21 Years a Bruin

Table of Contents

1. Introduction & Rapoport Problem of the Day
2. The Future of Education
3. Fawn Nguyen vs. School of Engineering & Silicon Beach
4. Applied Math vs. Pure Math & NSA
5. Applied Math vs. Teaching Math & CSET
6. Teaching Math vs. Teaching Science & CA Teacher Induction
7. My Future in Education
8. Cosmos Episode 5: "The Cosmic Connectome"
9. Cosmos Episode 6: "The Man of a Trillion Worlds"
10. Conclusion & Cosmos Episode 7: "The Search for Intelligent Life on Earth"

Introduction & Rapoport Problem of the Day

Today on her Daily Epsilon of Math 2020, Rebecca Rapoport writes:

(nothing)

[All of the givens are listed in an unlabeled diagram, so let me label it. Lines AB and CD intersect at Point O, with E in the interior of Angle DOA. Angle BOC = 4y + 20, Angle COD = 2y + 10, Angle DOE is right, and Angle EOA = x.]

In order to find x, we must first find y. We notice that Angles BOC and COD form a linear pair:

4y + 20 + 2y + 10 = 180
6y + 30 = 180
6y = 150
y = 25

This means that Angle BOC = 4y + 20 = 120 -- and this is significant, because Angles BOC and DOA are vertical angles. Thus Angle DOA = 120.

Finally, we notice that by Angle Addition, Angles DOE and EOA add up to Angle DOA, and we know that DOE is right:

x + 90 = 120
x = 30

Therefore, the desired angle is 30 degrees -- and of course, today's date is the thirtieth. (Actually, I just realized something -- once again, Rapoport doesn't specify whether to find x or y. I suppose I was drawn to find x because it alone is the measure of an angle, whereas y alone isn't an angle measure. I noticed after solving for y that today's date isn't the 25th, so it must be that we should solve for x.)

This is my third spring break/coronavirus break post. The title of this post, "21 Years a Bruin," refers to the fact that today is the 21st anniversary of the day I received my fat envelope in the mail informing me that I'd been admitted to UCLA.

Schools remain closed, of course. I've been spending the time watching some of my old DVD's that I haven't watched in years, including the old FBI drama show Numb3rs. I've mentioned Numb3rs on the blog once before, shortly after I left the old charter school. Actually, for the sake of readers who might be interested in finding something to do during this downtime, here's a link to making a math lesson plan out of Numb3rs:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byr64NS5GlivY2ZhYzEyN2EtMmIyYi00NzA2LThkOTYtZjY5N2Y0ZjJjY2Uz/view?hl=en

I also returned to the Numberphile channel on YouTube. Over a month ago, a 38-minute video was posted to Numberphile, and now I finally have time to watch it. It's on Geometry -- specifically Ptolemy's Theorem, presented by Zvezdelina Stankova:

Notice that I've mentioned Ptolemy on the blog before, but only in connection with spherical trig and not the theorem proved in this video.

The reason that the video is so long is that Stankova must first explain the idea of a circle "inversion" and how she uses it in her proof. I've actually mentioned circle inversions (or circle reflections) on the blog before, most recently in my October 15th post. She explains that these are transformations, just like the Common Core translations, (line) reflections, rotations, and dilations. And she also tells us some of the properties that these circle reflections have, including:

• Points inside the reflecting circle (the mirror) are mapped to exterior points and vice versa.
• Every point on the circular mirror is a fixed point (just like line reflections).
• The image of the center of the circular mirror is undefined (or the point at infinity).
• The composite of a circle reflection with itself is the identity (just like line reflections).
• Lines passing through the center of the circular mirror are invariant.
• The image of a line not passing through the center is a circle passing through the center.
• The image of a circle not passing through the center is another such circle.

I could tell you more about circle reflections, but it's easier just to have you watch the video. Oh, and Numberphile has also posted his own coronavirus video:

And this one is 22 minutes long. So that's one hour of Numberphile videos that I just posted.

Anyway, the reason that I have so much time to watch an hour of Numberphile videos and old Numb3rs episodes is that schools are closed, and I, as a sub, have nothing else to do. I'll be receiving paychecks soon for days that I've already worked, and beyond that is the great unknown. If California Governor Gavin Newsom is correct, schools will remain closed throughout the summer. As a sub, I try to save money so I can make it through the summer when I don't get paid -- but how much more difficult will that be if it turns out that my "summer" already began on Pi Day?

It was 21 years ago today when I became a UCLA Bruin. When I received my admissions letter that bright spring day and knew that I'd be working towards a college degree, is this what I was expecting my days to be like more than two decades later -- watching videos all day and waiting to hear news about whether I'll be getting any work or paycheck in the next five months?

Of course, there was no way I could have predicted anything like the coronavirus. But I likely believed that I'd have an established full-time career with a salary befitting someone with a degree from the fine university to which I was just admitted. So I must ask, where did I go wrong?

Today's post is all about the past 21 years since I received that letter. I'll describe all the twists and turns along the way, as well as the decisions I made that brought me to where I am now. But first, let's take a look at what education looks like now and for the time being.

The Future of Education

In some ways, the debate surrounding online education echoes the traditionalist debate. But it also transcends traditionalism and enters the realms of politics and economics. (Warning: for those who wish to avoid politics, just skip to the next section.)

Many people on both sides of the political aisle fear that their opponents will take advantage of the coronavirus outbreak to implement policies. For example, right-wingers fear that the left will try to take healthcare in a more socialistic direction. Healthcare in this nation has traditionally been provided by private doctors via private insurance. Of course, the first step away from this system is known as "Obamacare." But the recent presidential debates reveal further leftward visions of healthcare, culminating in single-payer, or "Medicare for All." (The British NHS, mentioned in the second Numberphile video above, counts as a "public option.") The left believes that this is the best way to provide healthcare to large numbers of people, particularly during a pandemic. But the right is concerned that this will cost too much and make the government too powerful.

This is not a healthcare blog, and so I won't make any further comments here. But there is one issue the left fears the right will take in a more capitalistic direction, namely education. For most students, education has been traditionally provided by public schools. And of course, small steps away from this system include charters and vouchers.

Actually, let me just provide links here to represent the left-wing and right-wing perspectives.

For the left-wing perspective, I choose Randi Weingarten, leader of the national teachers union AFT:

https://aftvoices.org/how-to-cap-this-unprecedented-school-year-2523445f13a6

But as educators and school staff know, the majority of the instructional year has already taken place, and students have learned and experienced much already. The federal government will waive federally mandated assessments as a result of the widespread school closures. There are still meaningful ways teachers can help students sum up their academic progress and bring closure to this school year. So, at this extraordinary time, I propose ending the school year by giving all teachers the latitude to work with their students on capstone or term projects instead of statewide standardized assessments — to choose age appropriate activities, assessments and projects that demonstrate their learning for the year. This flexibility will both allow districts to ensure that our school communities maintain the social distancing necessary to avoid further spread of the virus and give our students the chance to end their school year on a positive note.

