Updated: If I Could Wave a Math-Education Wand

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Thursday October 29, 2009 · 6:51 AM PDT

2009/10/29 · 06:51

UPDATE: Thanks very much for all the comments, which have been very helpful as I try to think this issue through. And I apologize to those of you I angered. There are several points I should have made much clearer:

First: I love math in the abstract, recognize its value, respect its practitioners, and regret very much that I'm not skilled in it and never had the great teachers with which many of you were blessed.

Second: The main reason for writing the diary was to present some possible ways to change the math curriculum so that fewer students will repeat my experience.

AHPaul

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Thursday March 12, 2009 · 9:18 AM PDT

2009/03/12 · 09:18

The terrific writer Zadie Smith, author of White Teeth and other works, provides an excellent literary, political, and social analysis of Dreams from My Father. Along the way, she shares insights on George Bernard Shaw, Shakespeare, Frank O'Hara, and what it means to be human. Her article, "Speaking in Tongues," based on a December 2008 lecture at the New York Public Library, appears in the February 26, 2009, issue of The New York Review of Books and may be found here. I heartily recommend it.

Avoiding the Usual Missteps

AHPaul

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Saturday January 24, 2009 · 1:40 PM PST

2009/01/24 · 13:40

Like everyone else, I hope that President Obama pursues policies close to my heart. However, this post does not touch on those.
What follows would apply regardless of who had won the November election.
If I had the president's ear, I'd say something like this:
Congratulations, sir. You’ve got the job.
And as someone who was born when Truman was president, I’ve got something too – a favor to ask. Avoid the blunders your predecessors, Democrats and Republicans alike, have found irresistible.
First, minimize the number of political appointees to government bureaucracies. Often knowing zero about what they oversee, they foster inefficiency and error. Every department has able and experienced men and women; find and promote them.

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Updated: If I Could Wave a Math-Education Wand

Zadie Smith Illuminates Obama's Memoir

Avoiding the Usual Missteps