuss a beautiful inequality in graph theory, namely the crossing number inequality”
Secret Blogging Seminar (Ben Webster)
Does anybody actually read cover letters?
Applying for postdocs
“But there are things that should be on the page that aren’t. Particularly missing is info about preparing application materials. Any guesses as to why that is?”
Ars Mathematica
Eliminate Cut Elimination
Theorems
“Is there any major theorem in mathematics drier than Gentzen’s cut elimination theorem?”
Britannica Blog
Failing Our Geniuses
Mathematics Education
“Aside from continuing to portray the gifted as oddities, the author appeares to think that such students don’t need special attention, using the peculiar argument that if Einstein didn’t get it, no genius should”
Secret Blogging Seminar (Joel Kamnitzer)
Frobenius Splitting
Algebraic Geometry
“I’d heard of this Frobenius splitting years ago from my advisor, but had no idea how it worked before”
Ramblings of a Math Mom
Gifted Math Education: acceleration, enrichment, and the Calculus Trap
Mathematics Education
“Quite often the question arises as to what is better for gifted kids — acceleration or enrichment”
The Math Less Traveled
Golden Powers
Recreational
“So, we know from a previous challenge that 
. That’s a pretty interesting property, which is shared only by its cousin, 
”
Continuities
Half Full?
Secondary Mathematics Education
“When talking with coworkers about these classes today, this was the advice I was given: – If half of them understand half of what you’re teaching, it’s time to move on.“
dy/dan
The Homework I Gave
Secondary Mathematics Education
“I assigned homework to four of five classes this week, which is something like a personal record”
Adventures in Computation
The Hunt for a New Solution Concept
Game Theory
“This is a call for theory building: As computer scientists, we have to find a solution concept that is as appealing as Nash’s, but that is also feasible in a world with computational limitations.”
Gooseania
I can has a mathzburger
Thesis (non)-writing
“To prevent me from being booted out of the club, I had better write about maths occasionally”
Rational Mathematics Educations
Looking Further at Multiplication
Elementary Mathematics Education
“I wish I could understand what appears to be an irrational rejection of a perfectly sensible approach that is just as mathematically sound as the “traditional” way most Americans were supposed to learn to do multi-digit multiplications.”
meeyauw
NCLB Assessment Quality
Elementary Mathematics (Assessment)
“Can you find the problem that I have with it? What are the standards for testing validity for high stakes tests?”
Halfway There
Ned Ludd does technology (And he’s wearing sabots!)
Campus Politics; Technology
“We labored diligently, sometimes against unexpected obstacles (like the faculty member who volunteered for the committee for the specific purpose of trying to sabotage it) …”
Aside by your carnival host: zenoferox (host of Halfway There) weaves classroom stories – he teaches undergrads – together with campus politics, and politics in general. Amusing, diverting, fun. Go, poke around. – jd2718
Jan’s Diary
Online tutoring
Hmm.
“1. Start a project. 2. Find no real big success. 3. Repeat cycle with another project.”
Rigorous Trivialities
Parallel Parking
Lie Groups
“Well, as it happens, if your car has length 
mommy bytes
Photo Hunters – Paper
Origami
“These paper folded polyhedra are assembled using identical interlocking pieces of paper with no tape or glue”
Learning Games
Physics for games
Secondary Mathematics Education
Author prepares for “Physics Modelling” class (hybrid math, physics, computer programming) by assembling a collection of first rate links.
Let’s play math
Pre-algebra problem solving: 3rd grade
Elementary Mathematics Education
“This time I will demonstrate these problem-solving tools in action with a series of 3rd-grade problems based on the Singapore Primary Math series, level 3A”
MathNotations
Products of Digits: Challenges for Everyone…
Puzzles
Some number puzzles that can be used to introduce middle school students to the special methods of solving Diophantine Equations (and proof).
Polymathematics
Proof of the Coolest Math Fact Ever
Secondary Mathematics
“Put n equally spaced marks around the circumference of a unit circle (radius of 1). Then from any one of those marks, draw the chords that connect it to all the other (n-1) marks. The lengths of these chords are then multiplied together, and amazingly, that product is always n.”
jd2718 (that’s me, your carnival host)
Puzzle – a conic twist
Puzzles
I took a number stumper and turned it into a locus problem. Try it.