Even though there are no comments at the above link, I found the above comment posted at the website of Diane Ravitch (the author of a recent anti-charter book -- recall that her name has been invoked in some tradtionalist debate posts):

https://dianeravitch.net/2020/03/25/randi-has-a-good-idea-for-the-end-of-the-schoolyear/

retiredbutmissesthekids:

Unfortunately, Pear$on (&, I’m sure, other te$ting companie$) have multi-year contract$, $o have been paid in advance with our tax dollar$. “Will $tate$ get refund$?” Hell,no!

Start testing more Americans for covid-19….NOW!

$top.”$tandardized.”Te$ting.Now…& FOREVER!

Those dollar signs summarize the left-wing perspective succinctly. Textbook companies such as Pearson push both online education and state testing in order to make money, not because they benefit teachers or students.

For the right-wing perspective, we might as well go to Right on the Left Coast, Darren Miller -- especially since he's been filling in recently for Joanne Jacobs. (That's right -- she went on a vacation just as the coronavirus was breaking out.)

https://www.joannejacobs.com/2020/03/distance-learning/

This article makes a lot of sense.  I especially appreciate the author’s differentiation between “distance learning” and “online learning”.

Even though Miller himself doesn't have much to say here, JK Brown's comment is illuminating:

JK Brown:

This is a long term change. Schools have long been known to be sources of outbreaks of acute respiratory infections. This virus is going to come back with the conventional flu in the fall, especially if classrooms are again filled.

This trying to recreate the inefficient (in terms of actual instruction) school day where maybe 10 minutes of every 50 min class is instruction is not the best idea for the kids. Many of those most engaged with learning will shift to full online learning instead of distance learning.

Brown here mentions inefficiency. Of course, there are some things that are possible with any homeschooling model (including "distance"/"online" learning) that can't be scaled up to a traditional in-person public school. For example, passing periods and time needed to take attendance are impossible to eliminate for in-person instruction. Brown suggesting eliminating these time wasters completely by switching to online education.

There are a few other things going on here. In another comment, Brown also mentions the problem with special ed (which I also discussed in my last post, as well as again later in this post):

JK Brown:

“The Philadelphia School District will not offer remote instruction during the coronavirus shutdown, the superintendent announced Wednesday, citing equity concerns in a city where many students lack computers or high-speed internet at home.”

Which is actually a rational response as the DOE Office of Civil Rights, those who brought you star chamber tribunals at universities, have rushed to send out a letter telling school districts they will be hounded if not fully compliant for all students from day one.

Brown doesn't give a solution to this special ed problem. My guess of Brown's position here is that the complaints of special ed students and their parents would be ignored -- people who are serious about their education won't find excuses to complain and will just get with the program.

What's interesting about Brown's position is when we compare it to Miller's previous post:

https://www.joannejacobs.com/2020/03/paper-and-pencil/

K-12 education should de-emphasize computers and graphing calculators in all but the highest math classes.  Too many students are allowed to use electronics as a crutch and thus never learn to walk on their own.  I certainly found this to be true on the topic of logarithms, where entirely too many students struggle to solve a problem like 4^x = 8^(x-1) without a calculator.  They become masters at knowing what buttons to push, and even of pushing them correctly, but too often they don’t understand the mathematics itself. (To demonstrate this, I used to offer a “logarithm boot camp” at the end of the school year.  After 3 days of instruction with tables my students could create and solve problems of types they couldn’t even imagine beforehand.  It’s quite fun to watch the improvement.)

This is a typical traditionalist argument about the use of calculators in math. My usual argument about "drens" refers to students who can't do basic arithmetic without a calculator, but now we're talking about logarithms, which are well beyond basic math.

Miller's traditionalist argument here merits a separate post. (I'm trying to avoid the "traditionalists" label today -- yes, I did mention politics, but at least it's in a spring break post.) But the point I'm making here is -- if JK Brown's fully online education were implemented, then there's no way to enforce the "no calculator" rule when solving logarithm problems.

But before I leave politics, let me bring the left-wing and right-wing together. The following video was posted at both the Diane Ravitch and Darren Miller websites -- it's all about an a capella singing group from a high school right here in Southern California:

Fawn Nguyen vs. School of Engineering & Silicon Beach

I will begin reflecting the decisions I made regarding my time at UCLA -- specifically what classes I took and what major I chose. But we must begin before I ever set foot on the UCLA campus -- back when I was in high school and applying to UCLA.

Before I begin my story, though, let's look at another storyteller -- Fawn Nguyen -- who's also writing about her past. I have a feeling that Nguyen was a bit younger in her story than I was in mine:

http://fawnnguyen.com/fried-rice/

I suspect that half of this story is made up because I don’t remember everything. And why would I want to remember growing up. It’s best not to go there, pretend it never happened, like tearing up a bad photo of yourself.

You can read Nguyen's entire story at the link above. Right now, I'll start my own story.

When I filled out my application, I didn't know which major I wanted to declare. My strongest subject has always been math, of course. Still, I wasn't quite sure I wanted to be a math major. I knew that math was used in other subjects, especially Physics -- and I was doing fairly well in my AP Physics C class at the time.

In the end, I chose the most common major for entering freshmen -- "undeclared."

When I arrived at UCLA in Fall 1999, my score of 5 on the AP Calculus BC exam was equivalent to the first two math courses, Math 31A and 31B. The next course would ordinarily be 32A, which is Multivariable Calculus -- but instead I found a yearlong honors sequence, 35AH, 35BH, 35CH, that was equivalent to the next three quarters of math, 32A, 32B, 33A. (Actually, the order taught is different -- 35AH is equivalent to 33A, Linear Algebra.) In the Winter Quarter, I also added a computer course, PIC 10A, which was an introduction to the C++ computer language.

Since I aced the PIC 10A, I wondered whether I should major in Computer Science, not math. When I spoke to a counselor about this, she told me that I wasn't eligible to major in Comp Sci.

You see, most large universities such as UCLA consist of many divisions. Only one of these has the word "college" in its name -- the College of Letters and Science, often abbreviated to "College." The other divisions are called "schools" -- not just the obvious medical school and law school, but the school that matters in today's post, the School of Engineering.

The Comp Sci major is part of the School of Engineering, but "Undeclared" is part of the College of Letters and Science. Since I had applied as "Undeclared," I was a member of the College, and so transferring to the engineering school is rather difficult.

Actually, I found a link regarding such a move right here:

https://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/ls-to-engineering/

(I notice that there's now a major called "Computer Engineering" created in 2017, so it clearly didn't exist while I was a student there. Also, there really is an "Undeclared Engineering" major, but I was College Undeclared.) At any rate, I didn't necessarily want to commit to fulfilling all the extensive requirements to transfer to the engineering school. Thus I remained for the time being in the College as an Undeclared.

