Textbook Chapters 2 and 3

This is an interesting book.  Seems odd to me that I should read a book that tells me how to think.  But It is helpful in its own way.  I suppose sometimes I get tunnel-vision on the answer and don't go through the whole mental process properly.  This book can help me slow down and think it through in a rational way.  More importantly, as a teacher, it can help me deliver these methods to my students.  As someone who's always had that innate ability to jump right to the answer, I'll need to look at things differently when I'm teaching.  Having a mental map such as this book provides can help me in structuring my lessons.

I also notice that the chessboard puzzle is in this chapter.  What other classroom puzzles have been ripped from this book, I wonder?  This should be an excellent aid.  I can use these puzzles in my own class, and the book gives me many methods to think about and solve them!  Brilliant!  And it suggest how I can extend these questions!  Brilliant!

But I still prefer Flatland.

Poem

Let me tell you about my friend Zero
He's big and loud but no one hears him
He's tall and strong but no one sees him
He's old and wise but no one knows him
He's always near but no one needs him

Let me tell you about my friend Zero
One day he came to walk my dog
And accidentally multiplied
My dog was gone, could not be found
And Zero walked away in shame

Let me tell you about my friend Zero
"No one likes me" he complained
"They want so much, I offer none"
"I'll show them cornucopia"
"Divide, approach infinity!"

Timed Writing

"Divide"

To split apart, to tear
An earthquake
The berlin wall
mathematical division obviously
the brain gap between me and my parents
a house divided amongst itself cannot stand
a nation divided
a people divided
to separate
the wheat from the chaff
the cream of the crop
apples and oranges
divisive politics
offensive divisive repulsive unproductive
attention divided; inattentive
boys and girls
blacks and whites
equitable distribution

"Zero"
nothing, nobody
nemo
humble
scoreless draw, nil-nil
a black hole
the absence of anything
to zero in on a target
no skill no talent no friends no hope
zero degrees
a cold fall day or a warm spring day
water freezing water melting
leaves falling leaves budding
snow falling birds singing
dew forming ice cracking
empty files empty folders
a fresh slate
an empty page
a boring day

Mathematics Citizenship

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function"

- Dr. Albert Bartlett


The above is from a lecture I have seen and seen again.  I keep coming back to it because it reminds me of one of the prime reasons I decided to become a math teacher.  Because the world we live in is shaped by powerful mathematical forces which too few of us understand.

Primary example: the economy is expected to grow by a certain percentage every year.  This is a truth so self-evident, so obvious that it seems fanatical to even state it.  Of course our economy must grow, what other option could there ever be?

And yet, I doubt 1 person in 100 truly understands what constant exponential growth means.  To grow by a certain percentage each year means to grow exponentially.  To grow exponentially means to double every so many years.  To double over and over and over again until....what?  Until our riches are so vast that each man has his own armada of gold-plated hummers?  And then to double yet again?  To what end are we growing exponentially?  And even more importantly, is it even possible to continue growing exponentially without end?

Of course it isn't.  Any person with the slightest basis in math will know that.  But our economists, our politicians, our leaders of business and industry are completely and utterly aware of this one simple mathematical truth that governs our entire society.

It is my job as a math teacher to fix that.