Three Sentiments (or, Ode to the School Year)

And now we come to my third sentiment, the one occupying the greatest real estate in my thoughts.

Explain It To Me

A nearly-verbatim dialogue, in honor of one of the hardest-working students I've ever taught. Student: Can you explain this problem to me? Me: Sure, the idea is… Wait. You got it right. Student: But I don’t feel like I did. I feel like I guessed. Me: Well, explain how you got your answer. (He proceeds … Continue reading Explain It To Me →

How to Remember Concavity

My Calculus students struggled to remember the difference between the two types of concavity, so I made up a poem for them: My fiancee, who also teaches Calculus, invented a different mnemonic...

Calculus Joke

In high school, my friend Gabe showed this to the Calculus teacher, Mr. Sherry: Mr. Sherry glared for a moment, and then silently made the following change...

Following Recipes

Another pep talk with the class, another metaphor hijacked. This is a theme in my life.

The Quadratic Formula Must Die! (or, Long Live the Quadratic Formula!)

It’s beyond me why I memorized the quadratic formula as an 8th grader, but didn’t hear the tale of Galois until college. If you ask me, the latter might just enrich the mind more than the former. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that math isn’t romantic.

A Ray of Light

There are moments of teaching I like to remember - episodes of cleverness, compassion, success. And then there are the other moments, the ones that my thoughts tend to flee, the ones I prefer not to think about. This is a story about both.

The Graph Factory

I want my students to see graphing as a subtle, meaningful craft. But when I mess up and assign too many graphs for homework, they just sprint through them, cranking them out like cheap factory products. It goes something like this…

Why can’t you divide by zero?

Suppose you’ve got a pizza. A nice charcoal-cooked one from New Haven, or an oven-hot Chicago deep-dish, or even one of those organic San Francisco artisan pies that somehow make artichoke hearts seem like they belong on a pizza. And, generous soul that you are, you’ve decided to share.