It was probably easier, if I'd really wanted to be a Comp Sci major, to apply directly to the School of Engineering as one. But as a high school senior, I knew that being admitted to an engineering school was difficult, and there was a greater chance that I wouldn't have been admitted to UCLA if I'd applied as an engineering major.

For example, my math SAT score was a near-perfect 790, but for verbal/reading it was 640. This was still a respectable score, but note that the average reading score for an engineering student was somewhat higher, around 700. And once again, while my grades were all A's and B's, the median engineering admit had an unweighted GPA of 4.0 -- in other words, the majority of students admitted had straight A's.

And then there was the SAT II exam. UCLA requires three SAT II exams -- typically English, math, and a third subject of our choosing. When I took the SAT II as a junior, I decided to take the third exam in -- French.

Why exactly did I take the French SAT II, out of all possible subjects? It was due to a sort of domino effect -- you see, I'd taken three years of French from Grades 8-10. In junior year, I had a chance to take an AP French Language course. But I wasn't sure whether I'd be successful there -- I knew that to pass the AP exam, I had to be almost fluent in French, like a native speaker. I didn't believe that my fluency was that strong, so instead I took a safe fourth year of French that wasn't AP level. Basically, this class was independent study -- reading stories in French and answering questions. Yet since I didn't want my four years of French to go to waste, I decided to take the French SAT II exam, since I wasn't taking the AP exam.

Interestingly enough, reading stories in fourth year French came in handy at UCLA -- to meet the gen ed requirements for languages, I took a French exam before I started there. Part of that exam was to read and answer questions about "Cendrillon," or Cinderella -- and that was one of the stories I'd read in fourth year French. (There was a trick, though -- on the exam, the heroine actually makes it back home before midnight. Fortunately, I knew enough French not to fall for this trick!)

But my main point here is, engineering schools require the third SAT II exam to be science. Thus I was ineligible to apply to the School of Engineering. (Another school that I'd considered applying to, Cal Tech, also needed the third SAT II in science.)

Back when I was a high school sophomore, I took the required Career Guidance class. One of the first things we did was take a short survey to determine what our ideal job was. The job that I obtained on this survey was Computer Systems Analyst. (This is the same job that Martin Prince -- Bart Simpson's brainy classmate -- was hoping to obtain on a similar survey in an classic episode, and yes, his survey results confirmed it.)

After completing this class, I didn't really think much about this survey. But imagine if I had decided at that time that a Computer Systems Analyst was what I really wanted to become. You can imagine that I would have worked harder towards that specific goal.

At the very least, I would have taken a science SAT II. As for the verbal SAT I, I might have tried a little harder to get to that 700 score. And while it was too late for me to get straight A's as I'd already earned some B's as a freshman, I could have at least tried to get straight A's from that point on.

After I left UCLA, I applied to many STEM-related jobs. Many of you are familiar with Silicon Valley, the technology hub in Northern California. Well, there is are also a similar hub right here in Southern California. Companies such as Boeing and Northrop Grumman are located in cities with "Beach" in their names, such as Redondo Beach or Manhattan Beach. Therefore, these industries here are collectively known as "Silicon Beach."

And so I applied to some of those companies. But obviously, I wasn't hired at any of them. I do recall some of the reasons given by a recruiter at Northrop Grumman:

• My GPA dropped from undergrad to grad school. Yes, grad school is harder, but successful students should be stronger at that point.
• Taking PIC 10A at UCLA isn't impressive, since it's required for so many majors.
• In fact, many applicants can pass their computer classes. But clearly, aren't really programmers or coders until they can actually make the computer work.

For example, I recall taking a class in Scheme, a dialect of the Lisp computer language. (By the way, Logo, which I've mentioned on the blog before, is also a dialect of Lisp.) It's a confusing language -- some people joke that Lisp stands for "lists in silly parentheses." I recall passing the written texts, but I had bugs everywhere when it was time to write actual code in Scheme. I think I ended up with a B in that class.

Now imagine if I had stuck to my sophomore survey results and worked towards a Comp Sci degree when I was at UCLA. I could have arrived at Northrop Grumman with plenty of completed Comp Sci classes and plenty of evidence that I can work a computer correctly. It's more likely that I would have been hired -- perhaps even as a Systems Analyst, just as the survey suggested.

And not only would I currently have a full-time career, any computer-related job would likely be coronavirus-proof, since I could work from home.

Three years ago the old charter school, the dean often stressed the importance of education as a means to fight gentrification by having a steady high-paying job. He often mentioned Silicon Beach as a source of such well-paying jobs, and told the students that they'd need an SAT score of around 2000 (on a 2400 scale -- it's now back to 1600 as the SAT writing score is no longer included) in order to be on a path to such jobs.

And I also mentioned my Silicon Beach failure when it was time to hand out report cards at the end of the trimester. I told them that I ultimately didn't get the job because I hadn't received enough A's in my classes.

Applied Math vs. Pure Math & NSA

I know -- this post is supposed to be a chronological history of my time at and beyond UCLA, but first I jumped back to high school, then ahead to after I left UCLA. Let me try to proceed a bit more chronologically now.

OK, so let's get back to the end of my first year at UCLA. After completing the 35AH, 35BH, 35CH series, I had only one lower division class left to take -- 33B, on Infinite Series. A counselor then suggested that I take this class in the summer (of 2000), which would then allow me to start taking upper division classes in the fall. This I did, and so I took a Real Analysis class, 131A, in the fall.

I explained what "Analysis" means at this level -- it's essentially Calculus, except now we have to deal with all of the epsilons and deltas. Here "Real" refers to the set R of real numbers -- there's also a Complex Analysis that deals with calculus over the set C.

By taking these and other Upper Division classes, I was basically committing myself to becoming a math major. But there was still a choice to make -- should I chose Applied Math or Pure Math?

Majoring in Pure Math is mainly for those who plan to teach math, particularly college-level math. I wasn't sure whether I really wanted to do this, and so I leaned towards Applied Math. As its title implies, Applied Math is more about real-world applications than just teaching math.

One example of an Applied Math course is Numerical Analysis. Instead of taking derivatives and integrals of known functions, Numerical Analysis often involves taking real-world numerical data (for which we don't already have an algebraic function written in closed form), treating it as a function, and then taking its derivative or integral.

One scene involving Numerical Analysis appears in the movie Hidden Figures. Katherine Johnson and the other mathematicians there are struggling to convert data into a differential equation that they can solve in closed form. And so Katherine suggests that they use Euler's method to solve it. In my Numerical Analysis classes, I learned that Euler's method is a crude, "first-order" method -- in practice, higher-order methods such as Runge-Katta are used to solve differential equations. But I assume that given the circumstances, Euler's method was the best Katherine could do.

