1. Introduction
2. Blaugust: How Do I Handle Homework/Daily Practice?
3. Homework I Received When I Was Young
4. Homework I Assigned at the Old Charter School
5. The Packet Rap
6. Grading the Packets
7. Why Does My District Start Before LAUSD This Year?
8. Hawking, pages 81-290
9. More Issues with STEM
10. Conclusion
Introduction
As it turns out, this is my final summer post. The district whose calendar is observed by the blog has its first day of school on Wednesday, August 14th. This means that much of this post will be about tying up loose ends.
In particular, we begin with our second Blaugust topic from Shelli's list. Then we wrap up our summer side-along reading of the Stephen Hawking graphic novel. Finally, this is our last chance to discuss a (semi-)political/controversial topic before the school year begins.
Blaugust: How Do I Handle Homework/Daily Practice?
Let's get to today's Blaugust topic. Since today's date is the eleventh, we'll just take the eleventh topic from Shelli's list.
Here's the list:
http://statteacher.blogspot.com/2019/07/introducing-mtbosblaugust-2019.html
And here's the eleventh item from that list:
This is a big topic for the traditionalists. They believe that many teachers these days don't give their students enough "p-sets," or "problem sets." Our main traditionalist, Barry Garelick, mentions homework in three of the chapters that he's writing for his book Out on God Behavior:
Chapter 2:
https://truthinamericaneducation.com/education-reform/an-espresso-based-job-interview-a-1962-algebra-book-and-procedures-vs-understanding/
A few days later I was at the school for a 2 PM interview. I tend to get a bit logy in the afternoon so I thought I’d have an espresso prior to coming in. The principal, Marianne and assistant principal, Katherine, interviewed me and asked the usual questions: What does a typical lesson look like, what are my expectations and so on. My inner voice tried to keep me from extended caffeinated responses. I emphasized how I leave time for students to start on homework in class, do the “I do, we do, you do” technique, and in my controlled ramblings managed to get across that I am, by and large, traditional.
Chapter 10:
https://truthinamericaneducation.com/education-reform/not-making-sense-and-a-conversation-i-never-had/
I allotted time in every class for students to start on their homework to allow me to offer help and guidance. She accepted my help grudgingly. After working through a problem I asked “Does it make sense now?”
Chapter 11:
https://truthinamericaneducation.com/education-reform/more-on-making-sense-and-a-fickle-bookseller/
I then summarized it as a rule: the signs of the numbers inside become the opposite. The homework problems were to evaluate various expressions in this manner, including those with variables, like 10 – (5-x).
Yet many teachers even admit on their blogs that they don't like giving out homework, doing the "I do, we do, you do" technique, or anything mention in Garelick's posts.
Much of the homework debate centers around how things have changed since the old days. Thus, my discussion of homework will begin with what my own teachers did when I was a young student.
Homework I Received When I Was Young
I began receiving homework when I was in the first grade. From the first through third grades, "homework" was synonymous with "spelling practice." A typical week looked like this:
- Mondays: write spelling words five times each
- Tuesdays: use each word in a sentence
- Wednesdays: write words in ABC order
- Thursdays: take a practice test
And of course, the weekly spelling test would be on Fridays.
Fourth grade was when things began to change. While we continued to receive spelling homework, we were assigned other projects as well. If you're familiar with the California standards for history, you know that fourth grade is the year that our state history is taught -- and that means we were assigned the Spanish missions project. Fifth and sixth grades (recall that our elementary school was K-6, not K-5) are for U.S. and World History, respectively, in our state. I remember doing research projects on a particular state in our country (mine was on West Virginia) and a particular country in the world (mine was on Mexico) during those years. And that was it. In particular, we never did math for homework in elementary school.
Of course, I was a special case, since I independently studied Pre-Algebra starting in second grade. I never thought of this as homework, though. When it was time for the other students to have their math lesson, I would complete the assigned p-sets on my own. These would be sent over to the secondary (7-12) school, and the teacher there would grade it and assign me the next lesson. I never took the math text home, and so I never thought of these assignments as "homework."
