In a recent post I addressed young teachers. Today I write to their mentors. (If you’re a mentor, you should probably read both posts.) I chaired the math department in a small private school for almost 30 years. When we had an opening for a math teacher, the head of school made the final decision, but I was asked to… Continue reading Mentoring Young Teachers
Tag: Teaching
Lab Gear, the Great Connector
I had the good fortune of mentoring Liz Caffrey for five years, at the very beginning of her teaching career, when she worked at the high school where I chaired the math department. She is now a veteran and talented middle school teacher in the Boston area, but we’ve stayed in touch. In this guest… Continue reading Lab Gear, the Great Connector
Dear Young Teacher
Dear young teacher, I am retired from schools, after 42 years in the classroom, grades K-12. In the second half of my career, I ended up mentoring a number of young first-year teachers. In general, that went very well, so I thought I would share some ideas about what made it work. Also, I participated… Continue reading Dear Young Teacher
Project SEED
Like most teachers, I learned the craft on the job, with the help of colleagues. The formal training I received in college was not that useful, with one exception: my short stint as a Community Teaching Fellow (CTF) when I was a math graduate student: I got paid as a Teaching Assistant, but my teaching… Continue reading Project SEED
Yet More on the California Framework (Part 2)
Previously on this topic: The California Math Framework Revision More on the California Framework Detracking, How To Yet More on the California Framework (Part 1) In my last post (#4), I shared three important points raised by Boaz Barak, Edith Cohen, Adrian Mims, and Jelani Nelson in their open letter about the California Math Framework Revision (CMFR). I… Continue reading Yet More on the California Framework (Part 2)
Yet More on the California Framework (Part 1)
There is a new open letter by STEM practitioners who oppose the California Math Framework revision (CMFR). The same group also published an Analysis and Critique of the proposed changes, and a blog post by Boaz Barak and Edith Cohen. I’ll use the latter's initials (BB/EC) to refer to them and the set of three… Continue reading Yet More on the California Framework (Part 1)
Asilomar report, 2021
I attended the California Math Council North’s conference in Asilomar last weekend. Because of Covid, it was a dramatically smaller conference than usual. As a consequence, there were fewer sessions to choose from, and probably a smaller turnout for many of them. Here is my nearly annual report. Python Turtle Ned Diamond presented the Python… Continue reading Asilomar report, 2021
Detracking, How To
This is my third post on the in-process revision of the California Math Framework. If you haven’t yet, please read the first two: The California Math Framework Revision, and More on the California Framework. I just reread them, and find that I stand by what I wrote: the revision attempts to address an important issue: low-track… Continue reading Detracking, How To
More on the California Framework
The Independent Institute published an Open Letter to Governor Newsom, calling for the complete abandonment of the (currently in progress) revision of the California Math Framework. Before I share my thoughts about the letter, I will ask you to please make sure you read a previous post, in which I commented on the current draft… Continue reading More on the California Framework
Integrating the High School Math Curriculum
The standard middle school / high school course sequence in much of the US is Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, Precalculus. This is pretty much a US-only concept: elsewhere, algebra and geometry are taught every year in middle school and high school. This American tradition leads to many endemic problems: The traditional Algebra 1 includes an enormous amount of… Continue reading Integrating the High School Math Curriculum
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