And so I finally selected Applied Math as my major in Winter 2001. But I continued to take various math courses during my time at UCLA, from both the Applied and Pure branches of math.

One class I took in my third year that falls under the Pure branch was Abstract Algebra. The three courses in this sequence, 110A, 110B, 110C, correspond to the three objects that Abstract Algebraists study -- groups, rings, and fields. Recall that these objects are indirectly mentioned in the Common Core Standards -- a ring is a "set analogous to the integers" (which the set of polynomials is) and a field is a "set analogous to the rationals."

Because my AP classes had provided me with so many credits, and because I took classes during the summers of both 2000 and 2001, I was able to complete a bachelor's degree in three years, finishing it in Spring 2002. I then continued on with grad school at UCLA.

Unfortunately, my first quarter was a struggle. I enrolled in a grad-level Real Analysis class, and I ended up with a grade of C+. I consider this to be the worst grade I ever received -- yes, I'd earned C's and even C-'s in other classes, but in grade school, you're supposed to get grades of B or higher.

In fact, many students struggled in this class. After the first midterm, the professor suggested that some of us transfer to the the Honors Analysis class (which is a demotion -- after all, we're going down a level from grad-level to honors undergrad-level). I didn't transfer out, but that C+ was definitely a wake-up call. Recall how some traditionalists refer to "freshman weeder" classes -- well, this was definitely a "first year of grad school weeder" class.

I took two other classes that Fall 2002 quarter, and earned grades of B and B+ in them. But with that C+, my GPA for the quarter was 2.87. And since this was my first quarter of grad school, there was no other quarter with higher grades to average it out with. My graduate GPA was below 3.0 -- and that meant that I was officially on academic probation.

That probation only lasted one quarter -- my Winter 2003 grades were high enough to pull me out of that probation. But still, those grad classes were beating me up. I still remember one Differential Equations class where I had five PDE's on the homework to solve, and I'd only gotten one correct -- only because the professor made an typo with the boundary conditions, causing the PDE to have a trivial solution (zero everywhere). And on another assignment, I'd arrived a few minutes late, saw the professor giving a "hint" on the homework, and copied it onto my assignment. Later on, he told me in office hours that he'd already collected the homework and was explaining the entire problem after everyone else had turned it in!

The last straw took place at the end of Summer 2003. I took my first qualifying exam on Numerical Analysis and bombed it. I still remember the first question -- state the order of Simpson's Rule (used to find integrals). And I'm still confused to this day of the correct answer -- somehow, the method is a fifth-order method on a single "panel," but fourth-order for "composite Simpson's Rule."

Of course, many successful students fail the quals on their first attempt. But ever since the C+ grade, I wasn't sure whether I should continue with grad school. Officially, I'd been admitted to the doctoral program in math. But since I was running low on funds (and I wasn't hired as a TA, as many grad students are), I decided to stay one last quarter to complete a master's degree and then I left UCLA after Fall 2003.

I've already written above what happened after I left UCLA with my MA in math -- I applied to several jobs at Silicon Beach but wasn't hired for any of them. In fact, I've since heard that "Applied Math" isn't really a good major to choose. If I really want to major in something that I can apply to the real world outside of academia, and I'm not in the engineering school, then I should at least choose an actual science such as Physics or Chemistry. Otherwise, I should stick to Pure Math.

This isn't to say that the Abstract Algebra classes were any easier than Analysis -- they weren't. For Math 110A and 110B, the professor gave us a ten-problem take-home final, and I definitely had trouble with some of the questions. He told us that for 110C (the class on field theory), there wouldn't be weekly homework -- instead, the entire quarter was like a take-home final with 50 questions. This scared me enough not to take 110C.

But I think that perhaps my math mind works more algebraically than analytically. I remember for the 110A final, I had only answered seven of the ten questions, and the deadline for turning in the exam was less than an hour away. Then I stared at one of the questions -- and then something immediately clicked in my mind, and I was able to solve it before the deadline. This had almost never happened to me during any Analysis classes -- if I didn't know how to solve an extra problem at first, no amount of staring at the problem would provide me with any more insight.

Perhaps I should have tried the Math 110C class after all -- who knows, maybe I would have figured out most of the 50 questions by the end of the quarter and I would have passed the class. Maybe I should have chosen Pure Math as my major -- I might have earned a grade higher than C+ in my first grad Algebra class as opposed to Analysis. Maybe I would have passed my first Algebra qual.

I didn't choose Pure Math because I wasn't sure whether I wanted to pursue a Ph.D or commit myself to working in academia. But here's the kicker -- after I left UCLA, ironically, I would soon apply to a job for which Abstract Algebra was actually more relevant than the so-called "Applied Math."

I'm sorry, but once again we must stray from a strict chronological path and jump back to my days as a young middle school student. All seventh graders at my school took a class called "Success," which also provided some career guidance. (Technically, eighth graders were to take this class as well, but the class had been abolished that following year.)

Unlike the class I'd take three years later where there was a career survey, for this class we could research any job and learn more about it. I knew that I was good at math, and so I decided to look up more info on mathematicians. One statement I read especially stood out -- "The Department of Defense is the largest federal employer of mathematicians."

And so eleven years later, as 2004 turned into 2005, I would apply to the largest federal employer of mathematicians -- specifically the National Security Agency, or NSA. Interestingly, this was right when the TV show Numb3rs (mentioned earlier in this post) premiered. The main character, Charlie Eppes, actually applies math to the FBI, not the NSA (but a few episodes would actually mention a rivalry between the two agencies).

To interview for the NSA position, I had to fly all the way to Maryland at the end of January 2005 -- and if I'd been hired, that was where I would be working. I learned that the NSA position was all about codebreaking -- and coding and decoding are closely related to groups and their operations. (In fact, the last five projects in the Illinois State math STEM text for eighth grade are all about coding and matrices.)

But the interviewers asked some tough questions. One of them was, "Have you ever been placed under academic probation?" And the correct answer to that was "yes," due to my first quarter as a grad student. (And of course I had to tell them the truth, since a polygraph lie detector test was part of the interview process!)

It was fifteen years ago this month -- March 2005 -- when I received the bad news that I was no longer under consideration for the job. It was a definitely a kick in the stomach -- sure, I'd been rejected for several Silicon Beach jobs over the previous year, but this was the only job for which I'd traveled across the country only to be rejected.

Once again, I wonder whether a strong foundation in Algebra, including Math 110C, along with avoiding grad Analysis and that C+ (so that I wouldn't have had to answer "yes" to the probation question) would have landed me that NSA position. It's a position that I likely could have earned with only a master's degree, so I wouldn't have even needed to pursue a Ph.D. Again, if I'd still held that job now, this is a coronavirus-proof position, since the Department of Defense never closes -- and again, I could also work from home.

