rhesuspieces00's Xanga

Art Benjamin's TED talk on Math Education

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:42:43 GMT

A while back, I posted this entry speculating on what Prof. Benjamin had to say in his most recent TED talk. Video of the talk has since been posted. You can view it here.

Vote Early. Vote Often.

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:44:40 GMT

If you are among the 4 people who still check this blog, I could use a favor.

A friend of mine has a submission for a session on booze blogging at the coming SxSW conference. I would love to see this panel happen, so please vote for it and encourage your friends to do the same: http://bit.ly/QWlhh

Also, if you come to SxSW, I will mix you a drink or ten.

1 Dollar

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:02:45 GMT

Found this and thought it was pretty awesome. I think it originated in a Brazilian newspaper.

Margaritas

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:15:46 GMT

After an unplanned hiatus, I have a new post up at the booze blog about Cinco de Mayo, Margaritas, and top-shelf tequila.

Movie Titles

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 02:31:54 GMT

Browsing over show times, here are some of the movies that are currently playing:

Fighting
The Informers
Obsessed
The Soloist
earth
Knowing
Duplicity
Taken
Defiance

Is it me, or have movie titles gotten really generic lately? I have to have seen previews from some of those, but The Soloist is the only one I know the plot of, and only because I talked about it yesterday with someone who had seen it. It makes going to the movie sort of a pain. I have to go to Apple.com and watch trailers for half a dozen films just to get some sense of what my options are. Seeing previews translates into no knowledge of what is playing if I can't remember the names of any upcoming films.

Palm Sunday

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:55:10 GMT

My link comes a day late, but a friend posted a good reflection on Palm Sunday, for those who are interested.

A New Blog. (for real this time)

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:02:38 GMT

I had an unusually productive weekend and after much fighting with dreamhost, the new booze blog is finally starting to look decent. It still needs some minor tweaks, but the theme is mostly complete, there is some new content, and the commenting system works. Say hello if you've got time.

John-the-Bastard.com

Twits

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:13:44 GMT

There is still a part of me (sphincter muscles, mostly) that cringes every time I think about twitter. It is so invasive. But slowly I am succumbing to its usefulness. Specifically: it offers me a quick retort to people who insist I need to re-open my account on facebook---that other privacy hemorrhage---saving me the effort of long diatribes about surveillance societies and evil TOS agreements.

(Twitter is the new facebook, pass it on.)

So anyway, if you are willing to contribute to our society's degeneration into social media whoredom, you can follow me here.

At least I can find some solace in myspace's demise. Suck it, Rupert Murdoch.

Reagan is not your hero.

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:45:07 GMT

I believe that all governments will do as much evil as possible at every opportunity so long as they think they can get away with it. Thats just my basic assumption. I don't say that in a, "Oh, by the way, that includes the American government" sort of fashion. I point to the American government as my prime illustration. But, despite my somewhat cynical outlook, I find it hard to buy into very many conspiracy theories. The CIA may well have wanted to off JFK, and 9/11 is the best thing that could possibly have happened to the Bush administration, but the simple fact is that secrets are hard to keep. You can do pretty well if you just make everything classified, no matter how mundane, which is what we do...a sort of pandemic security through obscurity. But it really just takes one or two people with a guilty conscience to bring down the whole house of cards.

But I would damn near swear that sometime about 18 months ago, every politician and pundit in America got together in a (very) big room and said, "Okay, here is the deal. Its been 18 years, 7 month, 4 days, and 12 minutes since Reagan left office. Every American has officially forgotten everything about the guy, except that he made nice speeches and reminded them of their grandpa. From here on out, we're just gonna pretend he is the modern day Abe Lincoln. If you want to inspire patriotism and good will, just compare your candidate to Old Dutch. Or if you really want to wreck your opponent, say 'Ronald Reagan would never have done whatever it was your opponent just did.' Americans will love this."

Maybe the conspiracy started sooner than that. Eight years ago and change, Edmund Morris wrote a fanciful 'memoir' on Reagan's behalf. Maybe thats when the seeds of doubt were planted. "Sure sure, Reagan may have made some mistakes, like maybe he accidently funded terrorism and perjured himself, but look: he did it with integrity!"

Reagan sold the American public on disastrous economic policies which boiled down to "give all the money to the rich people and you'll feel good about yourself", he planned an invasion Libya for the sake of a publicity stunt, and managed to escape blame for Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra thing for no other reason than early onset Alzheimer's and an eager scape-goat. All Reagan had going for him was his sense of decorum. The man is not your hero.