When I reached the seventh grade, I finally met the teacher who had been grading my assignments for all those years -- indeed, I was placed in her Algebra I class. Of course, now I would start to be assigned homework every night. The first math text I ever brought home was written by Garelick's favorite author, Dolciani (albeit in the 1980's or 1990's). Just as in her classic texts, this text contained both Oral and Written Exercises. Usually the homework consisted of the Written Exercises but sometimes our teacher would assign Oral Exercises as well.
Homework was only slightly included in the grade. For example, a C student who completed enough (i.e., at least 75%) of the assignments would wind up with a C+ for the quarter, and a student who didn't finish enough assignments would get a C- for the quarter instead.
I was unable to make the adjustment from working in the classroom to working at home. Thus even though I had an A average for my quizzes and tests, I failed to clear the 75% bar for homework. But actually, it wasn't the A- on my report that got me -- it was the accompanying N for work habits. (In past years on the blog, I've referred to E, S, U grades that LAUSD assigns for excellent, satisfactory, and unsatisfactory work habits and citizenship. The district that I attended had an extra grade, N or "needs improvement," between S and U.)
When I saw that N on my report card, I knew that I had let down the teacher who had graded my work for five years. For the rest of that year, I made sure that I always turned in at least 75% of my homework assignments. I never saw that N (or A-) on my report card for Algebra I again.
(Note: In past posts, I've listed my middle school grades but never mentioned the A- grade. This is because the charter had trimesters, while the school I attended as a young student had quarters. I no longer have a copy of my seventh grade first quarter report card, so I listed my second quarter report card grades instead. But I have a old seventh grade transcript listing the A- grade.)
But I never became an excellent completer of math homework. Throughout high school, I had many missing assignments despite earning A's in all my math classes. And unfortunately, my less than excellent work habits extended into college. In many of my upper division classes at UCLA, I received A- grades -- just as in Algebra I, the A was for the tests and the minus for the homework.
Throughout my high school and undergrad years, I was able to succeed on the tests despite not doing all the homework. But as a grad student, I finally met my match -- a class for which I couldn't just absorb all the information without doing enough homework.
This was an Analysis course, and here I received the worst grade of my entire educational career -- a grade of C+. I call this my worst ever grade despite once earning a C- in a college physics course (as I once mentioned on the blog), because the C+ was in grad school, where the minimum to pass is B.
It's important for students to gain study skills, but here I was definitely lacking. I'd been able to coast for so long without completing all of my homework that I'd developed bad habits, and they cost me in that Analysis class. Even though I never again earned a grade as low as C+ in a grad-level class, I never fully recovered from the C+. I was officially in the Ph.D. program at UCLA but ended up settling for a Masters degree, as I felt that I didn't have enough brainpower to complete the doctorate.
This, in a nutshell, summarizes all the math homework I ever got, from grade school to grad school.
Homework I Assigned at the Old Charter School
At the old charter school, I often received mixed messages from the administration concerning what and how much homework I should assign. Part of this confusion stems from the fact that our school was a K-8 school. Sometimes the administrators would send out mass emails with guidelines for homework -- and the K-1 combo teacher gets the same emails as us middle school teachers. This is awkward because first and eighth graders don't get the same types of homework. We might expect eighth graders (especially in Pre-Algebra or Algebra I) to get an assignment on Monday to be turned in on Tuesday, an assignment on Tuesday to be submitted on Wednesday, and so on. But we don't expect first graders to be assigned homework with such tight deadlines.
For example, the administrators gave grade-level workbooks for math and ELA to all teachers. I would receive math workbooks for all three middle school grades. Then we received an email stating that a page from these workbooks should be included in the "weekly homework packet."
I was thrown for a loop. On one hand, the line "weekly homework packet" was clearly intended for the K-5 teachers, since weekly homework is a staple of the elementary classroom. But on the other hand, I was given the same workbooks, which implied that I should indeed assign it for HW. (Notice that if the elementary teachers really assigned HW from the math workbook, then this was a far cry from my own elementary teachers who, as I wrote above, never assigned math HW.)