And yet again, I could have drawn a direct path from the seventh grade where I first learned about the NSA position to my application there. I could have declared as a Pure Math major right off the bat and take classes which would help me reach my goal, such as Math 110C.

I already explained how I told my students about my Silicon Beach failures when it was time to hand out first trimester report cards at the old charter school. If I'd made it to the second tri report cards, I would have told them about my NSA failure. I'd have told them how I ultimately didn't get the job because I hadn't received enough A's in my classes.

Applied Math vs. Teaching Math & CSET

Near the end of 2005, after my NSA failure, I took a job at a local public library. But I did so only temporarily, for a few years until I decided what I wanted to do with my life. The following year, I made plans to become a math teacher.

I began by taking the two exams that are required of prospective teachers in my state -- the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) and California Subject Examinations for Teachers (CSET).

All teachers must pass the CBEST, which contains sections in reading, writing, and math. I passed two of the three sections, but ran out of time before finishing the writing section. Thus I needed a second attempt to pass writing and complete the CBEST.

As its full title implies, the CSET is particular to a given subject, so I'd take the math CSET. But I'd often heard of workers who majored in math and took a job in industry, then decided to go into teaching as a second career. Such workers are given a CSET waiver. Since I had an Applied Math degree, I wondered whether my UCLA coursework would qualify me for the CSET waiver.

Well, here's a link to the relevant webpage:

https://curtiscenter.math.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Subject-Matter-Program-11.18.19.pdf

I found out that I needed to have taken 20 courses to get the CSET waiver, and apparently I had taken only 16 of them. One of the missing courses was Math 105, which was Math for Teaching. It's logical that one should have to take 105 to get the waiver, but it's unlikely that anyone would have just taken those courses by chance without already knowing that he/she wanted to become a teacher. In other words, I can't see how those second-career math teachers could have said, "Hey, I've already taken Math 105 and all the other courses, so I just got the waiver!"

(Oh, and judging by the link above, UCLA is now even more stringent with the waiver than it was back then. Now students need to take 22 courses -- instead of one 105 course, there's now 105A, 105B, 105C, a three-quarter sequence.)

According to the link above, all 20 courses were needed to get the 100% waiver. I had only 16 out of 20 courses, so I was given a letter for an 80% waiver. But an 80% waiver letter was worthless -- it might as well have been a 0% waiver letter. (Actually, I've heard that an 80% letter can be used by current students who plan on finishing the missing courses soon, but this was years after I'd left.)

Therefore I had to take the CSET. It consists of three sections -- Algebra, Geometry, Calculus. Only the first two are needed to get a Foundational Math Credential, which theoretically allows its holder to teach math up to Geometry. To teach Algebra II or above requires all three CSET sections.

After failing to complete all three CBEST sections in a single sitting, I decided to go at a slower pace for the CSET. I would take two sections one day, then the third section a few months later. And it worked -- I received my letter indicating that I'd passed the third section of the CSET.

And so I applied for a credentialing program -- no, not at UCLA, but one of the Cal States. But here's the problem -- without realizing it, I'd discarded my letter indicating passage of the third CSET, and submitted a letter showing that I'd passed only two of the three sections. Thus I was ultimately applying for only a Foundational Math Credential. I started the program in Summer 2008.

For my student teaching in Spring 2009, I was actually placed at my old school -- the school I'd attended from seventh grade to the second month of freshman year. I was assigned two freshman Algebra I classes and one class for freshmen not yet ready for Algebra I.

As you readers know all too well, I'm not the strongest classroom manager -- and if I was shaky during the year I taught at the old charter school, how much worse was I as a student teacher? In fact, after about one quaver, I got into a huge argument with my master teacher over management. I ended up dropping student teaching that semester.

In Fall 2009, I was given a second go at student teaching. I was placed at an LAUSD high school and assigned one Algebra I and two Algebra II classes. Although I ultimately completed my student teaching, I could tell by the last month that this master teacher was also disappointed with my classroom management skills.

Reflecting back on my student teaching today, I believe that my management problems back then were due to a few mental blocks. These mental blocks permeated throughout my time at the charter school and are a huge reason why I still wasn't quite successful as a classroom manager there.

For example, I'd always taken the student phrase "That's not fair!" at face value. Sometimes I would tell students to do something and hear them complain "That's not fair!" Then a few seconds later, the master teacher would tell them to do it, and they'd just do it without complaint. I figured that the master teacher must have done or said something that made it more "fair" then when I said it -- and if only I knew what it was, I could make the students do what I want without argument as well. (By the time I was at the old charter, it was the support aide who was somehow more "fair" than I was.)

Now I know better. The students avoided saying "That's not fair!" to my master teachers (and charter aide), not because they were truly more fair than I was, but because the students knew that they wouldn't get away with saying it. In general, there was something about the way she said it ("teacher tone") or looked at the students ("teacher look") that told the students -- no, you're not going to get away with arguing with me, so you'd better just do it. But I always lacked "teacher tone" and never even tried "teacher look," and so the students always argued with me instead.

Another mental block I had back then was the fear that if I was strict with the students, they would just jump up and rebel against me (as they might to a sub). I should have been strict with them anyway -- if the students tried to rebel, the master teacher would have intervened. She would have known exactly what to do.

And I've mentioned a third mental block here on the blog -- my avoidance of the dreaded phrase "Because I said so." I never liked hearing those four words as a young student, and I'd always wanted to spare my students the same phrase. But sometimes, "Because I said so" is the only way to get a kid to do something without argument.

In fact, one year ago today (in my "20 Years a Bruin" post), I told the story of how avoiding "Because I said so" got me in trouble. I might as well repeat that story again this year:

In this case, my master teacher was telling me about accommodations. One girl needed to sit near the front of the room so she can hear the lessons better. My master teacher told me to have this girl switch seats with another student -- she insisted that I be the one to tell both of them to move, so that I could practice giving my students directions.

But the two students refused to move. I then told the other student that I needed to accommodate an unspecified student -- but the original girl easily figured out that I was referring to her. That was when she complained about my talking about her accommodation.

Of course, many students talked loudly in my student teaching class all the time. There were these two guys who, according to my master teacher, needed to be separated. (This has nothing to do with any accommodations -- it was just to keep them quiet.) But every time she separated them, one would ask me to let him sit next to the other for the day. Since he asked for permission, I would allow him to move, thus undermining the master teacher's efforts to keep them apart.

Now imagine all of this from the perspective of the accommodated girl. She was probably wondering why it was so important for her to be quiet and sit in another seat when these two boys could move and talk whenever they wanted. She might even had suspected it was because I was sexist.

In order for me to fulfill accommodations effectively, I need to be a strong classroom manager, so that accommodation can fit smoothly into a classroom where students generally listen to, obey, and respect the teacher. "Because I said so!" needs to be my answer to any question regarding why the students need to obey me, since the truth might be that my directions are to give accommodations that I should not reveal.

