Get more out of research

Teaching

Today one of my students told me that he thought I was the best math teacher he's ever had. I did a mid-semester survey and the other students seem to share the sentiment.

Do I agree that I'm pretty good? I have no freaking clue.

Do I think his opinion of me will translate into him passing? I can only hope so.

Apparently there is a study showing that the way a student rates his math teacher is inversely correlated to the amount they measurably learn.

Food for thought. But in the meanwhile... I'm on a campaign for a teaching award.


Edit: On Teaching

The internets

Found out from the INTERNETS that my advisor applied to a job at another school. I'm not even sure if I have the right to be angry - maybe this is how it works in academia... advisor does whatever the hell he wants and the students find out when he needs them to. But I absolutely do have the right to freak the hell out. I may be moving to Utah next year.

On education 2

- feedback

The point is not to fire ineffective teachers. Teaching is hard... you'd fire everyone. The point is to set up systems which reliably make teachers good. (reflecting on...)

-data driven

Those systems can be discovered, monitored and maintained by honest thorough comprehensive data mining. Where we analyze data without unshakable hypotheses

- grit

But we do have one working hypothesis: that successful teaching is the successful teaching of perseverance.

On Education

"A Student should emerge from from such a general education with a knowledge of how problems, whether of life or science or art, have been treated, and with some insight therefore into how problems may be treated; and joined to that knowledge, he should possess and ability to understand positions other than his own, to present his own convictions relevantly, lucidly, and cogently, and finally to apply informed critical standards to his own arguments and those advances by others." 

-Richard McKeon, "Education and the Disciples," Ethics 47 (1937):377


I just started a Math Ed Course. I think this is gonna be fun.

Teaching and Persuasion

I am back at school this week. I should be thinking about research. But due to circumstances beyond my control - emails from dept-chairs, favours being called in, people getting sick - I found myself subbing for two friends and spending all week thinking about naught but teaching.

How do I get the most bang for my buck? As in, how do I get the most from my students with the minimum amount of effort?

Here's some food for thought - basic behavioural psychology!

"Personalized text messages were found to be six times more effective in getting people to pay fines than warning letters."

"...if you want people to vote, tell them everybody else is already voting and they should join the club."

Maybe I should start sending my kids personal emails and letting them know that everyone else was studying really hard. It's time to learn the art of manipulation. 

Ode to a Flower

A friend once asked me if, because I'm doing a math PhD, I walk around seeing more of the world than a regular person. I thought he was silly. But maybe, on some level I do. Yay Math! Yay Science!

Brain Teaser

"Jack is looking at Anne but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married, but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person? A)Yes, B)No or C)cannot be determined."

courtesy of the Economist here 

The work of consultants

"Of course arrogance, or at least self-assurance, is a consultant’s stock in trade. That’s what we buy when we buy advice: not just the content of it but the authority, even the grandiloquence, with which it’s delivered. We exchange the anxiety of autonomy for the comfort of following orders. "

From here 

Must remember for my work. 

Speaking of which, a former work colleague - currently engaged -  told me today that he used to have a "tiny" crush on me. Well I never...

Seems like...

there is some space in the market for a nursing service.

This is me, feeding that entrepreneurial spirit.

Some essays defending math

What is Mathematics for?  & A Mathematician's Lament

Maybe, I'll give these to my students in the fall

Disowning Those Old Arguments

Weird how family always get stuck in the same rut. I got in an argument with my dad yesterday over nothing. Again.

 With people you've known for so long, it's obvious there will be ups and downs. To have a real relationship with anyone you have to forgive. But what is the mature thing to do when somebody says something that is clearly untrue.... I always did this... I never did that... that never happened...?

 Like on that Christmas dinner, when my dad was showing off to the guests that he never beat his children (a rare thing in Jamaica). Was it wrong of me to correct him?

 "Actually you never beat your son. You beat me all the time."

 "That's because you were bad." He replied.

 An answer like that says that he didn't misremember; he was trying to reinvent and whitewash the past. That, for some reason, gets deep under my skin. And clearly, me correcting him gets under his skin.

