No One Has Seriously Doubted
How are you doing? I'm OK,
I've been reading about homework, and this article (A Sin Against Childhood: Progressive Education and the Crusade to Abolish Homework) really fleshes out the historical picture. In the early part of the 20th century homework was extremely contentious. In 1913 one writer suggested that "the manner in which we force 'young America' to study is nothing more or less than mental abortion." Everything in the progressive era was so intense.
The authors of that article -- Brian Gill and Steven Schlossman -- actually wrote a bunch about the history of homework in the United States, all of interest.
For a good time, search "homework" (or "home work" or "home study") in the archives of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
Speaking of the intensity of the progressive era, have you read Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow? Come on, you have to. It's so good. Doctrow called it "a novelist’s revenge on an age that celebrates non-fiction." Take that, non-fiction!
I keep adding to the worked examples blog. Here are two posts about implicit differentiation in calculus: Implicit Differentiation Examples and Comparing Explicit and Implicit Differentiation.
"Since the discovery of the omega-minus, no one has seriously doubted that the Eightfold Way is correct." This particle physics textbook sounds like a cult. I fell down this rabbit hole from reading Making of the Atomic Bomb, which is a tremendous read in every sense.
If you hear people complaining about stagnation in 12th Grade test scores in the US, make sure to point out that more people have been graduating high school than ever and thus taking the tests and that this is completely unaccounted for.
Good watchin': The Chris Gethard Show and Jerrod Carmichael's new special.
Good listenin': Min Hameitzar.
It's been a rough couple months here, I'm not even sure why. I guess winter just is like that, and March has felt like a winter extension. I got an email recently about a 4th Grader who might be feeling sad in school because their grandmother's cat is very sick. I never did get an update on the cat.
All the best!
-Michael