Don’s Party is a great Australian movie. It is set entirely on the night of the 1969 Federal election, when Gough Whitlam was destined to lead Labor to victory for the first time in twenty years. David Denby wrote, Don’s Party is derivative of Pinter, Fellini, Antonioni, Albee, and about a dozen others, and it’s […]
So much crap, so little time. We’re desperately trying to get to the Australian Curriculum. Courtesy of the Evil Mathologre, however, we have about 2000 essays to grade. And, due to “must be done” renovations, The Boss is demanding that the massive Everything in our garage be moved two meters to the left. (We suggested […]
This post, as indicated by the title, is ostensibly about the State of declining enrolments in mathematics subjects. That State, as we shall see, turns out to be Queensland. But, first things first. Last week, AMSI released its annual Mathematics Participation Report Card, complete with a media release and a media notice of an Australian story […]
I love Twitter. Not that I ever participate; I’ve tweeted maybe a dozen times, I never “like” anything except by accident, I follow three people and I have seven from-God-knows-where followers. But I love watching Twitter. I love the pure, pompous awfulness of it.
Is it significant that Keith Devlin’s twitter handle has “prof” in it, and that the name of Devlin’s website has “prof” in it? Maybe not, but at the moment it feels significant. Greg “Non-Prof” Ashman could reasonably regard it as significant. Last week we wrote a bit about Slow Jo Boaler, her threat to call […]
Last week, Matt Taibbi published a book review/interview with Laura Kipnis (paywalled, but a decent chunk is freely available). We hadn’t previously heard of Kipnis, but she seems great: smart and literate and brave and funny. Taibbi’s piece was prompted by a great essay Kipnis had published last month in The Chronicle of Higher Education, […]
Yesterday we wrote about Jo Boaler, her latest own goal and some of her checkered history. But her defenders are coming out as well to, well, defend her. Fair enough. Except, that their defense is dishonest and farcical. As it must be. Yesterday, Keith Devlin took time off from trying to start World War III […]
There’s something poetically unfair about Jo Boaler being whacked this way and that for gouging some poor school district, and for threatening a black guy with calling the cops. The gouging was real and the threat was undeniable, and undeniably nasty, but none of it was surprising for Boaler and none of it was the […]
Yesterday, ACARA’s draft curriculum was approved by the Ministers, as it was always going to be. The draft is, of course, still secret, since when did ACARA ever give a stuff about what anybody thinks? The draft is due to appear in a couple weeks. We shall be ready. Until the draft is released, there […]
The implication appears to be that this is opening the gates of hell.