Another Sad Day For Me

When I was young and a celebrity died, I often wondered why people got so upset.  After all, they didn't really know this person, why get bent out of shape over their passing?

When Tom Petty died five years ago I understood, writing this in my memorial blog post, "Petty's music brought me a lot of joy in life, and did so over several decades.  I'm sorry to see him go." 

I followed two groups religiously when I was in high school, Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac, and today I got word that Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac has died.  I "believe in the five", but the five are no more.

You Make Lovin' Fun was my favorite song of hers.  I got to see her at the end of my freshman year at West Point, when she performed at Eisenhower Hall on a tour promoting her solo album, and again when I saw Fleetwood Mac in 2014.  Her music brought me a lot of joy in life, and did so over several decades.  I'm sorry to see her go.

All Roads Lead To Calculus

I'm not a believer that AP Calculus is the end-all, be-all of high school math.  Neither do I believe the recent fad of badmouthing calculus and redirecting students into statistics classes (full disclosure:  I teach statistics).  I think we should offer a variety of courses and let students choose what they want.

I'm not a fan of AP classes and their tests.  In theory they sound good--I'm all about external evaluations to maintain standards--but I don't like how much taxpayer money goes into the pockets of the College Board.  Just to give you an idea, we at the schools get kids to register for the tests, we used to collect the money but now I think the students pay online, we order the tests, we set up and administer the tests (several different tests over the course of a couple weeks), we box up the materials and return them to the College Board--and they score them.  A lot of school employee time is spent so that the College Board can keep all that money.  Public education shouldn't be that way.

This is my 20th year at my current school, and most (all?) of those years I taught pre-calculus.  We're supposed to be getting new textbooks/curriculum for the course next year, and then we'll no doubt need even newer books and curriculum for, wait for it, AP Precalculus!  A new course for the 2023-24 school year:

In AP Precalculus, students explore everyday situations and phenomena using mathematical tools and lenses. The framework focuses on four key units of study that colleges expect students to demonstrate to qualify for credit or placement. 

Great, just great. 

And AP Calculus isn't necessarily all that and a bag of chips, either, because of its reliance on graphing calculators.

Cheech and Chong Were Not Self-Medicating

Not being someone who partakes of the devil's lettuce, I have no dog in the "should marijuana be legalized" fight.  I don't care if it's legalized at the federal level or not, what I do care about is that several states (California included) openly flout federal law.  Marijuana is not "legal" in these states; rather, use or possession is not a state crime, while it still absolutely is a federal crime.

You'd think California would have gone all in on legalizing marijuana, but you'd be wrong.  Its state-level decriminalization was sold to the public as "medical marijuana", so people with cancer and glaucoma can have their suffering eased.  You want to ease suffering, right?

I never bought into the "medical marijuana" argument.  If you "believe the science", you wouldn't buy into it, either:

Cannabis is one of the most widely used drugs in the world. While there are only a few countries where cannabis is legal for recreational use, many more countries have legalized the use of cannabis for medical reasons.

Reducing pain is one of the most common reasons people report using medical cannabis. According to a US national survey, 17 percent of respondents who had reported using cannabis in the past year had been prescribed medical cannabis.

When it comes to self-medication, the numbers are even higher – with estimates that between 17-30 percent of adults in North America, Europe and Australia reporting they use it to manage pain.

Although cannabis (and cannabis-derived products, such as CBD) may be widely used for reducing pain, how effective it really is in doing this is still unclear. This is what our recent systematic review and meta-analysis sought to uncover.

Our study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests cannabis is no better at relieving pain than a placebo.

Shocking, I know.

The Rot Up North Intensifies

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is something very sick and sinister beyond our northern border:

In a prestigious medical journal, doctors from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children have laid out policies and procedures for administering medically assisted death to children, including scenarios where the parents would not be informed until after the child dies.

The article appears just three months before the Canadian Council of Academies is due to report to Parliament on the medical consensus about extending voluntary euthanasia in circumstances currently forbidden by law. The Canadian Council of Academies is specifically looking at extending so-called assisted dying to patients under 18, psychiatric patients and patients who have expressed a preference for euthanasia before they were rendered incapable by Alzheimer's or some other disease.

