Content-free logic test answers
Use this space to submit answers and explanations to this logic test.
Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions
Read this post from Teaching Matters Most.
Education, Carnival of, up
at elementary history teacher. There’s a lot there. I should look it over, and decide, do I really want to be a part of this?
Thinking bloggers
MRC marked me. And I nominate 5 more? This is silly, but why not spread the praise? Alon. Dan. Hal. Hamid. Nani. RtS. Rod. Seven, because I figure at least one or two of you got hit already.
But look, if I’m talking to you (either directly, or on your blog, or you are coming here and reading this stuff) I either think 1) you are an idiot, 2) inappropriately reckless, or 3) a thinking person. And 90% fall into the last category. Which means, if you have a blog, there’s like a 90% chance I consider you a thinking blogger. Just take a copy of the award and stick it onto your own blog. If anyone asks, I really meant to list you too.
Puzzle: Is the spider hungry?
A spider eats three flies a day. Until she has done this, she has an even chance of catching a fly that flies through her web. A fly is about to fly through the web. What is the fly’s chance of survival, given that today five flies have already flown through his web?
If you find this problem challenging, try it.
More below the fold: —> Read more…
Teacher Pay from far away: Sandy, Utah
I will be concentrating on pay in the New York metropolitan area, but a reader sent a link from Sandy, Utah, so why not share it? Remember though, the cost of living is significantly lower there – their numbers and ours are not directly comparable.
Sandy is a suburb of Salt Lake City, 93.5% white, about 80,000 people, and per capita income of about $23,000.
For the New York City Department of Education salary schedule, click current or future.
Sandy’s salary schedule is below the fold ———–> Read more…
Equine Inequality
Just a LaTeX practice exercise. Took about 1 minute, got it on the first try.
In the spirit of a recent post at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, (and he tips his brush to Let’s Play Math) I would give credit to the man who taught me the equine inequality, but I am not so sure he would want to be known for passing it on.
Oh, and information age or not, the equine inequality applies wonderfully to the blogosphere.
UFT: My union and war
I may need help with details. Feel free to jump in if facts or timeline need correction.
My union supported the war in Viet Nam. But that was before I was a teacher.
My union supported the invasion of Afghanistan 6 years ago. But today, the UFT opposes the war in Iraq, has paid for buses to a Washington anti-War march, and opposes allowing military recruiters into our schools.
In the wake of 9/11, my union passed a resolution supporting the war in Afghanistan. I remember that Delegate Assembly well. It was at Fashion Industries, and I sat in my usual spot, with the other Bronx high school chapter leaders and delegates, on the speakers’ left, in the far back seats, nosebleed section. I was opposed to US intervention in Afghanistan, and was quietly discussing it with some delegates. It was a tough sell, and emotions were running high, but I knew these people and it was possible to at least talk. Then Randi called on Abe Levine to speak.
more below the fold) —-> Read more…
Leadership?
Kelly tagged me for a meme. I’m supposed to list 7 qualities that you don’t know about me that make me a good leader. I am running for a UFT office position on the New Action slate, but I am pretty certain that Kelly did not have that in mind when she tagged me. I don’t know about this. It’s a tough list. I think some of my answers sound silly; others boastful. That’s not my intent; this is hard. I can’t include things you likely already know.
- I like to look at situations from the points of view of the people I am working against (an extension of my ability not just to see errors in students’ work, but to explain how that error probably occurred)
- I despise injustice and unfairness. When someone is treated unfairly, I feel it to my core, and sometimes experience it as mild nausea.
- I never ask anyone to do anything that I would not do. Never.
- I am very easy to underestimate.
- While I hate being criticized, I invite criticism and accept it seriously; I agree with some and disagree with some, but I hear it (new, as an adult)
- My listening is ok, but could be better, but know that I should work on it, so I do, and it does improve (new, as an adult)
- I share decision-making. (that might not be new, since it filters through some of my class decisions that I have posted about on this blog)
Finally, I am supposed to tag five more people. If you want the tag, grab it. Just put your name in the comments, and say that it is you (with a number). If/when we reach #5, we are done.
Organize charters; convert charters
I am not a charter school advocate. In fact, I wish my union were 1) actively working to organize charter school teachers in NYC into our union, (are we doing this? I think so. Don’t know if there are positive results yet, except for the UFT charter school), and 2) openly advocating that no more charters be opened in NYS, and that charter schools be reconverted to regular public schools.
If we think it’s good practice to form charter schools who can operate free from the regulations governing public schools, then why do we support the regulations governing public schools?
Charter schools are, in fact, public schools, but organized outside of local boards of education. As such, they serve as a way to circumvent local and state regulations. Sounds reasonable, eh? Nope.
(read on, beneath the fold) —> Read more…
Some fresh links
Links I’ve added in the last week or two:
- Educator on the Edge is a non-New York version of Pissed off Teacher. It’s not just NYC that makes life for talented, experienced teachers difficult. These two should be mandatory reading. While mentioning POT, two things: First – Go, run, look at her latest post with the photos from her school’s ‘portable classrooms’. And link to them. Or put up your own. Second, when going to POT, click links, don’t try to type, since there is strange spelling in her url (teeacher?).
