God knows why you are here, whoever you are. But, assuming you wish to be here, this stupid homepage can be a bit of a guide to this stupid blog.
The blog is mostly about mathematics education, and how and why it now sucks, but occasionally strays into family stuff and censorship stuff and politics stuff and gender stuff and America-has-lost-its-mind stuff, and so on. I suck at categories and tags and the like, but keyword searches work pretty well, and below I provide links to some of the major, and seemingly most popular, series.
Who am I?
If you want to know about the less ratbaggy side of me, see Burkard Polster’s and my QEDcat website.
Why The Blog?
Well, read the blog. But, probably the quickest explanations for why I bother are here and here and here.
Rules on Commenting
Very few. You must include a name when you comment, not because I care who you are – a fake name is fine – but because a thread containing five guys called “Anonymous” is infuriating. Commenters may argue hard and loud, but are required to be respectful to other commenters (but not to me). I hit organisations hard and commentators are permitted to do so as well (or, if they are so inclined, defend the organisations from my scurrilous attacks), but personal attacks and allusions are typically out of bounds, except for the very top guys.
Feedback?
Yes, please! if you spot broken links or have any suggestions for the structure and/or content of the blog, even if it’s just some little annoyance about commenting or whatever, I definitely want to know. You can leave a message on the contact page or email me (or just post a comment anywhere).
Post Series and Resources etc.
There are a few formal and informal post series (some now dormant), and important special pages, which regulars know of but which are generally hidden. Ideally, the major series would have their own organising posts, and it is on the to-do list. My to-do list is very long …
Good Educational Resources
Not that Dr. Jeckyll is my thing at this blog, but there are three posts listing good stuff: Resources and People to Read and Curricula.
Tony Gardiner
The legend, who, for a few years, graced this blog with his presence.
What is This Crap Here?
The Witch series is seemingly the most popular. Commenters are challenged to figure out what has gone wrong with the provided text/excerpt/whatever. The plan is that each WitCH is updated with a summary of the discussion, and many WitCHes have been so updated. But, there are a lot of WitCHes …
Proof of Stupidity Without Words
The PoSWW series is similar to the Witch series, but the idea is that the wrongness is more blatant. (There are judgment calls, of course.)
The ACARA Post
These clowns do enough wrong to warrant their own page.
The Australian Curriculum Post
ACARA’s K-10 Australian Curriculum is so bad, it requires its own guide post.
The VCE Error Lists
VCAA also deserves their own page (to-do list …). The most important and useful posts, however, are probably the exam error lists: Methods and Specialist and General and Foundation.
CAS Poisons Everything
I really need a dedicated acronym and organising post for this insidious snake oil. For now, the tag will have to do.
Read and then Scream
Random good writings, mostly on the madness of the modern world.
Maths in the Plague Year
This was a nice thing. MitPY was a series of “help” posts during the COVID era. As with the WitCHes, the idea was that the MitPYs would be updated. Still some to go …
Not Crap Here
The idea of NotCH was to have a series of posts on good things, but somehow it didn’t seem to gel as a theme, and I now simply post good stuff as individual posts. Still, there is some very nice stuff posted there.
Teaching New Dogs Old Trig
I really liked TNDOT, which consisted of seriously hard exam questions from a hundred-ish years ago, but I think it got a bit too same-ish for people. Still some updates to do …
Because It’s Funny
BIFF was a good idea but fell by the wayside. I love comedy (which is why I cannot stand Hannah Gadsby), and the idea of BIFF was to highlight funny maths bits.
It’s Not The Heat it’s the Stupidity
INTHits consists of a few posts on global warming, and our idiot leadership.
MoP was supposed to be a series on censorship, which pretty much everyone screws up, and about which I’ve written plenty. It never got going.