This one was brought to our attention by Simon the Likeable, and Likeable Daughter of Simon the Likeable. It is a multiple choice question from Queensland’s 2022 Methods Exam Paper 2 (CAS) (p2), together with the subject report (p 27).
Author: marty
VIT Annual Registration: A Request For Information
VIT is still completing applications for the 2023 annual registration (for which applications were due September 30, 2022). I am trying to figure out an aspect of this nonsense, and I would really like to hear from or about teachers who have had their registration delayed, from whom VIT has requested “further documentation”, and so on. Continue reading “VIT Annual Registration: A Request For Information”
What I’m Reading, and Why
What I’m reading:
Why (for instance):
Maths Anxiety Is Not a Thing, But Let’s Talk About It Anyway
A couple days ago there was an article in the SMH, titled,
Bad with numbers? You might have maths anxiety
Yeah, maybe. Or maybe you just suck at maths. It’s a conundrum.
Continue reading “Maths Anxiety Is Not a Thing, But Let’s Talk About It Anyway”
Here’s Looking at Euclid
Proof barely exists in the Australian Curriculum. This is nuts, of course, but leave that be. Even when it is accepted that proof should – must – have a significant role in the curriculum, there are questions to be asked:
In which topics should proof be introduced and emphasised, and at what stage(s)?
Should “proof” be more a topic(s), or more an omnipresent concern?
How proofy should teacher-presented or students’ proofs be? Continue reading “Here’s Looking at Euclid”
Right-Angles and Wrong Angles
It hit the news last week, that two high school kids had come up with a new proof of Pythagoras’s Theorem:
Two New Orleans high school seniors who say they have proven Pythagoras’s theorem by using trigonometry – which academics for two millennia have thought to be impossible – are being encouraged by a prominent US mathematical research organization to submit their work to a peer-reviewed journal.
I had decided to leave it alone. I had figured out enough of the story, that the two kids had done something very cool, which had then been way over-egged by the predictably clueless, Homerically lazy media. I’ve done these stories, and they can be tiring and tricky.
My friend Grant Cairns,* however, tipped it over the line, by pointing out an MAV tweet:
Good ‘ol MAV.
How a right-angled triangle is any more about “the world around us” than the number 3, God only knows. Grant summarised it as the MAV being “totally grounded in reality”. More accurately, the MAV is totally grounded by reality. To an earthbound hammer, everything is an earthbound nail. Continue reading “Right-Angles and Wrong Angles”
Yes More Mr. Nice Guy: Tom Peachey’s New Blog
On occasion, I get objections to the nastiness of this blog: “Why can’t you be nicer?”, and so forth. The answer is that I can’t because I can’t: my blog is fuelled by my disgust and anger at the perversion of mathematics education, and of education in general, and of our entire culture. That’s the way it is. But there is a solution: have someone else be nice for me. Continue reading “Yes More Mr. Nice Guy: Tom Peachey’s New Blog”
ACARA’s Mea Semi-Culpa on NAPLAN
NAPLAN got going this week. Our daughter did it, so we’re told. Whatever. The pointless train runs another pointless lap. Except, this year the train apparently has had some scheduling issues. Continue reading “ACARA’s Mea Semi-Culpa on NAPLAN”
Maths Anxiety is Not a Thing
I am, of course, wrong. Prove it. Continue reading “Maths Anxiety is Not a Thing”
Jo Boaler, Ever the Victim
Jo Boaler, the Nomellini-Olivier Professor of Education at Stanford University, has just posted on her recent mistreatment at the hands of a campaign against her. The post is titled,
Crossing the Line: When Academic Disagreement becomes Harassment and Abuse
Boaler’s post includes detailed claims that she has received abuse, rape threats and more, the truth of which there is no reason to doubt and which if true then obviously points to inexcusable and disgusting behaviour directed at Boaler. The problem is, Boaler is also playing a game. Again.
I briefly discuss Boaler’s latest post, below, but first and mainly, I want to outline a prior dispute involving Boaler, which went public in 2012. The purpose of revisiting this decade-old dispute is not to distract from Boaler’s latest claims, but to provide needed context for these claims.