First Blog

The most powerful words in our highly political country these days are not what you'd expect. You might think, "I love you," would rank way up there. These are powerful words but personal ones. Think of other possibilities. Let everyone respect others. (4) Can't we just get along? (5) Protect our environment. (3) Death to infidels. (3) But these are old, and we are basically numb to these slogans not really believing anything will happen. However, should someone say to this or that event, cause, or circumstance, "I am deeply offended ...," action results. Judges act. Magistrates react. Advocates rejoice. Politicians jump on board. Headline news expostulate. Just be "offended" and you get results. Or so it seems these days.

Today... It is cold today and I love it.  It allows me to be cold. Morale I. Sometimes the lack of morale you see all around is a reflection of the lack of morale you have personally. II. Your sense of morale can be more infectious to your mind than any disease to your body.  Consider the maxim, "Healthy mind, healthy body." Fun...  We live in the fun environment.  Learning should be fun, educators tell us.  This is not often the case.  Learning is hard work. But when accompanied by a sense of achievement, understanding, and enhanced personal power, it is most satisfying. Reflections... I am always just 18, full of hope, full of what could be, and eager to pursue many things all at the same time.  I love to read biographies of great persons, with interest even now piqued, particularly when these heroes were young. I look to what they did do, and compare with what I’ve done.  I make a few notes. a.    Many developed a true mission in life, though not always from th

For the last several years, we’ve seen a parade of prominent educators, businessmen, and politicians extolling the virtues of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).   Big money has been spent, and in the educational enterprise, big means really big.   The US Department of Education conditioned some state funding on the basis of states accepting and implementing the new standards.  Partly because of the probably correct perception our public education system was failing, the CCSS were adopted with virtually no testing by at least forty states.   It was hoped, actually expected, that most states would now be rowing with common ores and the result would be a stronger national educational system.    But these standards are intellectually demanding as to what is taught and importantly to how they are to be taught.    Many of our students and teachers were not up to the challenge.   The teachers were given insufficient training, and the students were left in the wake of this giant oil

The Republican captured the statehouses in Maryland and Massachusetts last night.  This is good and bad.  It is of course good for the Republicans, for obvious reasons.  It is not good for the Republicans, as well.  Even these, the bluest of the blue states can say enough is enough.  We are being taxed to the max, but things are not getting better.  Time for a switch.  Okay, the switch is in.  But the problems in these two states are serious and not surmountable in the short four year gubernatorial term.  Repairing the problems could take a generation, not just a term.  So, the Democrats will be undiminished, already fueling their next campaigns with slogans such as "We gave them a chance, and see there is no real change."  Blue states such as these will heed the lesson, and revert to their natural rather blue roots. The Republicans probably think they can affect the culture of their states with well intended and maybe stringent programs about fiscal responsibility, not r

In a recent article Alice Walton comments on the new Common Core State Standards. She establishes that the Common Core has many flaws, particularly that many students develop at differing rates, and a common curriculum demanding a lock-step approach to education is wrong, and wrong from the get-go.http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/10/23/the-science-of-the-common-core-experts-weigh-in-on-its-developmental-appropriateness/ My response to this article follows.  The article is accurate in almost every respect. Let me generalize. One of four flying carpet solutions to the educational mess our nation finds itself are regularly offered. These are grandiose plans advertizing that in a single and simplistic stroke can bring a failing system to the forefront of excellence in education - worldwide. (a) Change the curriculum. (b) Put education on a sound business model. (c) Reduce class sizes. (d) Make education fun. Currently, American education system is suffering the first of these.

Proposition .  Students should learn to solve problems in multiple ways.  Can this be so or are we asking yet again our students learn even more than what is needed? The short answer is "yes." Let me explain.  First, the math teaching community has embraced, I think correctly, the idea of multiple representations.  This means looking at data and functions in multiple ways graphs, tables, formulas, and the like.  In fact, I've written on this. See http://disted6.math.tamu.edu/newsletter/newsletters_new.htm#current_issue for the three articles. Second and more generally, the more facets of the same thing a person is familiar with, the better is his knowledge of it. When it comes to problem solving, the same rule applies.  If a person can solve a problem in two or more different ways, this is an indicator of their understanding of the problem and techniques to solve it.  If they can solve it in only one way, this is an indicator that they have a single method in their mind. 