The Sept. 21 paper written by Sick Kids doctors, administrators and ethicists was published in the British Medical Journal's J Med Ethics and backed by the University of Toronto's Joint Centre for Bioethics.

In a flowchart that outlines how a medically induced death would occur at Sick Kids, authors Carey DeMichelis, Randi Zlotnik Shaul and Adam Rapoport do not mention conversation with family or parents about how the child dies until after the death occurs in the "reflection period."

Patient confidentiality governs the decision about whether or not to include parents in a decision about an assisted death, the authors said. If capable minors under the age of 18 stipulate they don't want their parents involved, doctors and nurses must respect the patients' wishes.

Have they crossed the boundary into Lebensunwertes Leben?

After School Satan Club

From the major Sacramento newspaper:

An elementary school has approved an “After School Satan Club” in California, and parents are upset, according to news outlets. 

The club meets “at select public schools where Good News Clubs and other religious clubs meet,” according to the program’s website. The classes are “designed to promote intellectual and emotional development.” 

Golden Hills Elementary School in Kern County’s Tehachapi approved the Satanic Temple and Reason Alliance sponsored program to begin on Dec. 5, and parents are sharing their opinions on Facebook, according to Tehachapi News.

Yes, the Satan Club is a swipe at Christians and their clubs.  So what?  If you don’t want your kids to attend, then don't allow them to attend.  Seems pretty simple to me.  I fear some will take the leftie route of trying to ban what they don't like, and lose a First Amendment case whilst emboldening despicable people.

How Did We Get Here?

Remember when schools weren't insane asylums? There have always been problems with martinet teachers and administrators, but tell me you ever envisioned this back when you were in high school:

We now return for the third time to the saga of Randolph Union High School in Vermont, a place where apparently you are not allowed to state the simple biological fact that a boy is a boy and a girl is a girl. Worse, you must allow boys to enter a girls’ dressing room and ogle them freely, and if you dare challenge this absurdity, you will be fired or suspended.

This craziness began in late September, when a boy claiming to be a girl (because he wanted to play on the girls volleyball team) entered the girls dressing room and watched the girls change, much to their discomfort. When the girls complained to school officials, the officials immediately banned those girls from using their own dressing room, reserving it now solely to this one boy.

The story became even more insane when the local television station, WCAX, decided to censor itself. It had covered this story with reasonable accuracy when the story broke. In mid-October however it decided that its job was publishing the agenda of the queer community, not reporting the news, and it censored its own story, removing it from the internet. (You can still watch it here however.)

Meanwhile, school officials have continued their track record of insanity. These officials not only locked the girls from their own locker room, they suspended one girl, Blake Allen, because she had been the most outspoken of all, appearing in that censored WCAX story. As part of her punishment, school officials demanded she admit 2+2=5 in a “reflective essay.”

There's so much more at the link.

The Most Sensitive of Data

I probably shouldn't be surprised. Disgusted, yes, but not surprised.

The annual tax season looms large for Americans just after the holidays, and millions will soon turn to the $11 billion third-party filing industry to help make sense of their most recent finances—but a damning new exposé has revealed that some of the most popular tax sites routinely offered customers’ most private financial and personal data to Facebook without their knowledge thanks to a tiny, nearly ubiquitous surveillance code.  link

I've lauded TaxAct on this blog.  I regret that.

Happy (Early) Thanksgiving!

I'm already having one--I picked my son up at the airport early this afternoon :-)

Cracker Barrel

I went with family to a nearby Cracker Barrel last night.  Just to give you a sense of the crowd, I was the 2nd youngest at our table of 8.

Unbeknownst to me, two of our party are vegetarians.  I'm just going to put this out there:  Cracker Barrel is not a restaurant for vegetarians.  I first learned of the vegetarians when the side salads were delivered--and had bacon crumbles on them.  Who doesn't like bacon crumbles on a salad?! Vegetarians, apparently, and a salad was sent back to be brought back kosher.

The other vegetarian ordered a vegetable plate consisting of 4 small bowls of rabbit food.  Upon delivery we learned that two of these bowls had meat in them--the pinto beans and I think the turnip greens.  Yes, the meat was all spelled out in the menu, but who would think to look for meat in a vegetable dish?  Turns out, you should expect to do so at Cracker Barrel.