This would be easier if I didn't remember. But one of the bad things about journaling your entire life is that you never forget.

 Yesterday's argument wasn't about the beating. It was him asking about if he ever sent me to school without lunch money when I was young. He did. Many times. Once with the advice that I should, "consider it a day of prayer and fasting." But when I said that, the conversation quickly devolved into him accusing me of being ungrateful - him having paid so much for me to go to college and all that - and unappreciative of my privilege. Later, I heard him loudly talking to my mother, saying that I was resentful, psychotic, and needed counseling. That he was never going to give me anything again; he was going to keep his money for himself.

 I know I am privileged. Very much so.

 I also think I just got disowned.

Mwuahahahahaha

I am

utterly failing at life.

Ozymandias

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-  Percy Bysshe Shelley

Jamaican in China

My brother is over in China for a developing-nation energy seminar thingy right now. He was sent as Jamaica's representative, so I can kind of forgive him for missing my graduation. You can check out his blog at Verdego.

It's kind of cool that China is doing all these things. Of course, people are worried about their intent... pouring money into the Caribbean, Africa, South America.... But you have to appreciate them. They don't come and rape and pillage. They don't come just to take advantage. They come and they build. They transfer knowledge. Their business seems like good business for all.

Hate Crime

• •  Below is a facebook conversation with a friend
    
    
    
    
    Him: oh btw....did i tell you about my beating?
• Me:
  

  about an hour ago

  • ?
  • no
• Him:
  

  about an hour ago

  • a couple of weeks ago...i was walking back home from a friend's place ...a party....got jumped by 4 white guys.....got pretty much the shit kicked out of me
  • my shoulder's messed up....doing physical therapy these days
• about an hour ago

  Me:

  • !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • wtf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • are you OK...ish?
  • no permanent damage right?
  • did you get a look at them?
  • tell the police?
• Him:
  

  about an hour ago

  
  

  • yeah....improving... have not been to the gym in a month...
  • not permanent no...hopefully...
  • yeah...they drove by me on my way back....yellled at me ....slowed the car down....i told em to fuck off...they parked the car...ran to me...told me to apologize....and i did...cuz i didnt want trouble....and they said i needed to apologize to them individuallly...i just tried to get out of the way and get home...and got called a brown bastard....and i told em they were being racist....
• 
  
• Him: 

  
  

  • at which point they decided to fuck me up...i got one guy in the face...but the others wrestled me down and kicked the crap out of me...i was unconscious for a few mins before some people from a frat house across the street came out and helped me up
  • the police

    came*....they took a statement ....and pics and a police report was 

    filed
• Me:
  

  about an hour ago

  
  

  • I think Im going to cry
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Yes, I cried. I can't even articulate how angry, upset and terrified this makes me... on his behalf, on my own behalf. This stuff actually happens. Not just in movies. Not just far away or long ago. But here and now to your family and friends. I can't forget that this happened. I can't for one second forget.

Got my Masters

I am a Master of Science in Mathematics.

I.Feel.Awesome.

Retired confessions

Retiring: "Sometimes I fake emotions. I wonder if they can tell."


Admitting: "I have no plan. I honestly thought life would end before this."

Here is the Mandate

Yesterday I gave a presentation on John Nash. Apparently he was hired at MIT (not his first choice) back when MIT was not considered such a great research institution. The point being.... MIT later WAS considered a great research institution. When did it make the switch? Maybe MIT was already great back when Nash was just being brought into the fold. MIT's lack of a name didn't prevent it from doing great work, or from being better than other places. Public opinion caught up later.

I've been thinking a lot about brand names, specifically of how going to a great school or being affiliated with an accomplished person or being part of a famous organization really doesn't actual signal anything about your own achievements. I know this is a deeply true fact... having worked for a big named place because it was big named and having it fall really really short. I know this to be true, having found great art and people and academics in the strangest of places.

Right now, I am sitting in the Midwest, about to start my research. My advisor, my schools past and present, my professors, my family, my last name have no say here. It's just me and the Math. I hope and fear that I will be judged by my accomplishments.


I must achieve.