Normal Practicing School
Research, teaching, and and idea for your consideration at the very end.
Hey! Here are some things:
"There are a lot of things we might care about as a society that are not captured by test scores," an important podcast with Kirabo Jackson.
I’ve been doing a lot of “completion” activities in class. That includes practice with steps that progressively fade away, such as this and this, for systems of equations. They work, I think, because they let students sweat the details without losing sight of the context.
Geometry is all about possibility and impossibility. It is possible to cut an angle into half using only a compass and a straightedge; it is impossible to cut it into thirds. But! If the angle is on a piece of paper, you can fold it into thirds. There is something to be said about how deeply mathematics is influenced by the actual physical stuff we use in the world.
I finally finished The Power Broker, a biography of Robert Moses. Here’s a recent article showing how hard it is to build subways in NYC while making clear the costs of Moses’ obsession with highways and dislike for mass transport. Here’s a cool map that shows everything Robert Moses built in New York City. I’ve got to get to the New York Historical Society to see the Caro exhibit.
George Saunders’ Liberation Day and Keith Gessen’s A Terrible Country are both great, by the way. Saunders is still the best at creating thost little moral fairytales that I’m such a sucker for. And Gessen’s novel is just big-hearted and quite funny in moments.
I’m essentially the online editor for The American Bystander at this point, running the site twofiftyone.net and writing the bi-weekly newsletter. The next newsletter will go out on Monday and will open with a little essay of mine and then share some of the best of the site. This has nothing to do with my life in education but so it goes!
Speaking of funny (or not): here is David Letterman’s screentest for Airplane!. I loved James Folta’s “JOKES THAT EVERYONE ON THE MAYFLOWER ARE GETTING SICK OF.” It’s pitch-perfect and very funny.
People take longer to answer 8 + 5 than they do 2 + 3, even if they’ve memorized 8 + 5 = 13. If that’s not puzzling, go back and read that sentence again, and if you’re dying for more go download and read this research review on the “problem size effect” from Ashcraft and Guillame.
Take Rivers Cuomo and Elvis Costello, replace Costello’s vitirol with good-natured anxiety and bone-aching disappointment, and maybe you get Jeff Rosenstock. I’ve been listening to “I Did Something Weird Last Night” and “Say Goodnight to Me,” his most Costellonian(?) track, I think.
Do we still need to recap blog posts if they’re all on Substack? I published “It’s All So Confusing” and “Flashcards don’t always work for multiplication.” I’ll hopefully settle into some sort of rhythm so I’m not flooding your inbox. Speaking of which, I want to do a mailbag post. Send me a picture of something from your classroom you want to share or a question you want me to write about. It can be a math mistake, like we used to do way back when. It can be just an activity you’re proud of. Whatever. If I get at least 5 things, I’ll do a post with the ones I find most interesting. If we don’t get to 5 then I’ll assume we’re not into the idea, no worries. My email is mpershan and I have the normal google account thing.
Be good,
Michael
I’m not into the paid Substack model. If you want to support me you can buy my book or subscribe to these emails.