Mnemonic abbreviations – only as necessary
Abbreviations. Shortenings. Zakrasheniya. And all variety of cutesy ways to remember mathematical details. I don’t go for them. Not when the mathematical principles would be just as clear (or clearer) without them.
I don’t like:
- FOIL. (special case; don’t we know how to distribute?)
- Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (misleading in multiple ways)
- All students take calculus (huh?)
I once depended on “sinus-minus” but now think it is silly. And I still need “A student earning B’s is not on probation” but I am getting to the point where it might go bye-bye soon. But I think my students will still benefit from it.
And I do write:
complementary
complementary
qomplementary
(that q is a 9 with a straight spine) which I learned from a teacher who learned it from a kid – but now it’s just a gag – my students already know the difference between complementary and supplementary.
Anyway, do you know some cutesiness that is useful? More examples of uselessness?
Where’d Kombiz go?
You may remember Kombiz as the original sysop from August ’05 over at EdWize. He helped me set this blog up, was a regular reader, and occasional commenter. But now he’s no longer at EdWize. He’s left New York.
Where’d Kombiz go?
Follow the links.
Start with this one.
Class size reduction?
Not in New York. The Department of Education is taking a whole pile of money, fruits of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, and designating it for… its general fund. They are not calling it the general fund. They are dividing the money into lots of little piles and divvying it up for all sorts of various and sundry. But is it class-size reduction? Nah. Others have described it better (try here or here or here or here – rollover for names). Nothing on class size. Read it, or trust me, your call.
They put out their report last Thursday, and public hearings started yesterday, and they will jam four more in to the next three days so that every borough has had one and so that there is no real time for publicity. School-related hearings with three days notice in the Summer? They just didn’t want anyone to show up.
So the first was in the Bronx and my DR contacted some people, and a few of us came. There were maybe 100 people altogether. We were in the gymnasium of Bx Law, Govt & Justice (I hope I got that name right), a very nice-feeling new building near the courthouses. The panel looked like a bunch of DoE lawyers, though someone who knows better might know their individual titles. Marcia Lyles was there, but did no talking. Still, wouldn’t any decent educator have been ashamed to be part of this?
(much more, including comments on Randi’s remarks, below the fold Read more…
Vacation planning – And the winner is…
Sofia, Bulgaria. In the end, this less than glowing travelogue (from xenophilia, an interesting travel sort-of-blog website – New Guinea, Greece, Ghana, and lots o’ other places) convinced me, not that I’d love Sofia, but that it would be interesting enough, and that reaching it from Thessaloniki would not be a problem.
Maybe I’ll even have time to visit Rila Monastery:
Algebra – do we start too easy?
I am teaching algebra again next year. Not that I mind algebra. Quite the contrary. I think it is vitally important that freshmen receive a strong foundation in algebra, and in many ways this is more of a challenge than teaching, for example, precalc. Further, I don’t mind teaching freshmen. (Although once I did, but that’s another story)
So here’s the question: The beginning of my course covers ground that most, but not all, have already seen, though not at the depth I will be covering the stuff. And this is transition to high school time. I go a bit slow, and concentrate on good behavior, work habits, organizational skills, etc. But that means that it is relatively easy to earn very high grades for the first and even second marking periods (we have 3/term, 6/year), and build up a false sense of confidence. When we hit factoring, every year, one or two or even three kids in each class will get caught ‘napping,’ iow, will not pay attention because everything up to this point has been easy, and become lost. It happens so fast that some of these kids never get back on track. (Btw, this is very much a boy thing).
So what to do about it? I already warn them in advance. Plus these are 9th graders, 13 year-olds. They are not much advanced past the stage where they hear: “Don’t touch that, it’s hot” and proceed to immediately touch. I don’t want to make the beginning much tougher. What I do now works well with most kids. Those 4 – 8 weeks at the beginning are really a nice time to lay down good foundation, clean up work and make it more uniform (eg, transposition instead of pendant addition).