Our poor waitress was cool about replacing those dishes with true vegetable dishes, I could tell it wasn't her first time.  She didn't have to take back my roast beef and gravy with mashed potatoes and corn--mmm mmm good.

Made It!

Gave most of my weekly quizzes yesterday as opposed to today, but there weren't as many absent students today as I anticipated.

Our PTSA brought in "sandwich bar" fixin's, which made for a nice lunch.  The leftovers from yesterday's potluck certainly didn't hurt.

Assignments I gave in class today are not due the Monday we get back, but on Tuesday--students can refresh their brains on the material during class on Monday.

Study guides for final exams are already posted in Google Classroom, and have been for about 2 months.

We have about 2 weeks of instruction after Thanksgiving break, a week of review, and then a week of final exams.  We're off Friday, December 23rd.

We've made it to Thanksgiving break :-)

Thanksgiving Vacation!

When I was a kid, we went to school Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week and got the rest of the time off.  Too many parents took their kids out of school those days for family trips, meaning the kids missed instruction and the schools missed "average daily attendance" money, so nowadays our district just takes the whole week off school.  That's part of why we start school in early August, to make up for all the extra days off we now get throughout the school year that we didn't used to get (and yes, there are more school days than when I was a kid, too).

School is now out--I'm off for 9 days!

It's Near The End of the Semester

How can I tell?  Because I'm getting replies to my "your student is in danger of failing math" emails I was required to send out this week.

Sadly, I get very few responses to such emails, but those I do get are often frustrating.  They boil down to, what will you do to help my kid get a higher grade?  There's no mention at all of learning, just a higher grade.

No, I won't assign extra credit.  I already give bonus questions on each quiz and test, and once in awhile allow a small project for students to demonstrate more advanced learning.  Any other  extra credit is mere hoop-jumping, and I don't hand out points like cookies just to artificially inflate a grade.

No, I won't allow your student to retake a test on which he/she did poorly.  We don't do "test reconnaissance" in our department.

Yes, we can meet in person, but I won't tell you anything at such a meeting that I wouldn't tell you in an email in a few sentences.

Yes, I'm available to help your student outside of class.  I'm in my classroom a half hour before school starts each morning.  Other teachers offer tutoring during lunch and after school.

There's such a stark difference between how parents and students on the one hand, and teachers on the other, view grades.  The former view "points" as commodities to be hoarded and maximized, like gold, to be gathered however they can be gathered.  The latter view grades as a proxy for achievement towards a predefined set of standards.  I don't see how these competing views can ever be reconciled.

So I'll just keep getting frustrated, and replying with as much cheerfulness and professionalism as I can muster.

An America I Recognize

What was I — a lifelong Democrat — doing at an election watch party in rural Virginia, surrounded by Republicans? As Ron DeSantis, 800 miles away, filled a huge TV screen with a post-landslide victory speech, he provided part of the answer: “We chose education over indoctrination!” He got a raucous round of applause from the crowd at the Marriott Ranch, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Even I joined in.

I have come to realise that party affiliation is far less important to me than fealty to the values that made it possible for me, a Muslim immigrant from India, to prosper in America. In the summer of 1969, I arrived at JFK International Airport as a four-year-old with no English, destined for a new home in New Jersey and then Morgantown, West Virginia. My parents had made a keen study of US history. They knew it was a nation that had its flaws, but they were encouraged by some pivotal developments, particularly the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which banned racial segregation in public schools and declared unequivocally that race cannot play a role in school admissions. This, they thought, was a fair place to raise their kids.

When I came to learn my adopted nation’s history myself, at Martin Luther King Elementary School, I understood that the painful legacy of slavery was part of it. But I also knew that good and thoughtful people in the present had made honest attempts to address these issues — by passing laws banning racial discrimination, for instance. I hardly thought the US perfect but, as a native of India, I understood that societies that dwell forever on historical grievances tend not to be happy, free or prosperous places. America was fundamentally — and wonderfully — different.