- e of e’s ponderings is a Bosnian one-time Salt Lake City resident who now teachers college students, mostly preservice teachers, in Ann Arbor, and does math. I wonder how much of that was correct?
- Denise from Let’s Play Math has taught or tutored math from Kindergarten through college. She’s homeschooling her kids now. The blog is focussed.
- Math mom is a highly involved, um, math-oriented mom. Not a homeschooler, but very involved.
- Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub. Ha! What a name. Math teacher, I think, but an all around education oriented blog. Smart.
- Hal of Hal’s House of Pancakes is a math teacher. Slightly random-topic blog.
- Brown-eyed Girl is a student teacher (elementary) somewhere in Massachussetts, I think. Not afraid of math. Not my usual link, but there is something upbeat and fun (even when the class was neither!)
- Daniel Livingstone at Learning Games is a professor of computer science in Scotland (?) and works with games and thinks learning with games is, um, interesting, teaches about computer games, but is skeptical about some of the claims, all the same.
So, go visit them all. See for yourself. There’s lots of neat stuff out there.
LaTeX on WordPress
Apparently, it’s fairly easy. I just need to learn the vocabulary. For those of you on WordPress, look here. No importing pdfs. TeX direct into your posts (and comments, I assume).
Test:
By adding a space after the '$', the code doesn't execute. Here is the code that produced the line above, with space added: $ latex H\frac{\partial i}{\partial m}\left|\Psi(o)\right>=M\left|\Psi(!)\right> $
Carnival of education – good idea?
#106. Valentines Day. First time jd2718 is mentioned. Check it out.
What do you think of blog-carnivals? Math, that’s easy, we have a range of levels, with some curious topics. Makes me smile, and I will continue to follow it, try my hand understanding harder stuff, comment, contribute sometimes. By the way, you can learn a lot at Goodmath, Badmath. Browse the archives.
But the carnival of education? I will read more, and think. There are people in favor of teachers and kids and good stuff, and those against them, and they all come together in one carnival. It’s a situation worth thinking more about.
In the meantime, Dr. Homeslice is running Union Bouquets, a sort of teachers union carnival. If you have stuff, wave at him. No matter what I attitude I end up adopting to the regular carnival, I will try to send readers his way.
Too much algorithmic honesty?
Today, mid-polynomial unit, I taught a class polynomial long division and polynomial synthetic division. Side-by-side, actually. Preceded by arithmetic long division (Greenleaf – an unfamiliar repeated subtraction without place value algorithm (how I was taught)), and the standard American algorithm. Opening examples were 279/13 and (2x^2 + 7x + 9)/(x + 3).
So I make them do a few examples, using both methods, synthetic and long, but before we can get to the 2007 game (thank you, Denise), a kid asks:
Which is better [long division or synthetic division]?
I froze, and then answered.
“In most high schools, polynomial long division is taught first, in an earlier course. Once synthetic division is taught, many teachers expect that it is the method to be used, all the time. But me, I never use synthetic division. Polynomial long division uses a familiar algorithm from arithmetic, and that is too big an advantage to ignore. In tonight’s homework, you have to do some of each, but for your own work, and on tests, you may choose which you are more comfortable with.”
Was I too honest?
Specialized means?
For New York City public high schools, it means that admission is based on a challenging test. For years there were three specialized high schools: Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, and Stuyvesant. Three small specialized high schools were added on CUNY campuses in 2002: at CCNY, at Lehman College, and at York College. Two more schools were added to the list recently (in Brooklyn and on Staten Island) bringing the total to 8.
Oh, right. Why write this? Because the NY Sun thinks 20 more are opening next year.
In fact, the 20 schools (and the number will go up in February, with more announcements) are five transitional schools for older kids who’ve been failing most of their classes and could not possibly graduate on-time, six 6-12 schools, and nine small Nadelstern-style failure academies (9-12).
The Sun makes writing about educational issues in NYC a specialty. Would have thought they had the basics down. Guess not.
(more below the fold) —> Read more…
Backblog
I have been trying to post once a day, but I have hit a small backlog. I will try, in the next 10 days, to
- post the three salary items that readers submitted,
- finish a long overdue post on the UFT Negotiating Committee (on the occasion of our celebratory party),
- plug the next carnival of education (since I submitted something),
- write a quick piece on last Wednesday’s Delegate Assembly,
- post a new puzzle (this one’s a doozy – all number properties, with logic), and another,
- offer a jd3100 –> jd2718 limited progress report,
- update on at least one of my classes,
- recognize my half dozen new links,
- update on the UFT elections, and why our support for New Action matters,
- debunk some of the Board of Ed small school lies (since they just rehashed the last batch, and came up with some new ones)
- point to more details on reorganization, and comment on the UFT response so far
- and come up with at least one vacation post.