TerryTao
Pythagoras’ Theorem
Secondary Mathematics
“My colleague Ricardo Pérez-Marco showed me a very cute proof of Pythagoras’ theorem, which I thought I would share here; it’s not particularly earth-shattering, but it is perhaps the most intuitive proof of the theorem that I have seen yet.”
Halshop
Quadratic Graffiti
Humor ?
Mathematics Under the Microscope
A questionnaire about languages in mathematics
This is an appeal, to those who speak languages other than Russian or English. If you can help out, it would be nice.
“In my University, I teach a preparatory course in mathematics for Foundation Year students, many of whom came from overseas. My experience suggests that, in communication with foreign students, lecturers too frequently ignore difficulties arising from variation in logical structures of human languages.”
Killing Mind
The Results are in
Puzzle
“…at pub trivia … was a fairly benign looking magic star puzzle… I figured a bit of sensible number distribution ought to allow me to work towards a solution. A good number of failed attempts later, the puzzle’s elusive solution beckoned some further exploration.”
Science and Reason
Rings of algebraic integers
Algebraic Number Theory
“The time has come,” the Walrus said/ To talk of many things: /of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax– / of cabbages–and rings”
Gli studenti di oggi
Scomposizioni
Secondary Mathematics (Global)
“In tutte le scuole italiane, in prima o in seconda superiore, si insegnano le scomposizioni dei polinomi.”
Reasonable Deviations
The Scottish Book
History
“I wrote a post about the Scottish Café in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), where, in the 1930s, Polish mathematicians from the Lwów School of Mathematics would gather to pose, discuss and solve problems. At first, the mathematicians would write directly on the tables’ marble tops…”
Walking Randomly
Secret messages hidden inside equations
Puzzle? Mathematica?
“Suitably intrigued, I issued the required Mathematica commands and got the plot below which spoke to me in a way that no equation ever has before”
Elliptica
A Sequence
Puzzle (post-secondary)
“If you’re an experienced mathsy type, try to prove that the sequence contains every possible positive fraction exactly once (yes, people, sequences like that are possible). I did it in four hours — working with a friend who was obsessed with Fibonacci numbers :-). Another friend of mine got it by himself in three, but our proof was nicer.”
Mathematical Painting and Sculpture
Staircase knot
Topology
“This strange composition of staircase reminds Möbius strip, but unlike Möbius strip this figure has two sides”
OxDE
Surfaces for symmetric groups
xyz graphs
“Inspired by my previous post on a truncated-cube Cayley graph for permutations on four elements, I tried looking at similar presentations for larger permutation groups.”
MathNotations
Taking the ‘Unsummable’ Numbers to a higher level: An Algebraic Proof
Secondary Mathematics
“The challenge for my readers and for students is to use methods from Algebra 2 and basic number theory (primes, factors) to prove a conjecture…”
xkcd
Tapping
Humor
Casting Out Nines
Textbook-free Modern Algebra update
College Teaching
“I decided to get away from any kind of lecture at all, whether it was given by students or by me. Instead, I ended up changing the whole structure of the course to be a sort of modified Moore method”
Quomodocumque
They had not the habit of definition
Meaning
“High school math teacher Polymathematics delivered a magisterial series of posts on [does 0.9999 = 1] last year, which covers with admirable thoroughness every one of the many, many strange trails this argument likes to wander down. So I’ll leave that to him, and just use the question as an excuse to copy in one of my favorite quotes from G.H. Hardy”
The Universe of Discourse
Van der Waerden’s problem
Integer sequences
“In particular, I wanted to calculate V(3, 3). These days you can just look it up on Wikipedia, but in those benighted times such information was hard to come by”
Textsavvyblog
Volume of a Cone (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Finale)
Secondary Mathematics
“Vlorbik semi-challenged me to explain, sans calculus, how to find the formula for the volume of a cone. Well, after what was likely about two miles worth of pacing–and with the help of a certain Greek who got to this about 1,700 years before I did–I think I came up with a simple (though windy) way of explaining how to find the formula.“
The Geomblog
The “Voronoi” Trick
Redistricting and Computing
“I’m impressed at their use of power diagrams and the Voronoi trick, something that many theoryCS folks may not have encountered….can you evaluate the quality of a state’s redistricting plan ? Their answer is in the form of an approximation ratio”
Andrew McKie
The Wandering Mathematician
History
“Today is the anniversary of the death of the great Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdos in 1996”
The Ridgewood Eclectic Educator – Release Two
We don’t all learn math the same way
Mathematics Education
“Our brains are more pattern recognizers than rule recognizers so we really focus on patterns in mathematics.”