Now to Ebola... In the late middle ages with the epidemic of the black plague, one of the first causes was declared to be the public bath house.  these were common.  But with the pronouncement, most of these houses disappeared, and consequently personal hygiene essentially disappeared in Europe for centuries.  The ramifications of other diseases probably has never been properly estimated. Ebola manifests the big scare of 2014.  It keeps other calamities and catastrophes off the front page. It allows the bigger issues of cyber security, terrorist threats, and crime on the back burner.  It disrupts the fabric of normal business. My feeling is that with the Ebola scare, hospitals may induce and endure a climate of intense contagion awareness, causing unusual and severe protocols that will not disappear even if Ebola is effectively reduced to nothing. As you know sensible people are not in charge.  Politicians will work this scare to their demagoguery maximum; hospital administrators

Morale I. Sometimes the lack of morale you see all around is a reflection of the lack of morale you have personally. II. Your sense of morale can be more infectious to your mind than any disease to your body.  Consider the maxim, "Healthy mind, healthy body." Fun...   We live in the fun environment.  Learning should be fun, educators tell us.  This is not often the case.  Learning is hard work. But when accompanied by a sense of achievement, understanding, and enhanced personal power, it is most satisfying. Reflections... I am always just 18, full of hope, full of what could be, and eager to pursue many things all at the same time.  I love to read biographies of great persons, with interest even now piqued, particularly when these heroes were young. I look to what they did do, and compare with what I’ve done.  I make a few notes. a.    Many developed a true mission in life, though not always from the beginning. b.    Many were raised in an environment of high expectations. c

One issue in teaching about big numbers is for students to understand just how big numbers can get.  But here we include not just students, but us all.  With modern computers and storage devices, we have become accustomed to some big numbers, notably megabytes, gigabytes, and even terabytes. In this brief article, we examine just how big numbers can get from innocent sounding problems.  This is combined with new ideas about fantasy problems and flying carpet solutions .   Fantasy problems are those arising in our minds from an array of possible disconnects with reality, and flying carpet solutions are those offered with disregard of possibility.  Some sound good; but fantasy may be the best descriptor. One particular example is given about tracking of all people, not dissimilar from information you may have about how your various devices can currently track you.  It is a good teaching exercise of how numbers can get huge, and completely unmanageable.  The tools are only simple fac

Here are my latest ruminations on this and that, what is and what is not. When creating a model that mimics a phenomenon perfectly, one is tempted to interpret the model as a full explanation of it.  This is errant causality.  It is the profound weakness of modeling. It is a never good idea to invite administrative jobs in the parlor door. They promise more than they deliver. They ask more than they give. It should be no other way.  The converse, to give more than they ask, renders as undesirable the newly appointed administrator. In the pursuit of truth, someone is always threatened. We are more likely to accept what we want to believe, or what fits within our precepts, or supports our goals - all regardless of the facts of the matter. Rejection of what we wish to be so is difficult. We live in a big data world but we still have small data brains. This is not to imply the brain has a small capacity, but it thinks in small data settings. It uses tools such as instinct, intuit

What was and still is Dateline, 1850 and Now...   We have arrived at the point where professionals have a large amount of knowledge about particularly narrowing topics. The narrowing has constricted now for a couple of centuries.   As in the past, investigators become saturated.   For ancient geometers, this occurred a couple of  centuries BCE. They can know little more, and little more was contributed.   Until...   a new idea emerges, it becomes the hammer to resolve all questions. Older outmoded techniques are diminished, deprecated, and eventually forgotten. This is the model of scientific investigations and other objective disciplines.   When the new is judged as more powerful and more predictive, the old is discarded. All this is according to Thomas Kuhn.   Advance of knowledge is not linear, it is not even monotone. What are new ideas and from where do they come?   A number of forms seem obvious. Technique Innovation Enhanced precision Increased dimension Disc

The Latest on Study, Sleep, Sickness and Success   The recent wisdom on learning using technology tells us that we should all get with it, get laptops, get tablets, learn more and better.     We are just an iPAD from true success - some educators would have us believe.   But this is now disproven.   It just doesn’t happen.   Your grandmother could have told you to get plenty of rest, particularly when you are sick.   Grandma’s folk-wisdom/folk- medicine is now confirmed!   Finally, when you tell your students to study hard for the big exam, and that their success and even future depend on it.   Just a little scare to get them motivated to hit the books, you think.    Indeed, don’t depend on the veracity of your good advice.   It’s just plain wrong! ·          SLEEP AWAY YOUR ILLS .   A good night's sleep really CAN make you feel better: Researchers say long naps can boost immune system and help fight infection – if you are a fruit fly anyway.   Two researchers, led by Ju