CoH celebrates National Poetry Month

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

National Poetry Month logoThis week’s Carnival of Homeschooling treats us to snippets of poetry along with a variety of informative, inspiring articles about education in general and homeschooling in particular. The Tutor writes:

It cannot be a coincidence that it is National Poetry Month and I’m hosting the Carnival of Homeschooling this month. I mean a homeschooler can never resist the chance to turn something into a learning opportunity. So, prepare a nice cup of tea, find a comfy spot, call the kids to come read over your shoulder, and let’s away to the Carnival!

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
— from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Continue reading CoH celebrates National Poetry Month

Happy Pi Day I

Posted on by Denise Gaskins
photo by jorel314 (cc by 2.0)
photo by jorel314 (cc by 2.0)

It can be of no practical use to know that Pi is irrational, but if we can know, it surely would be intolerable not to know.

— Edward Titchmarsh

I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning Pi Day when I was in school, but any excuse to celebrate math sounds like fun. March 14 at 1:59 (a.m. or p.m.) is about as close as the calendar can get to 3.14159…

Continue reading Happy Pi Day I

In Honor of the Standardized Testing Season…

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Feature photo above by Alberto G. (CC-BY-SA-2.0) via flickr.]

The school experience makes a tremendous difference in a child’s learning. Which of the following students would you rather be?

I continued to do arithmetic with my father, passing proudly through fractions to decimals. I eventually arrived at the point where so many cows ate so much grass, and tanks filled with water in so many hours. I found it quite enthralling.

— Agatha Christie
An Autobiography

…or…

“Can you do Addition?” the White Queen asked. “What’s one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?”

“I don’t know,” said Alice. “I lost count.”

“She can’t do Addition,” the Red Queen interrupted. “Can you do Subtraction? Take nine from eight.”

“Nine from eight I can’t, you know,” Alice replied very readily: “but—”

“She can’t do Subtraction,” said the White Queen. “Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife — what’s the answer to that?”

“I suppose—” Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen answered for her. “Bread-and-butter, of course.”

“She can’t do sums a bit!” the Queens said together, with great emphasis.

— Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass

…in other words…

If you could lead through testing, the U.S. would lead the world in all education categories. When are people going to understand you don’t fatten your lambs by weighing them?

— Jonathan Kozol
at Westfield State College’s 157th Commencement

Continue reading In Honor of the Standardized Testing Season…

Common Sense and Calculus

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

One more quote from W. W. Sawyer’s Mathematician’s Delight before I have to return the book to the library:

If you cannot see what the exact speed is, begin to ask questions. Silly ones are the best to begin with. Is the speed a million miles an hour? Or one inch a century? Somewhere between these limits. Good. We now know something about the speed. Begin to bring the limits in, and see how close together they can be brought. Study your own methods of thought. How do you know that the speed is less than a million miles an hour? What method, in fact, are you unconsciously using to estimate speed? Can this method be applied to get closer estimates?

You know what speed is. You would not believe a man who claimed to walk at 5 miles an hour, but took 3 hours to walk 6 miles. You have only to apply the same common sense to stones rolling down hillsides, and the calculus is at your command.

Mathematics and Imagination

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Comments by W. W. Sawyer, in his wonderful, little book, Mathematician’s Delight:

Earlier we considered the argument, ‘Twice two must be four, because we cannot imagine it otherwise.’ This argument brings out clearly the connexion between reason and imagination: reason is in fact neither more nor less than an experiment carried out in the imagination.

Continue reading Mathematics and Imagination

Harmonic Series Quotation

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

If you’d like to start your week with a laugh, here’s a great quote:

Today I said to the calculus students, “I know, you’re looking at this series and you don’t see what I’m warning you about. You look and it and you think, ‘I trust this series. I would take candy from this series. I would get in a car with this series.’ But I’m going to warn you, this series is out to get you. Always remember: The harmonic series diverges. Never forget it.”

—Rudbeckia Hirta
Learning Curves Blog: The Harmonic Series
quoting Alexandre Borovik