happy birthday, catherine!

Thank you for brightening and enlightening our lives!

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Comments

I'm going to start a new page about MoreOrLessPaperAndPencil.

-- InterestedTeacher - 01 Jul 2005

Oh my gosh!!!!!

Thank you!!!!

And it's just what I wanted!!!

A cat!!!!!

Ed got me the DVD of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, which is almost as good.

I love it!

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jul 2005

Happy birthday. My present to you is on my "Collection of Real Life Problems" page. It's a horrendous problem called "The Haybaler Problem" that appears in IMP Grade 9. Yes, it can be done, but that's not the point. It's in the category of problem for which students don't have the knowledge or skills to solve.

-- BarryGarelick - 01 Jul 2005

Happy Birthday, Catherine. I appreciate you so much. What you are doing for teachers and students is invaluable. It will have a lasting impact. You are as good as gold, pure gold! Have a blessed day!

-- InterestedTeacher - 01 Jul 2005

Happy birthday! You can have my cat if you want. She's a rather unpleasant little tabby, but we keep her around anyway.

-- SusanS - 01 Jul 2005

Barry--I just saw the problem!

I AM BLOWN AWAY.

Unbelievable.

'It's always worse than you think.' (Family motto, along with no common sense-y.)

We've got to start talking about the link between problems that are too easy and problems that are too hard--I WILL get to that.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jul 2005

I appreciate you so much. What you are doing for teachers and students is invaluable. It will have a lasting impact. You are as good as gold, pure gold!

Goodness!

Thank you!

Well, I sure hope so--and it will happen if teachers, parents, & kids can....collaborate? Is that the word?

Pool our resources!

I've already, in just these start-up days, picked up invaluable ideas for Christopher and even for Andrew.

So I'm grateful to all of you!

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jul 2005

Isn't it strange that there's so little communication between teachers, parents, & kids?

Actually, it's not strange when you think about the natural tensions of a specific teacher talking with the specific parent of a child in her class.

What's strange to me is the fact that there are no parent-teacher 'meet-ups'--

Actually, that's not what I mean.

We have no meet-ups of any kind.

I've become aware of how isolated teachers are; they have zero 'colleague time,' which, by all accounts, is critically important. (I know the minute I started trying to teach math I found 'math mentors.')

Parents don't talk to each other about teaching per se, and parents and teachers don't have any standing forum to talk about learning & education, either.

You've got all these isolated little atom-individuals, each with some knowledge (and some with lots more than others, of course) and no existing mechanism for 'mining' that knowledge.

I see Kitchen Table Math as being like the audience on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

The audience is always smarter than the contestant!

(ok, not always.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Jul 2005

BTW, before I join my family in watching the video of "Cats and Dogs" (before they disown me), there's a link to the Ten Myths piece that now appears in the Valley Patriot in Sandra Sstotsky's column: http://www.tommyduggan.com/VP060705stotsky.html

It is also on the NYC HOLD website and Jay Mathews wrote about the piece (very poorly). A bunch of us put the myth piece together and Sandy had a big hand in it.

-- BarryGarelick - 02 Jul 2005

I've read it!

I'll get the link posted on the Recommended reading page--thanks!

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Jul 2005

Yes, that's a must read.

-- CarolynMorgan - 02 Jul 2005