Bug Girl’s Blog
We’re taking our math and going home in a huff
Secondary Mathematics (Global)
The US is bowing out of the next TIMSSA, and Bug Girl says “this is just silly”
Political Calculations
Why Isn’t the U.S.’ National Debt per Capita Higher?
Economics
“how come the share of the national debt that would be shared equally among all American men, women and children only amounts to $26,727?”
That’s it for the October 5, 2007 Carnival of Mathematics #18 (published on October 6). CoM 19 will be at Good Math, Bad Math October 19. Until then!
Carnivalia for the 1st week of October
Posted: Teachers’ Potluck – Harvest Edition.
Posted: Carnival of Education at Evolution…not just a theory anymore. (Huge, well-organized, clean-looking, easy to read, you should really take a look).
Soon to be posted: Carnival of Mathematics (right here, due Friday, likely in the wee hours of Saturday)
New per diem and per session rates
New York City has new pay rates effective in just a few days. This increase is small, the one this coming May is larger, and will give subs $155/day and teachers $42/hr for per session work beyond the school day.
Occasional per diem |
Current |
10/13/2007 |
5/19/2008 |
| teacher
|
144.70 | 147.59 | 154.97 |
| school secretary |
107.94 | 110.10 | 115.60 |
Per Session and other rates
|
Current |
10/13/2007 |
5/19/2008 |
| Teacher
|
39.20 | 39.98 | 41.98 |
| School Secretary
|
24.16 | 24.64 | 25.88 |
| Lab Spec
|
36.42 | 37.15 | 39.01 |
| Coverage Rate
|
32.95 | 33.61 | 35.29 |
| Staff Development
|
17.85 | 18.21 | 19.12 |
| Shortage Area Rate |
5,284 | 5,390 | 5,659 |
| Lead Teacher Differential |
10,000 | 10,200 | 10,710 |
| Daily Training Rate |
35.59 | 38.29 | 40.21 |
Subject to Correction
In other news, the AFT endorsed Hillary Clinton. Didn’t we all already know that?
Puzzle – a conic twist
My friend asks: find a number twice as far from 15 as it is from 0. (actually, he was using fractions, but let’s find our entertainment elsewhere today).
5, right? But my friend slyly reminds me, and the other answer?
What? -15 is 15 from 0, and -15 is 30 from 15. We have two solutions… In one dimension. And in two dimensions?
What is the locus of all points in the plane twice as far from one given point as from a second given point?
Wait, before you put pencil to paper, or finger tip to mouseclicker, do you agree we will see some sort of conic section? Which do you expect?
(This is totally in the spirit of my bonus question from last Spring)
TFA
Nah, this post is not really about Teach for America, but since the NY Times and Ms. Frizzle just wrote about them, I figured it would be a good attention grabber.
If your parent was a teacher you are far more likely to keep at it than the typical new teacher.
Here’s my real question: How do we get people to stay in teaching? Has to be through a totally different approach. Is there any difference between how long TF, TFA, and regular route teachers are staying?
The only predictor I can find for longevity? If your parent was a teacher you are far more likely to stick with it.
We need something better than that. A program, a profile, an approach… The union can do more… the City won’t, since they are not troubled by unstable schools.
2 good ones by Leo
To be fair, I don’t hesitate to point out when Leo Casey (EdWize writer, UFT Special Rep and candidate for High School VP) goofs. In the coming two weeks I may raise some concerns about Leo’s likely new position (I will explain more, I will be obliged to explain more, if and when I write).
But save negatives for another day. Two Casey posts. Both uncharacteristically brief. Both well-written. Both aimed squarely at opponents of public education (and of us). Both absolutely worth reading:
- Facile Education Policy Talk. “This “I speak for the children, while you only care about the adults” line of rhetoric has become the educational policy equivalent of the abuse of patriotism in political discourse.“
Eduwonkette: The Educator’s Sensibility. “Eduwonkette points out that attacks on the person are indicative of an intellectual laziness. That is a vice that seems to grow the farther one is removed from the classroom.“
Logic puzzle. One answer? Or two?
A friend asked me to post this. He claims there are two correct answers. I only count one. What do you think?