And so at the start of the year, I indeed assigned homework from the workbooks. These books were very well organized -- there was a page for every week of the school year. Each page contained 25 problems -- five for each day of the week.
Of the five daily problems, there was one for each strand of the Common Core Standards (Number Sense, Ratios/Proportions, Expressions/Equations, Geometry, Stats/Prob). And herein lies the rub -- if we covered all the standards in order from the start of the year, we might not reach SP until Week 30 or later, yet students were still assigned SP problems in Week 1. Thus, it never occurred to the authors of the workbook that the students might be asked Week 30 material in Week 1.
And so I told the students that they should choose ten of the 25 problems to complete -- one on Monday, two on Tuesday, three on Wednesday, four on Thursday, turn in on Friday. The hope was that each day, they could find enough problems that they already know how to solve.
This went well for the first month or so. But the Illinois State text also had homework associated with it, and I also received emails to ensure that I was assigning Illinois State HW. At first, this referred to a "word wall," and later on I was also directed to assign the online Illinois State assignments.
You might notice that the Illinois State text is a project-based curriculum -- and not all PBL curricula even have homework. But it was made very clear that we needed to assign homework -- we posted grades on PowerSchool, which were based on set weights:
- 40% Tests & Projects
- 20% Quizzes
- 15% Homework
- 15% Participation
- 10% Classwork
In the end, homework ended up being a big mess because of all of these differing demands. I was required to assign the online HW, but not every student had access to a computer -- and the father of an eighth grader came in to complain. Not every standard even had an assignment in the online curriculum, and so those weeks I reverted to either a word wall or even the workbook. I also often assigned the workbook page in class, as something for the students to do on Mondays while waiting for the coding teacher to arrive, or Wednesdays as part of the so-called "advisory" period after music.
Recall that one of my resolutions for becoming a better teacher is:
6. If there is a project-based curriculum such as Illinois State, then implement all components of it.
And one of those components is the online homework component. My struggles at the old charter school were related to violating those principles. I resolve to follow all these principles, and so if I'm required to assign a certain homework assignment, then I must do so, period.
The Packet Rap
Back in November of the year I spent at the old charter school, the history teacher gave me a helpful suggestion -- assign weekly ten-page packets. So I began doing so right after Thanksgiving break -- but unfortunately, the idea lasted only three weeks, until winter break.
The reason that packets failed is that I had trouble figuring out what to include in them. Obviously, the packet material should refer to what they're learning during that week. Well, let's look at what I actually taught during the second packet week that December:
Monday: Coding Teacher
Tuesday: STEM Project Day 1
Wednesday: STEM Project Day 2, Conjectures Game
Thursday: STEM Project Day 3
Friday: STEM Project Day 4, Dren Quiz 4's
This was, of course, back when I'd misinterpreted the Illinois State pacing guide and thought that I had to give multi-day STEM projects. (Later on in January, I was told how to read the pacing guide, but by then I'd already abandoned the packets.)
So instead, I ended up making copies of old texts that I'd purchased from my local library during the April and October book sales. (I'd known those texts would come in handy someday!) The problem was that as pre-Core texts, these didn't correspond exactly to what the students were learning -- and they especially didn't correspond to the STEM projects they were working on.
In today's post, I now describe what I should have done with the packets that year.
First of all, recall that I didn't use the interactive notebooks that are popular with many math teachers I've seen, both online and in person. So I could have used packets instead -- all notes, classwork, and homework can be included in these packets. Notice that Shelli's topic for today is about homework and daily practice. So these packets will contain daily practice as well as homework.
Thus during a STEM project week as given above, the worksheets can be related to the actual projects the students are working on. That week, both seventh and eighth grade struggled on their respective projects because they didn't know how to use a protractor. Thus I could have included protractor lessons and practice in the packets.
The "Conjectures Game" that I listed above is the same game that I often play while subbing. In this case, the game fits nicely with STEM as students make predictions about the projects. It's possible to make a worksheet out of this (similar to my worksheet for Lesson 5-3 of the U of Chicago text as posted here on the blog) and include it in the packets.
