They teach way too much english and history in school and not nearly enough physics (but that’s the topic of my next blog). But the one subject that they really need to teach more of is rhetoric. Jay Heinrich believes … Continue reading →

Regular readers know that I am a big fan of Better Explained in which Kalid makes mathematical ideas accessible. Today’s installment: Integration is just multiplication when one of the operands is changing. Most people grok integration as area under a … Continue reading →

One problem with bringing up kids in countries where they speak funny is when you get homework like this: Underline the words that have a schwa sound and circle the vowel that makes the sound. A schwa sound? What the … Continue reading →

I just got through reading Charles Murray Real Education so I was perfectly primed to be alarmed by this passage Teachers can’t prepare for the content of the tests and so they substitute practice exams and countless hours of instruction … Continue reading →

Whereas the constitution sets clear boundaries on the authority of the Federal government. Whereas the federal government has no business defining basic mathematical constants. Resolved, that theories, definitions and celebrations of Π should be left to the various States.

I hope it’s not bad taste to post a story about good versus bad teachers on a day when Santa Clara laid off 1000 teachers. Brooks: We’ve spent years working on ways to restructure schools, but what matters most is … Continue reading →

Roger Ebert has written a powerful, meandering essay about shame. The essay takes many twists and turns and each one of them is fascinating journey in its own right. It starts out as a review of the movie The Reader … Continue reading →

Kalid at Better Explained likes to find intuitive ways to explain difficult mathematical concepts like, Why does 00 = 1 ? I like Kalid.

I think the Randians are writing fake letters to the New York Times to pretend that the crazy moochers from Atlas Shrugged  really exist: Thomas L. Friedman wants to “double the salaries of all highly qualified math and science teachers” … Continue reading →

Last time I visited Better Explanations, I got stuck there for hours. I resisted this time once I realized I was reading all the same articles for a second time. Today’s bait showed up in my RSS feed. Suppose we … Continue reading →