No, I’m not kidding.  As I was coming here to teach, it was actually snowing.  It was warm, and it wasn’t sticking, but still. So, I’ve been thinking about sincerety.  It seems to me that sincerity matters more in determining what the person is worth than in determining what the ideas are worth. If you’re reading…

So, here’s the thing.  Wor is going really well lately, and that means that I sometmes don’t get around to the blog.   Then there is the fried chicken situation, but that’s something else. I’ve been thinking today about a book I read some time ago.  It’s still in print, as far as I know.  It’s called…

I finally settled in to a book, and the book I found is called The Concord Quartet. It’s by Samuel A. Schreiner, Jr., and it has a lot of virtues given my state of mind.  For one thing, it’s relatively short.  For another, it’s very cleanly written.  And for a third, it’s one of the…

Last night, Robert sent me an e-mail abou an article he’d read about small presses that print a number of copies of a ook and then, if the demand exceeds that number, print the rest as  POD.  I’ve been looking around for the article on the internet, but haven’t been able to find it.  It…

Well, I suppose we could go around in circles some more, but I still come down on the side of teaching what is necessary to know, not in trying to pick those parts of what is necessary to know that you think students might like, or giving up on what is necessary to know in…

Today and tomorrow are going to be messes of days, with schedules off and sleep minimal, and I’ve been thinking about why so many parents are at odds with schools these days. In almost any discussion of education you see on the web, especially in any discussion of American education, you’ll inevitably run up against…

First, let me say that I’m in the middle of finishing a book, and I’m late, due to the Big PRroblem which is still not entirely resolved–or even sort of, yet–so my posts to this blog may get a little sketchy. Also,  I have a new book coming out in about a month, called Living…

Okay, let me see if I can clear up a few things here. 1) I wasn’t saying that teachers shouldn’t try to make the material they teach interesting and engaging for their students.  Of course they should.  The ability to do that is the mark of a good teacher. I was arguing against determining the…

Let me through out a couple of statements here and see what you think about them. Kids really hate math.   All those abstractions turn them off, and practically nobody but math majors likes them anyway.   So, okay, let’s give them some of that if we have to, but let’s concentrate instead on the fun stuff…

Because I really don’t remember if I gave this title to a post already, and I’m too lazy to look it up. First, I’m going to apologize to Janet.  I will say in my defense that I anticipated I would have to.  Sorry, I took the “more contemporary” in Janet’s comment to mean, well, right…