As I've mentioned before on the blog, my students tended to behave better when they had something specific to do and knew exactly what it was. So I could devote packet pages to other assignments that I did in class that week -- especially IXL computer time at the end of the day. So my packets could have helped me with classroom management as well.
Indeed, Thursday of that week was one of the worst days I had at that school in terms of behavior. At the end of that day, eighth grade had IXL in my classroom. Meanwhile, seventh grade was in the English classroom for a Journalism assignment that they needed to type on laptops. Eighth grade was a small class, while seventh grade was large. The number of laptops in each room was between the number of eighth graders and the number of seventh graders. And so the English teacher sent two seventh graders to borrow my laptops.
But the eighth graders were out of control, especially that Thursday. Instead of working on IXL, some of them started playing with the lights -- and when the two seventh grade boys arrived to pick up the laptops, they joined the eighth graders in playing with the switches. I began to argue and yell at the students -- the eighth graders claimed that they were innocent and that only the seventh graders were to blame.
(Note: At the time this incident occurred, I never mentioned it on the blog. That week, Thursday just happened to be a non-posting day. On Friday, I blogged only about what happened on Friday. Instead, I blogged about this incident only in passing, more than a year after it happened.)
Here's how packets could have helped me in this case -- I once wrote that I should have had some sort of IXL accountability form. On this form, students would have a choice -- they can log in to IXL and complete the assignment, or else copy and complete 11 questions of my choosing. The students can write the answers in an answer column -- a practice I first learned from my old seventh grade teacher.
You may ask, why should it be eleven questions? Well, IXL gives students a score from 0-100, and eleven is the minimum number of questions needed to attain a score of 70. Since our school didn't assign D grades, 70 is the minimum passing score to earn a C grade. Thus having the students write eleven questions is equivalent to making them earn a 70 on the IXL assignment. Then during IXL time, I check each student to see whether he or she has either scored 70 on the IXL assignment or answered the 11 written questions correctly. If the IXL score is below 70 or some of the eleven questions are incorrect, then they must keep working until 70 or 11 is reached.
Now here's what happens on a day like that Thursday when students are playing around -- I punish the students by asking them to put the laptops away. Of the two choices, the IXL option has been removed, so that the students must do the eleven written questions instead.
Of course, the students will start complaining here:
Student: Why do we have to put the computers away?
Teacher (me): Because you were playing with the lights?
Student: I didn't do it. That was seventh grade!
In other words, telling them that this is a punishment for playing with the lights leads only to arguing, denying, and blaming the younger boys. The following is much better:
Student: Why do we have to put the computers away?
Teacher (me): Because I said so! (Or, because I don't feel like doing IXL today.)
The students can deny that they played with the lights all they want, but they can't claim that I'm not really saying so, or claim that I really feel that doing IXL and just don't know my own feelings!
Then I assign ten math problems for them to complete on the worksheet. For the eleventh question, I ask them the following:
11. Will you ever play with the light switch without permission again?
The students must copy the question onto their packets but can give a single-word answer. Here are a few argumentative student responses to seeing Question #11, along with a way to avoid the argument.
Student: But I wasn't playing with the lights!
Teacher (me): The question begins with the word "Will," which indicates future tense. This question isn't asking whether you did it or not, but what you will do in the future.
And of course, some joker will try to answer "yes" to Question #11:
Teacher (me): Your response to Question #11 is incorrect. You must redo Question #11 in order to receive credit for the worksheet.
In other words, my response is just like what I'd say to a student who answered, say, Question #6 (a math question) wrong instead of Question #11. By doing so, I've driven home the message that the students shouldn't play with the lights, without accusing anyone of anything (and causing them to deny said accusation).
Thus the existence of the IXL accountability worksheet in a packet helps to avoid arguments and control student behavior. At the time of the incident I described, I was afraid to have the students put their laptops away because I had nothing else for them to do -- meaning that they'd probably play with the lights more, not less. With the packets, I do have something else for them to do, so denying them computer time becomes an effective punishment.