But, in recent years, something very disturbing has happened. That is why, on the night of the midterm elections, I drove west after sundown on Route 66 with my friend Harry Jackson, the first black PTSA president at my son’s alma mater. We were driving to a party of kindred spirits, most of whom didn’t look anything like us.

Why? Because the Democratic Party, which once valued fairness and justice, has, alas, been torching the American Dream. Democratic politicians, school boards, governors and even US Supreme Court justices are pushing “equity” over equality, “anti-racist” bigotry over colour-blindness, and mediocrity over merit. Literacy and maths scores are plummeting nationwide, while black and Hispanic kids are falling further and further behind — and yet progressive Democrats are far more interested in bringing crackpot racialist theories into our classrooms. In other words: they choose indoctrination over education.

Read the whole thing.

Still Need Rest

I got home from work yesterday, had some tomato soup, and got in bed at 5:30.  I'd planned just to rest for awhile, but when I woke up at midnight, well, it was too late to do anything other than turn over and go back to sleep!

So 12 hrs in bed before the alarm went off this morning.  We'll see how well I make it through the day.

Biggest Fear

Most teachers' biggest fear is returning to the classroom after being out for a day.  What will we see when we first open that door?  What note will the substitute have left?  What did and didn't get accomplished?  Is the place a mess, is there anything missing?

Fortunately, the substitute I had last Wednesday was seemingly competent.  Students did what they needed to do without too much trouble, and everything was pretty much where I left it on Tuesday afternoon.

I've got some remaining tests to grade from Tuesday, but otherwise I got all caught up today.  Just have to get through this week--and take next week off!

Venturing Out

I've been locked in my house since returning home from work Tuesday afternoon.  Tuesday and Wednesday were very bad, and I've spent the last couple days recovering from them.  

A lady at work is having a potluck today and I'm going.  It's a booze and food potluck; I'll have to stop somewhere for food, as I truly have nothing to take, but I have plenty of booze I can share!

I'm looking forward to seeing something besides "these 4 walls".

Here We Go Again

Is there anything that isn't systemic racism to people who think this way?

A CNN piece on Wednesday spoke with critics knocking the lottery system as a form of systemic racism that targets poor Black and Brown communities across America. 

No one is compelled to buy a ticket.

Not As Bad As It Sounds

It's pretty bad, but at least there was no hostile intent in the message:

KFC has apologised after sending a promotional message to customers in Germany, urging them to commemorate Kristallnacht with cheesy chicken.

The fast food chain sent an app alert on Wednesday, saying: "It's memorial day for Kristallnacht! Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!" 

How could they possibly do this?  The answer seems reasonable enough to me, especially if the tech is run by Americans:

In a statement issued to Newsweek magazine, KFC Germany blamed the message on a bot.

The fast food chain said the "automated push notification" was "linked to calendars that include national observances".

It added that it "sincerely" apologised for the "unplanned, insensitive and unacceptable message" and said app communications had been suspended while an examination of them takes place.

That's a pretty big oopsie, though, and another reason why people should learn history.

Math Myths

17 1/2 years ago, in my first year of publishing this blog, I linked to Ten Myths About Mathematics Education and Why You Shouldn't Believe Them.  Those myths are:

1. Only what students discover for themselves is truly learned.
2. Children develop a deeper understanding of mathematics and a greater sense of ownership when they are expected to invent and use their own methods for performing the basic arithmetical operations, rather than study, understand and practice the standard algorithms.
3. There are two separate and distinct ways to teach mathematics. The NCTM backed approach deepens conceptual understanding through a problem solving approach. The other teaches only arithmetic skills through drill and kill. Children don't need to spend long hours practicing and reviewing basic arithmetical operations. It's the concept that's important.
4. The math programs based on NCTM standards are better for children with learning disabilities than other approaches.
5. Urban teachers like using math programs based on NCTM standards. 
6. "Calculator use has been shown to enhance cognitive gains in areas that include number sense, conceptual development, and visualization. Such gains can empower and motivate all teachers and students to engage in richer problem-solving activities." (NCTM Position Statement)
7. The reason other countries do better on international math tests like TIMSS and PISA is that those countries select test takers only from a group of the top performers.
8. Math concepts are best understood and mastered when presented "in context"; in that way, the underlying math concept will follow automatically.
9. NCTM math reform reflects the programs and practices in higher performing nations.
10. Research shows NCTM programs are effective.

