Slow-brewed Math, the Singapore Way

(image by Jennifer Altman for the NYTimes)

The New York Times has an article on schools switching to a new method of teaching math.  From the article we learn that

Principals and teachers say that slowing down the learning process gives students a solid math foundation upon which to build increasingly complex skills, and makes it less likely that they will forget and have to be retaught the same thing in later years.

Read more: here.  I think this method makes some sense.

TMTOWTDI! (There’s more than one way to do it!)

Anyone possessing more than a casual knowledge of Perl has heard of TMTOWTDI (There’s more than one way to do it). This slogan is the essence of Perl and the reason so many of us love the language. The purpose of this post is not to extol the virtues of Perl — however great it is — it’s to remind us that often in math TMTOWTDI.

Mathematical Musings

C’est mathématiquement impossible!

“It’s mathematically impossible!”  Those words were emphatically uttered by Gérard Dépardieu in Jean de Florette, the film based on the eponymous novel by Marcel Pagnol.  What is not to love about the line?  This simple phrase is character development at its best.

Positive! Negative! Zero! Undefined!

I have been doing some volunteer tutoring recently, specifically in math, which led me to reminisce about the various methods my math teachers used to instruct us.

One teacher, who I will never forget, was fearless.  We snickered and mocked her but she was undeterred from using “outside-the-box” methods such as teaching us conics by using a song set to the melody of The Joker.

“I’m a joker/I’m a smoker/I’m a midnight toker/I get my loving on the run”

became

“I’m a conic/supersonic/I’m hooked on phonics/Circle, ellipse, parabola”

Completely and utterly cheesy, yet memorable.  I still remember those words and I still know what a parabola is (I should hope so, considering how much advanced math I’ve taken).

Unlikely bedfellows: A+, C, C++, and Perl

  ”Unlikely bedfellows?” you ask.  Only in my mind (i.e., sharing the same thought cloud).  I’m thinking aloud here.  Does the nature of a programming language provide us with insight into the personality and traits of its creator(s)?  Do the features of a language provide clues about the culture of the time?

After a nice evening with good food and a margarita, I was avoiding sleep and ended up pondering these (perhaps useless) questions.  The languages I thought about were C/C++, Perl, and A+.