When I first introduced packets, I sang a "Packet Song" during music break. I believe that this sounds better as a "Packet Rap" (with the same lyrics) -- and indeed I've rapped it recently as a sub when the regular teacher assigned a packet. Let me post the lyrics here again:
THE PACKET RAP
1st Verse:
Your folks came up to us and said,
"Hey teachers, you can't hack it!
You make the claim you give our kids
Much work, but you can't back it."
So we got together and said,
"Let's stop all this racket!
We'll staple all our good worksheets
To make a ten-page packet."
2nd Verse:
Don't leave your packet behind,
Make sure that you backpack it.
Or if it starts to rain then
Hide it underneath your jacket.
Keep it in a folder so that
You can always track it,
Make sure that you never ever
Leave your ten-page packet.
3rd Verse:
When it's homework time then
Take it out and just attack it.
When there's extra time in class
Then you need to unpack it.
When it's time to turn it in
Make sure that you don't lack it.
To each and every teacher just
Turn in your ten-page packet.
On one hand, grading the packets should be easy. I collect the packets at the end of each week, and all of the assignments are conveniently right there for grading.
The problem is that the grades must somehow fit the PowerSchool categories:
- 40% Tests & Projects
- 20% Quizzes
- 15% Homework
- 15% Participation
- 10% Classwork
One idea to make the percentages work out is to make each packet be worth 100 points. Then the test/project that week is worth 40 points, the quiz is worth 20 points, the homework 15 points, and likewise for the other categories. In previous posts, my goal is for the whole trimester to be worth 1000 points for easy calculation. A typical trimester spans 12-13 weeks, but there might be some weeks (short holiday weeks, benchmark testing, etc.) without a packet, so that there are only ten packets per trimester.
Let's see what the packet for that week in December might look like. That week, a STEM project spanned the entire week, so it's easy to see how it could be worth 40 points. Of course, this means that I should be very specific about what the students are required to do to earn this points, since it's almost half their grade -- these 40 points can make the difference between earning a 95% A and a 55% F for the week. Once again, this is where the packet helps -- the worksheet indicates exactly which steps/questions from the STEM text they must complete to earn the 40 points.
The protractor questions can count as the classwork for the week. I can ask ten questions with each one worth one point. During weeks when the students work in the "Student Journals" (traditional texts), the packet worksheet serve as an answer column. This makes it easier for me to grade the classwork over the weekend (when the Student Journals are in the classroom, but I've taken the packets home with me).
For the participation category, the Warm-Ups and Exit Passes fit here. If I give one Warm-Up and one Exit Pass per day, then that's ten questions -- but in reality, I wouldn't give Exit Passes on Mondays (coding teacher) or Fridays (after I've already collected the worksheets). This means that eight points are available here (and that the Warm-Up/Exit Pass sheet should be included in the packet).
It's also logical to place the IXL accountability worksheets here. I might decide to give, say one point for a 70 score and two points for 100 (so that the student won't just stop after 70). This gives us 12 possible points so far, when we need this category to be worth 15 points. The other three points can be part of the participation points that I give everyday. The implication here is that students should earn three participation points throughout the week. Without those points, the highest possible participation score is 12/15 (an 80% B). It's possible to earn extra points during the week, either to make up for missing Warm-Ups, 70 instead of 100 on IXL, or earn 16/15 in participation.
As for the homework category, it's possible to place the weekly workbook pages here. Notice that my old 1-2-3-4 scheme works well here if I extend it to 1-2-3-4-5, which adds up to 15. If I don't wish to make students answer five Friday questions (since that's when they're turning in the packets), I can turn it around and make it 5-4-3-2-1 instead (as it should be easy to squeeze in one problem on Friday before turning the packets in).
Later on, I was required to assign online Illinois State Homework. During weeks when this is required, we change it back to 1-2-3-4 and make the online assignment five points. Just as with IXL, I copy the questions from the Illinois State and include them in the packets. Then students can choose whether to answer the questions on paper or online -- if online, they can check off a box to indicate that I should look them up on the website. If not enough students choose the online homework for the administrators' liking, then I can give a bonus point for those who do it online, so that it's worth six points and 16/15 for the homework is possible.