My first master teacher often gave me suggestions for improving my management skills, but when I was standing in front of students, those mental blocks prevented me from fully implementing any of her suggestions. But from her perspective, I was simply ignoring her suggestions that seemed to go in one ear and out the other. That's why we argued, and that's why I left. And again, my second master teacher didn't argue with me, but she couldn't hide the disappointment in her voice whenever she spoke to me.

When I completed my student teaching, I had trouble finding full-time teaching jobs. It was now 2010, in the midst of the Great Recession. Many schools, in the LAUSD and beyond, were giving out stacks of pink slips to teachers every March 15th. In other words, they were much more likely to let teachers go than hire new ones.

But the recession wasn't completely to blame for my lack of success in the job market. One thing that counted against me was that word "Foundational" on my credential.

In theory, a Foundational credential allowed me to teach up to Geometry. But in reality, most high schools demanded a full credential, even if the open position is five sections of Algebra I. Thus the few interviews I did receive during this time were for middle school positions.

Of course, I really had passed all three CSET's -- I'd just lost the document proving that I'd passed the third test. Perhaps I should have taken all three tests the same day -- or perhaps I should have taken the first and third tests the first day (rather than the two tests that corresponded exactly to the Foundational credential). Then if I'd lost the document showing passage of the second test, I would have been forced to do something about it right away (that is, before beginning the credential program) rather than have it continue to drag me down years later.

Or, of course, I could have settled on a teaching career while I was still at UCLA. There is actually a Math for Teaching major and a BS degree at UCLA. If I'd chosen that major, then I would have already completed 100% of the CSET waiver courses -- and would have started my teaching career much earlier (perhaps before the Great Recession), making it easier to find jobs without wasting time on Silicon Beach or the NSA.

And unlike those other two jobs, in my credential classes I'd received enough A's to be a teacher and gain that credential. But there were still challenges and bumps in the road ahead of me.

Teaching Math vs. Teaching Science & CA Teacher Induction

There's another thing about teaching in California that often confuses outsiders. The credential that one receives at the end of a program is called a "preliminary" credential. It expires after five years, by which it must be upgraded to a "clear" credential, or else its holder can no longer teach.

The program that allows a holder to clear the credential is called "Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment," or BTSA. (Actually, I see that it's now known as "California Teacher Induction." I used the new name in the title of this section, but throughout the section I'll continue to refer to it as BTSA, since that's the name I called it at the time.) The BTSA program typically spans the first two years of a new teacher's career.

As the year 2012 began, I started worrying about BTSA. Teachers were still receiving pink slips and very few teachers were being hired. My preliminary credential would expire at the end of 2014, and so if I didn't begin the two-year BTSA program by that fall, my credential would be no good.

Early that year, I read an article about a special BTSA program for teachers who were unemployed due to the Great Recession. It was located at the district from which I graduated high school. Here's how it worked -- preliminary credential holders volunteered for one hour per day in the classroom of a district teacher (called the "induction mentor"). We would teach lessons and manage the classroom for that one period as if we were the teacher. Then we filled out all of the BTSA paperwork and submit it to the state in order to clear the credential.

With the clock running out, I had no choice but to join the program. (Actually, some colleges have special BTSA programs as well -- for a huge fee, that is.)

Originally, I was placed in a seventh grade classroom. It was one of the few middle schools in the district with a block schedule. But one month later, I was switched to a high school class, where I spent the rest of the two years. (Note: even though I graduated from this district, I attended neither the middle school nor the high school where I was placed.)

And in order to make money during this unpaid BTSA position, I took a job as a math tutor. Most of the students I tutored were Korean immigrants, and some of them were trying to move ahead to higher (Bruce William Smith-level) classes.

By the way, sometimes I referred to my "student teaching days" here on the blog. But more often than not, I was really referring to my days in this BTSA position -- especially considering that I spend two years in BTSA but only one semester (and part of another) in student teaching. I just called it "student teaching" in order to avoid having to explain BTSA to non-Californian readers.

The time I spent in the seventh grade classroom was brief, but I still remember a little about it. I recall how the teacher began the year by having the students create name tents, which they kept on their desks until the end of the month. These were somewhat like Sara Vanderwerf name tents, except that the students don't write down their thoughts or questions for the teacher.

(Actually, I keep thinking of Vanderwerf as the name tent lady, but in her most recent post -- where she talks about teaching online during the downtime -- she names her most popular post. Her signature assignment isn't name tents, but something involving the numbers 1-100. So in reality, she's the 1-100 lady.)

This seventh grade class was also an honors class. This teacher would sometimes give her the opportunity to "compact out" of a unit by passing the unit test early. Then the students would get enrichment assignments during the rest of the unit. But I never see this in action -- she didn't allow students to compact out of the first unit, and by the second unit I was out of there.

Moving to the high school was a huge culture shock. The middle school was in an upper-class neighborhood, but the high school was in a lower-class neighborhood. And the Algebra I class to which I was assigned was a SDAIE class for English learners. For my new mentor, the SDAIE class was her only Algebra I class -- all her other classes were Algebra II, but I wasn't allowed to teach any of them because of that word "Foundational" on my credential. (Strangely enough, I'd been allowed to cover Algebra II while student teaching even though I was working on a Foundational credential, but I couldn't teach it for BTSA.)

Of course, teaching the SDAIE class was a struggle. Indeed, many of the students didn't pass the first semester, so the second semester was converted into an Pre-Algebra class while the few who passed were transferred out to another teacher. (Recall that in the last math class I subbed before the coronavirus shutdown, one of the classes was for students who have failed Algebra I first semester.)

There was also a big difference between my first year of BTSA and my second year. Once again, my mentor had only one Algebra I class for me to cover, but instead of English learners, the class consisted of IB (International Baccalaureate) students. Thus I needed different teaching styles -- in first year I had to focus more on vocabulary and often used more visual examples, while in second year I focused more on preparing the students for higher IB-level math classes.

Once again, you already know that my classroom management couldn't have been excellent (since I still had problems by the time I reached the old charter school). I still hadn't even identified the same mental blocks that had prevented my success during student teaching, much less addressed them.

And besides management, there was one aspect of my lessons that my mentor felt I didn't do nearly enough -- checking for understanding. Of course, it's important to determine whether the students have understood what I've taught them before proceeding.

In some ways, checking for understanding and classroom management are linked. I might check to see whether the students understood the first few problems, only to find out that none of them even did the first few problems because they were all talking. Then I have to figure out what to do to get them to stop talking -- and because of my mental blocks, I couldn't think of anything to do except for arguing, which of course was usually ineffective. Sometimes I felt that I'd rather not check for understanding at all rather than go down the argument path.

