Hope you had a nice week. Let’s get right to things:
- Math: Can you always inscribe a circle inside a rhombus?
- Math mistakes: I wrote about a mistake one of my 3rd Graders made while tallying 50s here. They counted 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000. This is a mistake that’s entirely created by the concept of “thousand.” You could call that “10 hundred” and no kid would count “20 hundred” next. But name it “thousand” and suddenly it becomes an interesting bit of kid mathematics: are 10 hundred and 1 thousand equal?
- I returned from parental leave this week. As the schedule had it, today was my first day back in the school building. I received my second dose of vaccine several weeks ago. To be honest? It was thrilling. I hope every teacher gets the chance to return safely to school soon.
- Reflections on Teaching When Your Classroom is 30 Degrees, I think a lot of people with opinions about educaiton don’t appreciate how common these sorts of things are.
- Scott Alexander reviewed Freddie deBoer’s “Cult of Smart”. The first part of his review tangles with deBoer’s book. The second part is a rant about how painful he found his schooling, which is hard to read but I’m always interested in how people see school. He generally seems to have an unrealistic notion of what high-performing charters do, so I recommended Robert Pondiscio’s book which I reviewed here. (Scott linked to that post here and responds to other criticisms.)
- I put on Tower of Power’s “Urban Renewal” and had my best dish-washing experience of the year. Why don’t they make message songs like “Only So Much Oil In the Ground” these days? Alternate energy has never sounded so funky. Also amazing is slow burning “Willing to Learn”, which should be on the soundtrack of a romantic comedy set in a school titled (of course) “Willing to Learn.” I can only imagine what that would look like.
- Jeanie is a 2nd Grade teacher at struggling PS 13 and has no time for love. Jeanie refuses to do test prep – she instead takes her low-income students to the symphony and teaches a science curriculum, which her principal cut but she secretly has continued. Because of low test scores Jeanie has been assigned an instructional coach to monitor her teaching. When her coach WILL walks in, Jeanie chews him out shows him the door. But is Jeanie WILLING TO LEARN how to love? Can WILL see the wisdom of Jeanie’s methods? And when a wealthy great-cousin passes away and the WILL is read, will Jeanie come across a windfall that helps buy a book library for her students? And will new superintendent WILLIN G. TULERN pass a slate of reforms that saves PS 13?
- I absolutely love Brendan Sullivan’s mathy crossword puzzles. Lots of things I don’t know, but absolutely top-level dorkery.
That’s what I’ve got,
Michael