A professor entered a lecture hall and saw four students: Patricia, Quentin, Roger, and Sara. On the lectern was an apple. Curious, he asked each student who had brought it. Patricia said “I did not bring it.” Sara said “Quentin brought it.” Quentin said “Roger brought it.” Roger said “Quentin did not tell you the truth when he said I brought it.” Only one of those statements is true. So, who brought the apple?
And while you are playing with that, who is this problem appropriate for? In what context would you suggest using it?
Enjoying class too much
I like my students. The longer I teach, the truer this seems to get. I remember terms when there was a class or two I dreaded. But not for a long time.
This year I have a favorite class. A better teacher might not, but I do.
As programmer, I teach 3 classes instead of 5. Well, 3½. And it was a good start. Scheduling was the smoothest ever, which freed me up for concentrating on the entertaining stuff: teaching.
In a small school where things run well, it is a privilege to have a class full of seniors I had as freshmen. It’s fun; I like my senior class. And my freshmen geometry class – they are sweet, and clever, and eager to please.
But I find myself looking forward to my third class, my freshman algebra. I am annoyed on the days we don’t meet. I can’t remember getting off to this kind of start with a new group of kids. Ever.
The class has a range of abilities; it is overall strong, but not my most talented algebra class ever. The kids are nice, but not the nicest I have ever had. They listen, but I’ve had more cooperative classes.
So why do I like them so much? They know how to play, just enough, not too much. After 11 years teaching, I have a niche – playful algebra teacher. So I tease, they tease back a little. I play, they play. But we still work. I get them for a full year. They’ll learn a lot, and I’ll have lots of fun. It doesn’t feel like work.
I feel a little guilty. 
Blog events
Teacher’s Potluck. At Ms. Whatsit. Due September 30. (tomorrow, sort of). Send links to whatsit81[at]yahoo[dot]com by Monday, October 1st, 3AM EST. After this month, the potluck will wander. Maybe it will come this way?
Carnival of Education. I will skip these unless the host is unabashedly pro-union, or is otherwise interesting/promising. Next week’s is hosted by Greg Laden at Evolution … not just a theory anymore, and hey, he’s buds with PZ of Pharyngula, has ultra-cool videos of cornstarch, and of course I will submit (via this submission tool). Deadline is Tuesday X? PM EST.
Carnival of Mathematics. Here. Submit. Due Thursday. Submit. Published Friday October 5. Submit.
A synchroblogging event on the environment. I learned about it from Darmok. October 15. Lots of bloggers will write about the environment. To do it, just do it. To get counted, click the banner-y thing, below, and sign up.
Credit – Mayor’s a sleaze
I just finished bashing NYC Ed. Not because he wrote a smart aleck-y post that sounded the only note he knows: things stink for teachers in NYC because of Unity. Not because his conclusion was unrelated to his subject. Nah, that stuff’s his bread and butter. I wrote because I wrote on a blog with obviously good intentions, and he chose to ignore them. He annoyed me.
Anyhow, I thought, if I react when he annoys me, then I should give him credit when good stuff appears on his blog. And was I surprised! A reasoned expose of the Mayor’s lousy attitude to women appeared today. Nothing smart-alecky, snarky, self-congratulatory. Just a well-reasoned post. Go read it.
Oh yeah, turns out someone else wrote it.
Carnival of Mathematics returns. Submit!
#18 will be here in a week. It’s time to think about what you will send in. Use the carnival submission tool (click here)
or just e-mail the link to me at [jd] [nospace] [2718] [at] gmail [dot] c0m. And “nospace” of course means, don’t put a space there.
Put Carnival of Mathematics or something similar in the subject line. And please include a brief description of you and your post. (for either style of submission)
Trinomial Factoring – nice site and last detail
So I wrote about why we should factor, some background skills (and banning FOIL), factoring by grouping, and breaking the middle. That’s really it, except for a few details, and the wrap up.
- History. I learned breaking the middle from Steve Conrad at an Association of Mathematics Teachers of New York State event five years ago. I’m guessing it was the Fall conference in Syracuse, but I might have the year wrong.
- Most people hunt for factors of Π. Instead, we use numbers that add to Σ. Much simpler: if the product is too large, spread the numbers out, if it is too small, move them together. If you miss the target when passing up or down one number, your expression is non-factorable
- For negative Σ, look for numbers with that difference.
