Whatever could have gone wrong? Maybe some explicit teaching will fix it?
Whatever. We’ve been here before and I couldn’t give a stuff. I can’t even be stuffed coming up with a clever title. For anyone who does give a stuff, however, the preliminary PISA report and Australia’s report card are now available. Go for it.
As flagged in a recent post, Western Australia’s SCSA is undertaking a review of and public consultation on the syllabi for two of their senior mathematics courses: Mathematics Methods and Mathematics Applications. The draft syllabi, prepared by a “working party” of unknown but we-can-take-a-very-good-guess constitution, are available here. Continue reading “PoSWW 60: The Fundamental Delirium of Calculus”
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about my brother Jeff happily declaring women to be objects, and the philosopher Frege’s attempts to untangle concepts from the objects to which those concepts may apply. The point, apart from the self-indulgent pleasure of reminiscing and of pondering such things, was to raise the question of the meaning and the value of categorisation: how do we distinguish this from that and what is the value in doing so? The broader purpose of that post was to provide a (gratuitous and elaborate) introduction to two posts on Ashman and his dismissal of conceptual understanding. And, here we are, with Post Number 1.
Continue reading “The Problem of Conceit and the Importance of Conception”
Nah, I’m kidding, of course. WA couldn’t care less what you think. WA has provided you the opportunity to say what you think, however, and you should take it. Enough of this, and WA will have no choice but to care.
I’ve added below a third, just released, video, which includes references to and a brief interview with Robert.
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A couple weeks ago, I wrote about Burkard’s and my wandering minstrel days, which included the unpredictable meeting of various strange and unusual people. One of these strange and unusual people was Melburnian Robert Webb: musician, programmer, God-knows-what-er. A few years back, I posted (and again and again) on Robert’s excellently disturbing music and accompany videos: give Treat a listen and look. Long before that, Burkard and I wrote about Stella, Robert’s remarkable software for visualising and creating polyhedra. Robert is back.
The Inquiry People know way too little mathematics and do not care, being firmly convinced that it does not matter. On the other hand, the Explicit People know way too little mathematics and do not care, being firmly convinced that it does not matter. Continue reading “The Difference Between the Inquiry People and the Explicit People”
Once, when I was a teenager, I was hanging out with my brother Jeff and some of his university acquaintances. The conversation was meandering, in the solving the world manner that students have always loved. At some point, a girl made the very standard complaint,
“Women are being treated as objects.”
My brother, employing his famous Jeffersonian diplomacy, responded,
“But women are objects.”
And the fun ensued. Continue reading “The Concept ‘Horse’ is an Object”
I had forgotten about this but The Teacher of Bray and some stumbling around in the blog brought it to mind and it seems worth re-raising. A few years ago I offered for people to write guest posts for this blog. No one took me up on it, not counting re-publishings, but perhaps someone is now interested. Below is what I wrote a few years ago and, modulo a couple very minor edits, seems fine to leave as is.
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This one came out of nowhere. A reader of the blog, and a complete stranger, sent me their “poem”, The Teacher of Bray, apparently composed during a not-so-thrilling PD. It is a reworking of the The Vicar of Bray, a famous and very funny satirical song from the early 18th Century. (I had not heard of the song previously.)
Below, with the author’s kind permission, is The Teacher of Bray. For those who wish to know the melody in order to sing along, and it is worth it, here is a good version of The Vicar of Bray. Continue reading “Guest Song: The Teacher of Bray”
I was gonna let this one go but an email prompted me to reconsider. Then, I wasn’t sure how to do it, and pondered either a quick PoSWW or a full-blown post. In the end I decided to handball it to the aether and make it a WitCH. It is a triple bunger of nonsense, and readers can decide which bunger offers the biggest bang. Continue reading “WitCH 155: AERO Foil”