Have you experienced this? What do you do about it? Or even if you haven’t, do you have ideas/suggestions?
Vacation planning – refocused
So I started with questions about Iceland, and moved on to more questions about Iceland, and now? Everything’s coming into focus, but Iceland is out of the picture. Berlin is set, my little Greek island is set, Salonika is set, and then I have a few days to journey as I will.
Remaining question: Waking up one Monday in northern Greece, where will I wander for the next week or so? And at the end of that week, will I be returning from Athens, Thessaloniki, Istanbul, Sofia, or somewhere else?
Oh, and everything needs to be resolved by Monday (tomorrow) night, so if you have any ideas, jump right in!
Puzzle: an absolute reader maximum conundrum
Vlorbik, in yesterday’s discussion, threw out this little problem:
the absolute value can be defined in terms of the maximum function quite easily:
abs(x) := max{x, -x}.
but to define “max” in terms of “abs”takes a moment’s thought (or, in my case, several moments). give it a try!
I should mention, I did not find this one easy.
Do us a favor, and leave questions below, but put proposed solutions back here, so that others won’t see them by accident while they are still trying to solve. Thanks.
Puzzle: a doubles probability quickie
Which is more likely, rolling doubles with two regular, 6-sided dice, or rolling *doubles with one 6-sided die and one 4-sided die. Explain why your answer makes sense.
* The dice are numbered 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 1,2,3,4. Doubles is when the numbers on both dice match.
Puzzles: Counting to 6 Quickies
Assume that n regular (six-sided) dice are thrown. In terms of n, find:
- The minimum and maximum sums possible.
- The number of sums possible.
- The most likely sum.
Image is from “think again! seductive math problems for the modern mind” Click on the dice to go there… I have not explored yet.
Teacher Potluck
For the 4th Ms. Whatsit is organizing a teachers potluck, and I’m coming. I think she will link us all together, carnival-style, when the day is out and before any fireworks are launched.
I’m bringing oniony lemon/pepper chicken.
It is an accident, an experiment from years ago. I was trying to recreate an ethnic dish that I hadn’t eaten in over a decade, and I got it badly wrong. But the result was kind of good. So I keep making it, and it always comes out different, since I don’t measure anything, and since sometimes I leave out the tomato, or use cut up breasts instead of thighs, or change the heat, or cook it longer or shorter, but it’s always good.
(directions beneath the fold —>) Read more…
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 things about me
Educator on the Edge tagged me. And in turn I tag: Nan (how come you haven’t been tagged yet? You are always first. Or maybe I just missed it?), Hamid (of back of van fame), Hal, Darmok (who has been awfully quiet), MissProfe (nice blog I just discovered), School Teacher at Bright Minds (don’t know your name), Illinois Fred (if you go in for this sort of thing), Khloud (who does occasionally go in for this sort of stuff), and this Bronx history teacher (in case she is not busy when she gets back from vacation).
Now, here are 8 random facts about me:
- I can’t pronounce the difference between the vowels in bear, beer, bier, bare, bear, Bayer or anything else like that. Same goes for pare, pear, peer, pier (but payer, as in single payer, is good)
- I don’t like to drive. I had a license as a kid, but only drove briefly. Once I got to NY it made no difference. I didn’t even own a car until a few years ago. Yesterday, on the way to the mechanic because it’s been stalling, I stalled. I wasn’t happy about paying the money, but part of me was glad I got that 20 mile ride in the tow truck’s passenger seat.
(6 more, below the fold –>) Read more…
Two separate education systems in New York?
The Supreme Court decision against looking at race to help desegregate schools, I don’t think we had any such plan in New York City. Not to say our schools aren’t segregated. But the reality in New York City is that the majority of public school students are Black or Hispanic, and that our neighborhoods and boroughs are themselves heavily segregated.