And of course, in between, other things will come up that I blog instead. But I do mean well. ( :
Puzzles: How to modify problems – an example
Yesterday e (who I just blogrolled – I think we are related) from e’s ponderings posted the following problem:
Prove that the midpoint quadrilateral (a quadrilateral obtained by connecting consecutive midpoints of sides) of an isosceles trapezoid is a rhombus.
and invited readers to offer more than one proof.
I found more than one proof, and then asked: how can I modify this question to be appropriate for younger students? for older students? for weaker students? for stronger students?
Generate good, lousy, in between … toss out the bad, … sometimes stumble on something nice. … Ask yourself, “Let’s change the problem” and then ask “Is this new problem any good for … my students? … For anyone I know? ” And then change it again.
(Lots of variations below the fold. Harder problem for puzzle hounds at the bottom) —-> Read more…
Carnival of Mathematics (inaugural edition)
The first ever Carnival of Mathematics appeared yesterday on Abstract Nonesense. Alon did a nice job of sorting out some nice ones, and arranging them from most elementary to most complex. My quadrilateral post, by the way, is near the middle.
The Carnival of Mathematics covers pure math, applied math, school-level math, math education, debunking bad math, math history, math trivia, and even puzzles/problems. Go take a look, you’ll likely find something of interest.
The next Carnival of Mathematics will be hosted by Marc on Good Math/Bad Math in two weeks, on February 23. Forward submissions to Alon or Mark.
Teacher Pay Scale – Ridgewood NJ
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 current or future.
Ridgewood, New Jersey is an affluent village in Bergen County, New Jersey, about 40 minutes from New York City. It is white (88%) and Asian (9%) with an average household income over $100,000.
Ridgewood’s salary schedule is below the fold ———–> Read more…
New Action/UFT: “…if the educators are not involved…”
“…if the educators are not involved
wise educational decisions will not be made…”
New Action/UFT urges a “Yes” vote on the bipartisan resolution dealing with the Department of Education’s proposed reorganization for New York City public schools. We do so for several reasons:
- This reorganization continues a pattern of refusing to involve professional educators in the most crucial decisions involving the entire educational community. The resolution delineates the negative impact of the new proposal.
- The resolution comdemns the DOE’s proposal, and sets forth a goal (that the ‘chapter play a role in all educational decision making at the school level”) and actions to achieve that goal.
(this retyped leaflet appeared February 7, 2007, and continues below the fold) ——> Read more…
Puzzle – Semiprimes
A semiprime is a number with exactly two prime factors. 6 is the smallest semiprime (3*2). There can be no largest. (The largest would be the product of the two largest primes, but because we can always find larger primes…)
- What is the longest possible string of consecutive semiprimes? Why?
- Is there a greatest string of semiprimes of that length?
- What is the highest string of semiprimes you can find?
Carnival (Mathematics)
There is going to be a new carnival in town: The Carnival of Mathematics. I asked, and they are interested in everything from grade school stuff to pedagogy to puzzles to secondary, to college teaching, to serious research, to popular recreation, etc. Which means that everyone who comes here and does puzzles or discusses how to teach something, if you post your own related stuff, you have something to submit. Also, at least at first, they don’t mind slightly old stuff (last year works just fine).
E-mail self-nominations to alon_levy1 /at/ yahoo /dot/ com.
Also, you might look at Alon’s blog, abstractnonesense which is mostly politics, and quite liberal and sharp, if you like that sort of stuff.
NYCDOE: lousy mini-schools, by the dozen
(inspired by a post here at Rocking the School System in NYC)
In other places, or here at earlier times, good small schools were carefully created. The principal or the founding teachers shared some sort of vision of what the school would do, why it existed, how it was different from other schools. Staff were recruited who found the concepts appealing and wanted to work there.
which one of these George Washington alumni doesn’t belong: Henry Kissinger, Rod Carew, Manny Ramirez? (answer at bottom)
One nice thing about these places was their cohesiveness. Another was that kids didn’t fall through the cracks. When Johnny didn’t show up, 5 – 7 adults, maybe a fifth of the staff, were asking “Where’s Johnny” and the rest of the adults knew who they were talking about. Celia’s English teacher and Math teacher discussed ways of handling her bad behavior in class. And Anthony had a good chunk of the school concerned when his grades slipped.
“Themes” have become mostly gimmicks.
(much more, below the fold) — > Read more…
UFT: Know your rights
Inside the new edition of the New York Teacher is a twelve page pull-out: “Know Your Rights – Pedagogues.” It is both very welcome, and well overdue. Do not throw this out. Put it aside. Look through it. And again. File it somewhere you can find it. There is nothing dramatic here, nothing new. But the format, making this basic and essential information easily available to every teacher in a readable form, that is noteworthy, and positive.
If we do not know our rights, how can we defend them? Letting teachers know their rights is a very important first step. A teacher cannot assert rights that s/he does not know exists. A teacher can ask a Chapter Leader to act if the teacher is aware of a rights violation. And, putting it delicately, an informed membership can help focus a Chapter Leader on contract enforcement.
A few notes (below the fold): —- > Read more…
Teacher Pay: Are teachers overpaid?
Ray reacts to a lousy Wall Street Journal article, here. Take a look.
JD2718 