(Let's go back to my computer days at UCLA with a coding analogy. Checking for understanding is like searching for and finding compile-time errors before the program runs. But my alternate path of avoiding checking -- so I wouldn't have to argue with the talkers -- was like waiting until there are run-time errors and the system crashes. This means that students are failing the tests.)

Many students didn't enjoy my classes because of this. In my first year, I could see some students, after failing the first semester and being dropped to my Pre-Algebra class, seeing that failure as a wake-up call and were ready to succeed in the second semester -- only to struggle some more because I didn't check for understanding. The same happened in my second year, only this time it was the sophomores who had failed the class as freshmen but were now ready to work harder, only to run into my ineffective teaching. One girl demanded, and was granted, a transfer to another class.

And as for my ineffective management, some students thought it was fun that they were able to get away with talking -- until they saw their first quarter report card grades. They'd probably assumed that the whole class was easy -- if I wasn't taking their noisiness seriously, then I wouldn't take their math seriously either. But I was required to give the district chapter tests -- and of course since they were talking too much, they weren't learning. (I've heard that since then, the district is even more stringent with chapter tests -- not only are they the same every school, but the tests must now all be given online. And this was even before the coronavirus outbreak.)

I ultimately completed the two years of BTSA and received my clear credential. But my mentor predicted that unless I improved both my teaching and managing skills, I'd probably be hired only at some small charter school -- and as you already know, that's exactly what happened two years later.

There's one more thing I'd like to say about BTSA. When the program began, I was offered the opportunity to add Foundational Science to my credential. (This time, I don't mind the word "Foundational" there since it's only a supplementary credential.) I heard that some of the other math teachers did this -- there was some additional work required, and I believe that they were also placed in a science classroom part of the time. Obviously, I didn't do this -- maybe if I'd known that my first full job (at the charter school) would require me to teach science, I might have done so. At the very least, I would have seen what setting up science projects looked like -- and thus I could have taught science with more confidence at the charter school.

Instead, as soon as I cleared my credential, I went back and retook the third CSET exam, just to get rid of that word "Foundational." And so at the end of 2014, I finally had a clear full Math credential.

There's one more thing I did soon after clearing my credential -- I created this blog. And so you're now caught up, since I brought you from my UCLA acceptance letter to the start of the blog. Thus longtime readers know what happened next -- I tutored for one more year (the first year of the blog) which overlapped my subbing for two years, before being hired at the old charter school.

My Future in Education

I must admit that as a substitute teacher, it's JK Brown's position that frightens me the most. If all classes were held online as Brown suggests, then there is no need for subs.

And moreover, I'm still hoping to become a full-time teacher someday. With Brown's online education plan, it might be possible to double a teacher's load. The main reason why teachers don't have 300 students is classroom management, but with Brown there is no classroom to manage. And by doubling a teacher's load, the total number of teachers can be cut in half.

And this is very possible, especially if -- as Brown suggests above -- the coronavirus still won't be fully contained by the fall. Under this plan, schools will be looking to get rid of teachers and certainly not hire me as a new teacher.

I've heard that in my old district, one Geometry teacher who was planning to retire at the end of this school year anyway has decided to leave now and let a long-term sub teach online. Obviously, I'm not that long-term sub -- otherwise I wouldn't be complaining about online education.

That's one way that I could have taken advantage of this situation. (Actually, I hate wanting to "take advantage" of something that's harming -- and even killing -- thousands. Perhaps I should instead say "make something a little good out of something terrible" or something.)

Here's another example -- I just applied for full-time teaching in another district. That district was originally scheduling interviews for a certain day next month. But now that district will be closed, and so the interview day is postponed. Now suppose the "stay at home" and "social distancing" orders aren't fully lifted until just days before the first day of school next year. The teaching positions might still be open, with little time to find a candidate to fill them. So then they might call upon me to be a long-term sub while searching for a full-time candidate.

It would be especially good for me if this happens in one of the two districts where I'm already currently a sub. Then it would be easy to have me fill in until interviews can start up again. And if I do well enough as a long-term sub, the school might simply choose to keep me as the regular teacher rather than interview someone outside.

I know that some other districts and charters are also considering video interviews -- and possibly even video demo lessons as well. It would be great if I had some videos from back when I was teaching at the old charter school -- but I didn't have the necessary technology to make them. (In fact, in one post I mentioned from back then, I wrote that the coding teacher wanted the eighth graders to work on a video project -- but he had to modify it because there was no way for them to create any videos in that classroom.)

Because of this, I wonder how many teaching jobs I won't be able to apply to because I don't have any videos. Once again, it all depends on exactly what month the virus restrictions are lifted so that normal interviews can take place.

The coronavirus outbreak has been compared to 9/11. Indeed, a student born on September 11th, 2001 might be graduating in the Class of 2020. (This is a tricky one -- here in California, students born in September, October, or November could start kindergarten at age 4, and so a student born on 9/11/01 would actually be in the Class of 2019, not 2020. The rules were changed so that those born after September 1st are placed in transitional kindergarten, but this wasn't until slightly after 2001.)

And indeed, we might say that 9/11 is to my generation, the "Xennials" (the youngest Gen-Xers and oldest Millennials) as the coronavirus is to the "Zennials." (I consider the Class of 2020 to be the last "Zennial" class -- next year's seniors are the first class fully in Gen Z.)

And in some ways, the coronavirus outbreak is even worse. After all, 9/11 didn't threaten to cancel anyone's proms or graduations the way the virus is. Moreover, 9/11 claimed about 3000 victims -- it would be highly optimistic to think that the virus will kill only 3000 Americans.

Thus some people have compared the virus to World War II instead, when we consider what effect each crisis has had on our daily lives. It's then up to the young generation, the Millennials, to rise to the occasion, solve the crisis facing us and become the next Greatest Generation.

Where, then, is my place in this rapidly changing world? No one knows how long the crisis is going to last. And no one knows what education will look like when we come out of it.

But if JK Brown's vision is correct, there won't be room for many teachers in the new world. In the next few months, I'll have to reevaluate my job prospects. I might be forced to admit soon that I must leave the world of K-12 education and consider something else as a career.

Cosmos Episode 5: "The Cosmic Connectome"


Here is a summary of Cosmos Episode 5, "The Cosmic Connectome":

• Can we understand the universe? We're not sure, because we don't fully understand our brains.
• About 2500 years ago, the ancient Greeks performed rituals to the gods to heal epilepsy.
• Hippocrates, the father of medicine, discovered that the brain was the seat of consciousness.
• Of our understanding of the brain, he wrote, "When we do, we will no longer think it divine."
• Phrenology was the pseudoscience that the shape and size of the brain determines its ability.
• Paul Broca, a French physician, studied an epileptic brain to learn about its linguistic functions.
• He discovered the relationship between anatomy and function in the brain.
• The ancient Egyptians believed that people were physically transported in their dreams.
• In Italy, Angelo Mosso's ergograph, or fatigue recorder, showed that people were overworked.
• Mosso measured how much blood flowed through a young patient's brain using neuroimaging.
• In Germany, Hans Berger secretly studied his own brain and invented the first EEG scan.
• It's amazing how we evolved from simple primates to complex technological beings.
• Neurons -- cells that form our nervous system -- emerged from microbes in ancient water reefs.
• Flatworms were the first organisms to develop brains, about 600 million years ago.
• Our brains grew haphazardly, just like New York and other major cities.
• The billions of connections in the brain allow us to try to understand the universe around us.
• A single grain of salt contains 10^16 atoms, and yet the universe is so much larger.
• All of our neural connections, thoughts, and dreams make up our connectome.

