I just had a fantastic class! Some days I feel that I'm scarcely teaching, that I ought to be doing more, somehow, but today I felt such good energy spilling into the classroom. I began by reading some Wendell Berry poetry (thank you, Jacob, for illuminating me with the knowledge of more Mad Farmer poems!)--"The Mad Farmer's Love Song" & "The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer"--perhaps it's show-offy of me, but I really enjoy reading aloud to my students. I have to have some fun as a teacher, after all. And they seem to enjoy it.
Then we talked about revision modes and methods, and one of my students asked me to define "show not tell," which is rather difficult to do--really, it is a skill that must be practiced, must be shown, not told, not defined. But I did my best, and my students seemed to be following what I was saying or trying to say. At the end of class, one of my students asked, "So what showing is, is presenting the details to the readers and letting them come up with their own conclusion?" And I looked at him and thought, Wow, you just said in one sentence what I've been trying to say for the past 20 minutes. Aloud I said: "Yes, Gary, that's it exactly. Don't tell us what to think--give us the evidence and let us make our own conclusions." I looked around at my students, and I could see by their expressions that they got it, that they understood, and it was beautiful because it was one of the students who said so clearly what I was getting at--and once he'd said it, there was nothing more for me to say, so I ended the class.
Is this why it's so wonderful to be a teacher--simply being able to watch your students come to the point of understanding new ideas, to see the knowledge illuminating their faces? To be the catalyst to their learning?
O beautiful day.
Then we talked about revision modes and methods, and one of my students asked me to define "show not tell," which is rather difficult to do--really, it is a skill that must be practiced, must be shown, not told, not defined. But I did my best, and my students seemed to be following what I was saying or trying to say. At the end of class, one of my students asked, "So what showing is, is presenting the details to the readers and letting them come up with their own conclusion?" And I looked at him and thought, Wow, you just said in one sentence what I've been trying to say for the past 20 minutes. Aloud I said: "Yes, Gary, that's it exactly. Don't tell us what to think--give us the evidence and let us make our own conclusions." I looked around at my students, and I could see by their expressions that they got it, that they understood, and it was beautiful because it was one of the students who said so clearly what I was getting at--and once he'd said it, there was nothing more for me to say, so I ended the class.
Is this why it's so wonderful to be a teacher--simply being able to watch your students come to the point of understanding new ideas, to see the knowledge illuminating their faces? To be the catalyst to their learning?
O beautiful day.
Now, i is a very proud number. It is aloof and doesn't care to mix much with other numbers. If I add 3 to 4 I get 7; the 3-ness of the 3 and the 4-ness of the 4 disappear, absorbed into the 7-ness of the 7. If, by contrast, you add 3 to i, you get... 3 + i. It's the same with multiplication. When you multiply 5 by 2 the 5-ness and 2-ness are swallowed up by the 10-ness of the result, and vanish without trace. Multiply 5 by i, and you get... 5i. It's as if the i can't bear to let go of its identity; or perhaps as if the real numbers know that i just isn't the same kind of thing as they are.
ReplyDelete-Excerpt from the book “Prime Obsession”
Since you are a closet mathematician, I figured you’d enjoy the way this author talks about numbers as he introduces imaginary numbers (i = square root of -1) to the readers.
And as can be expected, your favorite number popped up in an interesting spot.
The first thing to be said about Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev is that his last name is a data-retrieval nightmare. Researching for this book, I turned up 32 different transcriptions of the name: Cebysev, Cebyshev, Chebichev, Chebycheff, Chebychev, etc., etc.
And if that unusual first name, Pafnuty, caught your eye, you are not alone. It caught the eye of mathematician Philip J. Davis around 1971. Davis embarked on a quest to find the origins of "Pafnuty," and wrote an extremely funny book about his researches, “The Thread” (1983) . . . . (In the middle of writing this chapter I got an e-mail from a reader of my web column asking me to suggest a name for her new dog. There is now a Pafnuty chasing squirrels somewhere in the Midwest.)
Some fodder for meditation.
-Joe T.
Incidentally, we are currently studying Buddhism in my Greening of Religion class. Phrases like "the 3-ness of the 3" sound very Buddhist to me. :)
ReplyDeleteDid you read "The Thread"? Is it accessible to non-mathematicians/closet mathematicians? I need to get a reading list put together for this summer.
When are you and Jen going to come and visit me? :)
If I do end up getting a cat, maybe I'll name it Pafnuty. Or Lvovich--that's even less pronounceable. :)
Exactly. You are a catalyst to their learning... and then you get to laugh at them when they don't get it. THAT, my dear, is the true joy of teaching. ~ ldk
ReplyDeleteGary. I remember him. You're getting it, my dear sister. Yesterday I saw my troublesome tutee from last semester, and he called my name across the street and said hi to me. Wowzer. It was a good moment.
ReplyDeleteSo THIS is the way to get ya'll to post on my blog--I have to talk about EDUCATION. Aha. :)
ReplyDeleteSo, about the price of eggs....I like them fried and broken, myself. Not the price. The eggs. Dang you, ambiguous clauses!
ReplyDeleteWhat does the price of eggs or ambiguous clauses have to do with anything??
ReplyDeleteIt was supposed to encourage you to post. Something. Anything.
ReplyDelete