How far have we come since then?  Not far at all:

In this paper, leading education researchers Sarah Powell, Elizabeth Hughes and Corey Peltier debunk seven commonly-held myths about teaching maths – (1) conceptual then procedural understanding, (2) teaching algorithms is harmful, (3) inquiry learning is the best approach, (4) productive struggle is important, (5) growth mindset increases achievement, (6) executive function training is important, and (7) timed assessments cause mathematics anxiety.

Myths That Undermine Maths Teaching

I don't want to ascribe hostile ulterior motives to teachers who believe any of those 17 myths listed above, but they're teaching other people's children with those views.  At some point you have to wonder.

White Supremacy and Hate Crimes

We know there is so little white supremacy in the U.S that Biden allegedly asked the FBI to manufacture some good old hatred. FakeHateCrimes.org has 472 examples of false bigotry, almost all of which are minorities pretending to be victims of racial hatred. Imagine living in a country so lacking in hate crimes that people and the FBI have to fake it. I thought the goal was NO HATE CRIMES–but when the supply exceeds the demand, FAKE IT.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2022/11/07/the-top-five-excuses-democrats-will-use-when-they-get-annihilated-on-election-day-n1643734

Death, Maybe Not Even Warmed Over

I got home from Texas Sunday evening, and felt fine at work on Monday. This morning, however, I didn't feel so great.  As the day wore on, I felt worse and worse, until by quitting time I was in total agony.

I drove home and got in bed immediately.  I just got up and requested a substitute for tomorrow, as there's no way I'll feel well enough to go to work tomorrow.  I have a home covid test but I can't use it right now, perhaps in the morning I'll feel well enough to give it a try.

Now I'm going back to bed.  I had hoped to watch the news reports of today's red wave, but that's not going to happen.

A Good Weekend

Except for the last Army drive, with less than 2 minutes to go, ending in an interception--and the subsequent 13-7 loss--it was a great 35th class reunion.  I got to see people I knew and share fun memories, that's always nice.  One classmate shared a flattering memory of me--it's good that he remembered it because I sure don't!  Of all the roommates I had at West Point over 4 years, more than half of them were there.

I was able to get decent video of the national anthem followed by the fly-over, and the pilots and crews of the aircraft were introduced inside the stadium in the 3rd quarter and thus got to see the rest of the game from ground level :-)  I saw my former student up on the Jumbotron when all the pilots were welcomed into the stadium during the 3rd quarter, but there's no way I could've gotten over there to say hello before he'd have moved to a seat.  I'm sure his mother told him I was there.

I'm very not happy with the Army Athletics ticket office.  My class had a section in the stadium reserved for us and I paid over $100 for the game ticket, and we were stuck behind the north end zone.  Geez, after 35 years and a lot of money you'd think we'd get better seats than that!  There was an upper deck overhang above my seat such that I couldn't see the open dome from my seat, and neither could I see if a kick was any good unless the ball barely inched over the cross bar of the goal post--I went and sat closer to the front of the section, with friends, so that I would have a somewhat better view of things.

My classmates who organized and planned the reunion did a spectacular job.  I'm very impressed with how smoothly the reunion went.  I don't know if I'll go to another one any time soon, but I'm glad I went to this one.

Our Country We Strengthen.  '87.

Voter Suppression

 

Go Army, Beat Air Force!

You can follow the stats here.  I'm at the game, having posted this in advance :-)

Last year members of my class had such a good time at the game that we voted to center our 35th reunion around the game this year.

35 years.  Holy crap.

Veterans Day Offers

The VA offers this list of offers, free meals, and other goodies for active duty military and veterans next Friday, Veterans Day.

Some People Still Belive In Freedom of Speech

It's an English Enlightenment value, so perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised that this is coming from an English university:

Cambridge University students are to get free speech training, as part of a new project aimed at countering “cancel culture” on campus.

The sessions – which are aimed at educating undergraduates about the importance of tolerating views they disagree with – will be rolled out at universities across the country if successful.