I've discussed the brain before on the blog, specifically back when we were reading Chapter 11 of Douglas Hofstadter's book. This was almost a year ago -- you can refer to my April 24th post.

Each time I watch Neil DeGrasse Tyson on his Cosmos episodes, I think about whether it could have tied in to anything I should have taught in science classes at the old charter school. Life sciences would have been in seventh grade, but there isn't much discussion of the brain, since it's clearly a very complex organ.

Cosmos Episode 6: "The Man of a Trillion Worlds"

Here is a summary of Cosmos Episode 6, "The Man of a Trillion Worlds":

• John Goodrich, an 18th century astronomer, first noticed that some stars changed in brightness.
• About 150 years later, Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper also noticed these patterns.
• He was invited to McDonald Observatory in Texas, where he studied binary star systems.
• Spectroscopy was used to determine the elements that made up both stars.
• "Contact binary star systems" were connected by a bridge about eight million miles in length.
• Sometimes the cosmos knocks on our door, such as during an annual meteor shower.
• Physicists and chemists view the meteor differently, while biologists ignore it completely.
• But Kuiper needed all types of scientists to work together to help him in his research.
• Harold Urey, a U of Chicago chemist, was upset that Kuiper was trespassing on his turf.
• Kuiper and Urey did research together with Carl Sagan, the host of the original Cosmos series.
• Back before the first manned spacecraft left our planet, no one knew what the earth looked like.
• When Sputnik launched in 1957, people around the world were astonished.
• Urey and Sagan designed a simulation the primordial atmosphere and how it formed life.
• After Sputnik, NASA began, and Sagan briefed the astronauts before they left for the moon.
• Carl Sagan envisioned that life might exist on other planets, such as giant "floaters" on Jupiter.
• The oldest worlds we know orbit a triple star system on the outskirts of our galaxy.
• The third exoplanet around this system may be an exoplanet that harbors life.
• A thousand new solar systems are formed every single second.

Yes, Tyson's predecessor host Carl Sagan is the titular "man of 10^12 worlds" here.

As I mentioned before, I would have missed most of space science during my teaching due to the way we transitioned from California Standards (where it was taught in sixth grade) to NGSS Standards (where it's taught in eighth grade). Obviously, most of middle school space science is devoted to the solar system rather than what's beyond it.

Oh, and I did actually mention Sputnik in connection with the Hidden Figures movie, since much of that film takes place at NASA.

Conclusion & Cosmos Episode 7: "The Search for Intelligent Life on Earth"

My next post is scheduled for one week from today, April 6th -- the day that my old district is scheduled to return to school. But the chances of the students actually returning that day are, I must admit, infinitesimal. The coronavirus crisis is nowhere near over. There is a board meeting scheduled for tomorrow, when a possible reopen date will be discussed. (Maybe I should have waited until tomorrow to post rather than today, but I wanted to post on the 21st anniversary of my UCLA letter.)

Assuming that the schools remain closed, my next post is approximately a week away anyway -- just maybe not on April 6th exactly.

Earlier, I wrote that I wouldn't keep writing about my Eleven Calendar during the virus closure. But in some ways, the Eleven Calendar is more relevant than ever. With school closed and no one able to go out and have fun, the days all look alike anyway. So perhaps now's a good time to work using another calendar such as the Eleven Calendar anyway -- at least until schools and other businesses reopen to accustom us back to the Gregorian Calendar.

For those who have forgotten how the calendar works, here is a brief overview:

• There are eleven days per week and 33 days in each of the eleven months.
• Each month starts on the first day of the week.
• The current month of March is aligned with the Gregorian Calendar.
• Thus today is March 30th in both calendars. The first week was March 1st-11th, the second week was March 12th-22nd, and so today is Eightday of the third week.
• I often use the names Friday, Saturday, Sunday for the first three days of the week, so that the three Abrahamic religions still have their sabbath days in the calendar.
• The next three days are March 31st, 32nd, 33rd. April starts two days later on my calendar than on the Gregorian Calendar. But this year, the first three days of April (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) align with their Gregorian day-of-week (but not day-of-month) equivalents.

Yes, I wrote that I would eat a special buffalo wings meal each time that the weekends line up in both calendars, so that would be this weekend -- assuming, of course, that the eatery that I'm planning on going to is still open. (The place I went to last time abruptly shut down even before the coronavirus.)

Well, there's still one reason to know that today's Monday -- tonight is Cosmos night. I already described last weeks Episodes 5-6, and so tonight is Episodes 7-8.

I am watching the new episode as I type this -- and I will click "Publish" on this post just as Episode 7 is ending. Thus I'll summarize Episode 7 in tonight's post and save Episode 8 for next week.

Here is a summary of Cosmos Episode 7, "The Search for Intelligent Life on Earth":

• We've been searching for intelligent life for years, but are we ready for first contact?
• The largest telescope on earth is in China. It sends out radio waves to search for alien life.
• Below the ground lies a vast underground network unknown until recently, the Mycelium.
• Animals, plants, bacteria, and fungi (mushrooms) all work together in the Mycelium.
• Scientists, mathematicians, and computer scientists speak in exact symbolic language.
• The Ordovician Ocean covered the Northern Hemisphere -- Dec. 20th on the Cosmic Calendar.
• On Dec. 21st on the Cosmic Calendar, plants, insects, and mushrooms colonized land and air.
• About 200 million years ago, wasps first began to pollinate flowering plants.
• Unlike wasps, bees no longer ate other animals, but only nectar, as flowers began to prevail.
• An Austrian scientist, Karl von Frisch, was the first to study bees in the early 20th century.
• He noted that if he left out a plate of sugar water, the bees would all meet there.
• He realized that the bee's dance movements revealed the location of the water to other bees.
• It is our first contact story with another species that understands sciences and math.
• Our democracies are fragile, but there's a place where everyone still has a voice -- a beehive.
• When a bee becomes the new queen, the old queen sends out scouts to find her swarm a home.
• After the bees agree on the best location, they make a "beeline" for their new home.
• The Tree of Life has existed for four billion years, as one-celled organisms evolved into us.
• Charles Darwin first recognized that all life is related, with philosophical implications.