But we have no legal segregation. We do have some integrated neighborhoods; we have some integrated schools. My feeling (don’t have numbers) is that Ed Op in some of the boroughs produced racially balanced schools. But mixed schools are less common than segregated schools in NYC.
When New York City began closing big high schools that were under registration review, and replacing them with smaller schools: Andrew Jackson, Monroe, George Washington, Eastern District, Morris, Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, all of these large schools were primarily Black and Hispanic. Made sense, since the worst schools were in the poorest neighborhoods (mostly). But now the educational landscape was different. We had large high schools in most neighborhoods (but missing from some of the poorest). We had alternative schools scattered throughout the City. We had boutique-y small schools in some Manhattan neighborhoods (mostly District 2 creations). And we had break-up schools in the poorest, minority neighborhoods.
(I wrote about this process a few months ago, here)
(continues below the fold —->) Read more…
Browning Status
This blog started a little over a year ago. Kombiz, of EdWize (since moved on to something further south) pushed me to start it, and then encouraged and advised me. When I asked if I was ever going to see any real traffic, Kombiz told me maybe, but that the best I could ever hope for was “Frizzle status.”
I like speech rhythms. “Frizzle Status” scans like “Browning Version,” with as distant a referent (trochaic obscurity?)
(in the 1951 film of the same name, the nice kid tells pathetic Michael Redgrave that his translation of Agamemnon is “better than the Browning Version”)
Ms. Frizzle was the fantastic blog of a middle school science teacher. Bits of NY, personal stuff , but mostly just teaching. Passionate, real, she didn’t gloss things up or paint some dystopic blackboard jungle. Plus, the quality of her teaching just oozed all over everything. Frizzle was the best teacher blog out there, with the readership to prove it. Then Frizzle went away — far away. Maybe she’ll be back?
Oh yeah, the point of this. jd2718 is nothing like Frizzle. But 11,000 visitors last month? Feed reads growing (when WordPress dropped the stats), and in the last hour WordPress decided that I’d had my 100,000th page view. So thanks to all of you for reading, even if what’s oozing out isn’t brilliance.
Positive discrimination
When someone comes to talk to me about a union situation in their school, one of my first questions is how often their chapter meets. If the chapter does not meet, the contract is vulnerable to administrative predations in that school. It’s true even if the Chapter Leader meets with the principal.
Positive discrimination (affirmative action, desegregation, etc) was won by a movement. Movement demobilized? Gains are vulnerable
This is not so different from the embarassing 2005 New York City teacher contract negotiations, when the Mayor decided he did not need to bargain with us. Our chapters were flabby, did not meet, did not function. From a position of weakness, there was really nothing we could do. Choice A was to wait him out, get only steps and no fresh raises in the interim, and work on strengthening our chapters. Choice B was to cave in on a host of issues. Our ability to negotiate was undermined by our failure to maintain our strength.
(more below the fold —>) Read more…
11th Carnival of Mathematics – it’s all in the timing
So the 11th Carnival of Mathematics is due today. At Grey Matters.
11th Carnival. Would have figured eleventh hour, last minute, just barely making it. But nooooo…
At one minute past midnight EST it went up. Already there for 8 hours, more by the time you read this. Hurry over.
An annotated directory to C’s 1 – 10 is here.
The C of Mathematics home is here.
It doesn’t add up (and neither can she)
Jolanta Rohloff, lousy ex-principal of Lafayette, next principal of Manhattan Center for Math and Science? I got it from Mike Klonsky, who got it from Dr. Homeslice, who got it from the NY Post. And what better source is there than the Post? They quote the UFT, but it doesn’t make the UFT website.
I do notice a bunch of search engine hits for her on this blog, and this old post of mine (Creative Grading, about her wanting grades to total to 130%) about her is seeing a few extra hits.
So let’s hear it for recycling the non-recyclables.