It comes amid warnings from the university watchdog that free speech is at risk of being stifled on campuses after a record number of speakers and events were rejected last year.

And there have been a string of high-profile incidents where university chiefs have censured or no-platformed speakers following intense pressure from students who deemed their views “offensive”.

I'm disappointed that it isn't coming from an American university.

It'll Be An Early Day Tomorrow and Saturday

This morning I received a text message from the mother of a former student.  This student graduated from our school in 2011 and four years later from the Air Force Academy.  He is currently a fighter pilot.  Anyway, here's the text of the message:

Hi Darren!  Wanted to let you know--this Saturday is the AF/Army game (televised on CBS).  <name redacted!> will be flying the F-35 for the flyover.

My reply was simple:

I'll wave from inside the stadium :-)

Yes, I'm taking tomorrow off work to fly to Texas for the Army-Air Force game.  My class is having our 35th reunion this weekend, centering on the game.  Sadly, I'm not as confident in our chances of victory this year as I was last year, but I still expect to have plenty of opportunities to hear the two sweetest words in the English language:  TOUCHDOWN, ARMY!

Kickoff is at 11:30 Eastern, 8:30 Pacific.  Physically I'll be in the Central Time Zone but my body will still be on Pacific Time.  At least I'll get an extra hour of sleep Saturday night when we change the clocks back.

Not A Fan of Communism

Over 15 years ago I wrote a post with the same title as this one, it only came to mind because that post received its first comment today!  The thrust of that post was that people who lived through communism don't have any rose-colored glasses through which to view the experience.

So here we are again, over 15 years later, and I'll link to this video that makes the same argument:

Ilan Sinelnikov: What the Soviet Union Taught Me about Freedom

“I know that the truth is on my side.” 

Ilan Sinelnikov was the first in his family to be born in a free country—the first to grow up with freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Those liberties didn’t exist in the Soviet Union, where his family was persecuted for being Jewish. Ilan attended college in the United States, where he aspired to hold a student leadership position. Because of his outspoken support of Israel, he was smeared, silenced, and blocked from that role. Ilan fought back and now encourages all Americans to speak up, tell the truth, and protect our country’s founding freedoms.

Why Are They So Interested In Continuing To Practice Racial Discrimination?

They've spent a lot of money just to keep the Asians out, and they may have to spend more:

Harvard University has already exhausted $25 million in insurance coverage defending its affirmative action admissions program and is in court trying to force another of its insurers to cover up to $15 million more.

While the $25 million costs to date have been covered under an AIG subsidiary’s (National Union Fire Insurance Co.) primary liability policy, the university wants its $15 million excess insurance policy issued by Zurich Insurance to cover costs above that amount. But Zurich maintains Harvard missed the deadline for notifying it of its claim.

Why are they haggling over a mere $15 million dollars when their endowment is worth over $50 billion?  Sure, much of the endowment is earmarked for academic programs and research, but certainly they could find 3/100 of 1% that could be used to defend racial discrimination, couldn't they???

Since Yesterday Was Halloween...

Starburst and I both began in the 1960's:

Starburst, which was originally called Opal Fruits, was released in the U.K. in 1960 and came to the U.S. in 1967, according to Delish. 

Haribo gummy bears, too.  Mmmmm.

Will Affirmative Action Survive Yesterday's Latest Supreme Court Appearance?

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Harvard and North Carolina cases regarding the future of affirmative action. Here are articles representing each side of the argument:

Going back to Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1978, the court has said there is a compelling state interest in taking race into account in university admissions processes — seeing a need to remedy past de jure and de facto discrimination against certain groups. Some Supreme Court affirmative action cases have also recognized the educational benefits of having a racially- and ethnically-diverse student body.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/10/31/supreme-court-affirmative-action-ban-00064058

The same year the SFFA sued the University of North Carolina, it filed a separate lawsuit against Harvard, challenging Harvard’s use of race in the admissions process under Title VI, alleging that “the university discriminates against Asian American applicants,” and “arguing that they are less likely to be admitted than similarly qualified white, Black, or Hispanic applicants.”

https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/31/dear-scotus-theres-no-equal-protection-if-universities-can-rate-skin-color-in-admissions/

You can probably guess where my sympathies lie.