- And here is a wonderful demo of breaking the middle from a private Wisconsin Resource center (can be purchased for off-line use – ignore the FOIL part): Wisconsin Demo.
Click that demo a bunch of times.
Sometimes I feel a little mad
Let Vlorbik complain about them lyrics! Pissed Off Teeacher writes that her school has ATRs, but the AP’s are hawking 6th classes.
My comment (click above link to read all comments):
- Please approach your Chapter Leader. It is our job as a union to protect our weakest and most vulnerable, and today, that means ATRs first.
Another commenter responds:
- Jonathan – you do realize though, that your way of thinking is the exception, rather than the rule….it’s difficult to take [Randi Weingarten] seriously when she created the situation in the first place.
And I respond:
- Advocating what is right is not a tactical decision. We just do it. [I discuss an Exec Board resolution, by New Action, adopted by all, calling for a moratorium on hiring new teachers while there were unplaced ATRs] Enough? Absolutely not. But I advocate what’s right, and keep plugging away. The alternative is not an alternative.
(Click “more” to find out what came next –>) Read more…
2718 talks, WashPost listens
Just days ago I suggested in this space that if we were intending to amend NCLB, we should instead claim that we are dumping it and replacing it with something else.
And today’s Washington Post reports on just that, sort of. Even George Miller wants to change the name. Turns out, it’s not just my idea, and it’s not even being used as a way to dump and replace. Oh well.
Suggestions include:
- Quality Education for All Children Act
- amending Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
- Children First!
- No Child Left a Brain Act
- All the Money Left Behind Act
- New Partnerships for Student Achievement
- Educating Americans for Today’s World
- The Lifelong Economic Security Act
- Give Children a Fair Chance Act.
Thanks to David of Lost in the Ozone (I’m guessing that that’s Ozone Park), a NYC Biology teacher.
Pretend to speak foreign languages day
Я сегодня написал на доске:
1. дано AB ≅ AC …
I can’t really write, but when I have an excuse to try. The second line starts with the word “given” in Russian. I was pretty proud.
2. A girl revealed her middle name in a freshman class, with a bizarrely doubled vowel. Finnish, she explained. There was some discussion of what “Finnish” might mean. I offered that I’d been there, and started to count. No recognition. I repeated the words, but in English “One, two” (don’t know further). Oh right, says she. Kitos, I say. And she translates “He said ‘thank you.'” Oohs and aahs from the students. Yeah, right. They were oblivious to my well-chosen foreign word, and strangely unupset at losing valuable mathematics instructional time.
3. I wrote a student’s name in Korean on the board. “Close!” “Close?” Yeah, I have trouble with some vowels.
4. After school (yesterday) a student transliterated other student’s names into Persian, and then Arabic. He used the same letters, but curled them more in Persian. I tried, but don’t really know the letters. (that one doesn’t really count. I’m stretching – I’m done)
So far this year, I’m having fun.
Walk and talk
I spent this afternoon hiking with two teachers. None of us brought a camera, which turned out to be too bad. We had spectacular views of the Hudson. Turkey hawks circled and perched near us. Heavy birds! They shook the branches when they took off. Beautiful fall flowers were briefly in bloom. I think we saw raspberries (bushes, no berries). And just a hint of the start of foliage. Oh yeah, we were at Storm King, across the Hudson from Breakneck Ridge.
Right, so these were teachers. We talked about normal things, like if the Mets were going to choke bad enough for the Phillies to pass them, and hiking, and ‘ooo, what a view’ and Summer Vacation stories and other teacher sorts of things.
The hottest teacher topics were things I blog: ATRs, restructuring, that sort. We also talked about beginning the year, and setting the beginning tone in the classroom, and little reward systems and incentives we use to get good, productive behavior out of our students.
But the most interesting topic was pretty hot. Do we need Assistant Principals? How much do they really do? How much of what they do is really needed? And how much of what they do can or should be done by teachers? Where would non-supervisory coordinators make more sense?
Except we were arguing. Cool, we disagreed & agreed & disagreed more. But next time, only 2 at a time, so that the 3rd person can watch the trail markers.
NCLB – revise or dump?
I have the start of an interesting discussion on Edwize about No Child Left Behind. Maisie makes the case that there is need for some of the provisions in the current law, and for this reason it needs revising, not dumping. I hope the discussion continues, go, read, comment.