So here is what I'm proposing. I'm not sure it will actually be a very effective form of political resistance, but hopefully it will at least make us feel better. Every time you hear a politician or talking head mention Reagan (and I don't care what context we're talking about—it could be an after-school special on the history of the presidency), I want you to yell. You are Howard Beale. You are mad as hell, and you're not going to take it any more. So when you walk into a 7-11 and Rush Limbaugh is on the air, when he mentions Reagan, and he will mention Reagan, I want you to just completely lose your shit. Throw down your Slurpy™ and scream like pig in a meat grinder. Seriously. This is the new political conscience. Our response to propaganda so blatant that its an affront to human intelligence is a fucking temper tantrum. I think this could work. Do it.

A little bit of self-importance

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:18:06 GMT

I attended Harvey Mudd College, and I majored in math, with a focus in discrete math and theoretical computer science.

I don't talk about my time at HMC very much. There are great things about the school, but for me, going there was a mistake I prefer not to reminisce. However, there is something I want to put down about my time there.

The core curriculum is pretty strenuous, and you have to take rigorous courses in math, chemistry, physics, bio, computer science, and engineering, regardless of your major. Of those disciplines, the math requirements were probably the most extensive: everyone takes calculus, multivariable calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra. Despite the fact that I majored in math, I hated that part of the curriculum. Those are all extremely useful courses, and necessary, if you major in chemistry, physics, or engineering (and maybe bio as well...but I can't think of many occasions a computer scientist encounters a need for DEs). However, while it would probably be irresponsible to give a math degree to someone who hadn't been exposed to that material, they were not really necessary for much of the work I did within major, and in no sense were they representative of the type of math I spent my time doing. This always seemed unfair, in my view, to the field of mathematics. The core courses we took in the other disciplines seemed very representative of the sort of work you would do if you pursued a major in those fields, and were sort of an opportunity for the department to showcase what the major was about. The math requirements, however, were basically service courses; required because the other departments (engineering especially) needed them. The math profs did what they could to make it a true math course, presenting material as a series of constructive proofs, and going on interesting asides from time to time, but there really is only so much you can do to make applied mathematics interesting, even if you approach the subject from a pure math vantage point, and very little can be done to make it fun. I always felt that if DEs was dropped from the core, and Discrete was made a requirement in its stead, the number of math majors would probably double. Discrete was probably the most fun course I ever took at Mudd, and very representative of what I studied later. Moreover, I always thought that after completing trigonometry in high school, students should have the option of taking an AP course in either Discrete or Calculus, rather than forcing the latter as the only avenue for further study of math at the high school level. If that were the case, I think the number of math majors would rise dramatically nation-wide. A year (or two) of calculus in high school, followed by two more in college, and then differential equations (which is basically just more calculus) gives the impression that all advanced mathematics is calculus.

Anyway, why mention all this here and now? Well, I complained about this issue a lot at Mudd, to students and professors alike. One Professor I remember talking to about it was Arthur Benjamin, who was my instructor for Discrete, Number Theory, and Combinatorics. It wasn't a long conversation, but as I recall, I think he thought the idea of integrating Discrete into high school math curriculums was kind of interesting.

Right now, the annual TED conference is happening, where people from around the country are invited to come and present their "best idea." Professor Benjamin presented there this year, and seemingly his presentation went well. The following was posted to the TED twitter feed:

#TED Art Benjamin should be the next US Czar of Mathematics

Curious, I tried to find out what Prof. Benjamin's talk had been about. Unfortunately, the video wont be posted until some time later this year, but I found the following brief follow-up interview on the TED blog where he was asked what else he would have discussed if he had more time on stage. His response:

"If I had an extra minute, I'd also talk about how we shouldn't only show the mathematics that's useful -- and statistics is useful for being an educated consumer and citizen. We could replace a lot of the drudgerous mathematics that's being taught with math that's purely fun, with no real promise of 'you're going to use this,' but just 'this is beautiful stuff.'"

Now, to be clear, I am not trying to take credit for anything Prof. Benjamin has said, at TED or elsewhere. He is one of the most brilliant people I have met, and one of the most gifted teachers. Even my ego, over-inflated though it may be, isn't able to presume that level self-importance.

But, while at this point, nothing in the national math curriculum has actually changed, even the possibility that a gripe I made to a professor during his office hours could be a seed that ends up redirecting the approach to mathematics education on a national level gives me vertigo.

Prof. Benjamin's talk at TED was titled "Down with Calculus." I look forward to hearing what he has to say when the video gets posted.