UFT, Green Dot, in deal to give Barr a NYC school
In an e-mailed bulletin going out under Jeff Zahler’s name, the UFT announced it was in a deal to try to bring a Green Dot HS to the South Bronx. I cannot tell from the bulletin how the approval process with NY State will work.
Let me make a few (skeptical and critical) notes, and then reproduce the announcement in its entirety.
- What contract? Why is this not being mentioned?
- Cap class sizes for this school, when the UFT has not been able to lower class sizes elsewhere?
- Hiring? Green Dot controls? How about a little attention to our members who are having trouble with the open market hiring system, first?
- Does that “stay open longer” line mean that the UFT is going for a longer working day?
- How did this not pass through the UFT Delegate Assembly? (I’m sure there was some general resolution authorizing “explorations” or something like that once upon a time. But this is too big to go ahead without membership approval – says me. I’m sure Leo will disagree.)
The text of what I received (20 minutes ago) is below the fold —-> Read more…
Vacation planning – stalled
One, two, three, four clicks away from finalizing everything, and I can’t pull the trigger. It’s all lined up. After a conference in DC, I will come back and fly and train and boat and relax… but I have refused to seal the deal. And yesterday I ran into a friend, going to DR for the summer, suggested I come for a week or two. Why does this sound more tempting?
The primary alternative is 4 – 5 days in Berlin, a day or two in Salonica, most of a week on a Greek island, meander back to my airport, and from there to Reykjavik for 2 full days (and 3 nights).
Why the delay? This is not necessarily cheap, and DR would be far cheaper, but I budgeted for it. It is a bit long altogether, maybe I want some of my summer in New York? Or I am nervous about so much packing and moving about (not as young as last year when I did Salonica, Istanbul, and a bunch of little cities and islands in between). And New Orleans might open up. But I know it won’t. Whatever it is, I really only have a week at most left to decide.
A good thing…
Yesterday should have been goodbye for our seniors – off to summer jobs and vacations, a few to summer school – and then college. We had a senior breakfast, and then diploma distribution. But more of them came back today for a barbecue and to hang out one last time and mix with the underclassmen (and delay for a few more months the day when this year’s juniors get to feel like the biggest kids on campus).
This was not the first class I’ve said goodbye to, but it may have been the hardest. All sorts of promises to stay in touch notwithstanding, most will not likely drop by more than once next year, and after that? These really were goodbyes, and to some of my favorites. I got an apple, and a collection of Pushkin (side by side English/Russian, very thoughtful – U lukomorya, dub zelyoniy; zlataya tsep’ na dube tom; i dnyom i nochyu kot uchyoniy vsyo hodit po tsepi krugom… -) and a few cards. More kids said nice things about my speech. I liked hearing that.
But my favorites of all – I hurt their feelings a few weeks ago, and they haven’t spoken to me since. That’s very hard after four years together. And I feel sad. No chance for apology. Just left. It won’t be easy to forget about them.
And the rest said their goodbyes. Other classes will have better scores. I will grow to like other kids just as much. But today, this afternoon, all my seniors are gone and I already miss them.
(drawing is from exploding dog. Commercial site, I think. You send him a phrase, he illustrates it. This one says “it is time to go” Click the photo to visit his site.)
Language and schedule conflict
Merhaba! This is supposed to be language week, but thoughtful posts will be hard, especially in the handful of languages I (pretend) to speak besides English. I can read a bit in 3 other languages, guess out the words in several related ones, fake some tourist-speak in another handful, but you can’t really fake writing. At least I can’t. Zhalko. Quelle dommage.
Plus I am very very busy. This is the end of grade/transcript season, and the early part of scheduling season. And there is lot’s to do. Hay mucho trabajo. Small school scheduling is really a very different beast than large school scheduling.
(Lot’s about small school scheduling, below the fold —>) Read more…
Math camp
You won’t catch me saying bad things about all Teaching Fellows. Yup, in many cases they don’t last in the system very long. Many come in with anti-union animus. Some of them treat their older colleagues with insufficient (no?) respect, or can be know-it-all-ish when they know very little.