But let’s leave Washington Politics aside for the moment, and talk about regular folks politics. There is annoyance, anger, outrage, frustration with how unfair and even absurd parts of the law are. Students, even principals, and especially parents and teachers are unhappy with it. We have a chance to mobilize. You want to change NCLB to NCLB (revised)? Why not rename NCLB (revised) to be Equity and Quality in Education act, or somesuch? Just a different name. We’re looking for the same changes the AFT and UFT and maybe NEA are talking about.
But instead of saying “revise” say “dump NCLB” and “replace with EQEA” (name doesn’t matter). The anger, annoyance, etc, is there. Using the word “dump,” “cancel,” “defeat,” anything like that, we could tap into the outrage. By saying “revise” we are missing an opportunity. Why not package the revision as a revolt and a fresh start?
Math Carnival – way beyond compare
That’s right, Carnival o’ Math is just 17.
Go take a look, at Mathnotations. Dave has picked an assortment of 17 posts from research level to elementary. I’m in there too!
Small disasters
How many teachers were in your school October 1, 2006? Of those teachers, how many were still there September 4, 2007?
We (the UFT, not me) should collect this information (from our members, from our Chapter Leaders, not from the Department of Education) and publish it.
Are we curious about pregnancies and retirements? Congratulations and congratulations, but no. Every school loses a few people. But accurately report on all, so that the massive turnover schools can be clearly seen.
I know a school (School A), not far from here, where the principal works the teachers hard. She runs a good tough school, and while she may nibble at the edges of the contract, she plays fair. And her “staying rate” is not sky high, but is pretty high for the Bronx. Oh, yeah, the kids do fairly well.
And I know schools with “staying rates” at or below 50%. One of the poster child small schools that the DoE mentions in every press release about how successful the new small schools are (School B)… Disaster. Exodus in June, every June, for five years running. And the successful numbers? I can’t explain them. Maybe they don’t really exist.
We don’t have to do what I suggest. But how many years in a row will we let School B destroy Teaching Fellows before they have a chance to become teachers? How can we let 2nd and 3rd year teachers transfer into this snake pit? And how many more School B’s are out there, thriving like some mold, some disgusting malignancy, in the darkness. Let’s shed the light of day on the situation.
(Grapevine is ok, but it requires individual – scattered – action. The UFT collecting and disseminating information is, well, collective.)
Marain and Steen, a comment
This week retired math supervisor Dave Marain published a two part interview (1 2) with professor Lynn Arthur Steen. Marain tossed mostly slow pitches, but I don’t blame him for that, I might have done the same thing. However, the next to last question is about the Math Wars, and the one before that about the 1989 NCTM Standards, and Steen’s answers seemed off, and made me think. Here’s the bits I reacted to (the entire text is questions 17 and 18, on Dave’s site):
- 17. [I]f you could go back in time to the development of the original NCTM standards, what are some changes you would make…?[D]ifferent readers read the Standards differently. I read them as clarion call for eliminating the tradition, most evident in mathematics, to select and educate only the most able students and to provide others, disproportionately poor and minority, with only the illusion of education. For the first time a powerful national voice said that all students deserve a mathematics education.
- If I were able to go back and make any change, I would highlight that central message more, and make clear that the suggested particulars were to be worked out through traditional American strategies of local innovation. The NCTM [should have kept] the nation’s attention on the central goal of providing all students with a meaningful mathematics education.
I think this is history rewritten. That goal is interesting, reasonable, just. And these were not called “Standards for Equity” or any such thing. I can imagine a much different discussion, and not necessarily a war, if the Standards said that math was being taught well, or at least ok, to our stronger students, but that our weaker students weren’t being taught enough, well enough, and that some curricular and pedagogical compromises needed to be made so that more students could go further…. But you read that here, not in the Standards.
There is a second, larger problem (at least for me). Teachers voice is lost. The Math Wars were math professors (and math savvy parents) vs math ed professors (and publishers and administrators). Teachers more or less kept their heads down and tried to find middle ground, or tried to follow mandates that just didn’t seem right.
And now? Steen mentions face-to-face discussions between the protagonists, but teachers are not part of that. The ‘protagonists’ should be talking to teachers, asking teachers. Instead, one group out fo the classroom is negotiating with another group from out of the classroom. That they are willing to compromise means that they will be less wrong than 20 years ago. That they are not listening to teachers means they won’t get it right, either.
JD2718 