25 started in 2003. 19 coming back for their fifth year; most in the Bronx
But there’s also Math Camp.
I met the 25 math campers four years ago, just before they started teaching. And yesterday I went to their fourth annual picnic, a few blocks from West Farms.
I don’t know that they did to make things work. They were young college grads, but also change of career-ers. And a few retirees from one career looking for a brand new one. More women than men, mostly white, but not 100% anything. Certainly not all from the same class, background, region or social group. But in that first summer of math camp, back in 2003, they must have bonded in some strange way.
(more, and stats, below the fold —>) Read more…
Summer goals
I got tagged with this meme a few weeks ago by Nani, and am finally ready to respond:
- Complete the school’s master schedule in early July. Have (subject to change) schedules for kids to mail out before they arrive in September (this is ambitious – we’ve never been close to this before – but worth a try)
- Get far away for at least two weeks (I have delayed finalizing my big trip. I don’t know why. It would be 3+ weeks. I think I am mentally paring it back)
- Explore parts of New York like a tourist. I always mean to, but I just don’t. I’ve been here almost a quarter century. Time to hit some little museums and new restaurants.
- Walk/hike. The more I do, the easier it gets.
- Replace the car. It’s older than my students (including my graduating seniors). And as of late, not quite as reliable.
- Set up that lousy Flickr. It’s been too long. I had the answer almost a year ago. High priority. So that I can…
- get back to photographing steps of New York. It was a lovely start (though the photo resolution was too high).
- And then the more mundane preparation of the new Algebra course (which I will be teaching)
- And getting ready to be more involved with my union. (and to devolve more union responsibility within my own chapter)
Nice Car
I am happy I gave that graduation speech. I am happy about two messages – the big obvious one about doing good, and the brief but needed one – to oppose the current war. The kids who applauded when they heard “Today our country is involved in an unjust war…” may have been applauding a political message, outside of class, for the first time in their lives (I really don’t know, just guessing). But maybe it was a little step in their maturing into politically aware adults.
Anyhow, credit in three directions:
- First to the seniors for asking me, especially since they didn’t know what I’d say.
- Then to math teacher / blogger Zenoferox of Halfway There, whose Memorial Day post inspired a previous draft (which focused on the Draft. Did you know that our students are registered as 1-H with Selective Service?). In the end I cut out all references to the draft (I was my father’s deferment; my cousin whose been in Vancouver for 40 years; today’s economic draft), but he set some of the tone, and just set an example of saying something that needed to be said.
- Finally, Dave Lippman.
(story beneath the fold —>) Read more…
Graduation
This year I was asked by the senior class to give the keynote address. Here is the prepared text (though I deviated from it quite a bit)
Class of 2007, as I look out at your faces, at your caps and gowns, I see before me doctors and lawyers, architects and engineers, teachers and businesspeople.
But that’s not enough.
(much more below the fold —>) Read more…
Math A Regents – today
The June 2003 Math A Regents was a disaster throughout New York State (see previous post) – not just in the Bronx and Brooklyn where everyone expects failure, but in the rural areas, the other cities, and most importantly for the politicians, in the suburbs as well. After the June 2003 Math A, politicians from throughout New York State became (briefly) interested in math. The June results were throw out for seniors – they sat for the exam – they could graduate. For everyone else, a new scale was issued (not until August!).
Old Math A’s, scoring guides, and conversion charts
Scale? Yes, our Math A and Math B Regents are scale. Currently they are 86 and 88 points respectively, and are scaled to numbers out of a hundred on something of an erratic curve. Each administration of each test, the scaling is different, and not announced in advance. So a child, conscious of how much of the test he has confidently completely, does not know what score he has earned.
passing scores are now something like 35 out of 86
(more beneath the fold —>) Read more…
JD2718 