This leaves only the quiz category. Of course, quizzes shouldn't be included in a packet -- not even the 4's Dren Quiz that I actually gave that week. So the packet might be worth 80 points and the Dren Quiz worth 20 points. Of course, once the students turn in the quiz, nothing's stopping me from stapling it to the packet so that it's truly a 100-point packet.
A packet system allows for lots of flexibility if I had continued them past December. When the Illinois State pacing guide is fully explained to me later on, a weekly packet might contain pages for the Tuesday STEM project, Wednesday traditional lesson (classwork), Thursday Learning Centers (participation), and Friday assessment, plus the online homework. It's easy to add science pages to these packets -- notice that the science teacher's editions arrived around the same time that the packet idea was suggested to me. It might have been possible to make copies and add these to the packets (since the only student science texts were online).
Seventh graders might miss some of these sections since they had less time with me. During that week in December, I played the Conjectures Game with them during "Advisory" since I really wanted to play the game with them. In other weeks, I had them do the Monday and Wednesday questions from the workbooks after the coding and music lessons on those days. Instead, it's better to include the workbook pages in the packets for all grades and come up with something else for the students to do during "Advisory." (Around the time that the packet idea was suggested to me, there was a "Responsive Classroom" PD training that gave ideas for a possible Advisory period.) A true Advisory assignment can be given, worth however many points are needed to make the seventh grade packet be worth 100 points.
And of course, at the midpoint of the year, IXL time was replaced by SBAC Prep time. Once again, there can be packet pages for SBAC Prep accountability, just as there was for IXL.
Why Does My District Start Before LAUSD This Year?
Earlier in this post, I mentioned that the first day of school is coming up this Wednesday, which makes this my last summer blog entry. Recall that the district whose calendar is observed by the blog is not LAUSD. Yet usually, this district and LAUSD started the same week. Instead, this year my district starts on August 14th, before LAUSD starts on August 20th. To understand why, we must look at a history of the LAUSD calendar.
Even back in the old days when the first day of school was after Labor Day, LAUSD always had a three-week winter break. In some years, this extra week is desirable -- for example, consider what happens with a two-week break when Christmas falls on a Sunday. Either the last day of school before the break must be Friday, December 23rd, or the first day after winter break must be Tuesday, January 3rd (since Monday the 2nd is the legal federal holiday for New Year's Day ). Both of those possibilities lead to students, parents, and teachers wanting to take extra days off for travel, since school ends or starts too close to the holidays (and in the latter case, the school year might be 179 days instead of 180). So instead, LAUSD closes for three weeks -- the week before Christmas, the week in between Christmas and New Year's Day, and week after New Year's Day.
But in years when Christmas falls on, say a Wednesday, the extra week isn't needed. Closing the week of Christmas and the week of New Year's gives sufficient time for holiday travel -- the last day before break is December 20th, and the first day back is January 6th. No extra week is needed, yet LAUSD already has a three-week break built in. So which extra week does LAUSD close -- the week before Christmas week or the week after New Year's week?
Well, LAUSD decided to use another holiday -- Thanksgiving -- to decide. There are always exactly three weeks of school between Thanksgiving and winter break. (This explains why at my old charter school -- whose calendar is based on LAUSD's -- there were three packets between Thanksgiving and winter break.) In fact, in the old days, there were always exactly three weeks between the end of winter break and finals week. Thus the entire calendar from Thanksgiving to the end of the first semester was completely determined by Turkey Day (three weeks from Turkey Day to winter break, three weeks of winter break, three weeks from winter break to finals, one week of finals).
Nowadays with the Early Start calendar, winter break divides the semesters. But in order to keep the length of the first semester constant, the first day of school must depend on when winter break is -- and since winter break ultimately depends on Thanksgiving, it means that the first day of school also ultimately depends on Turkey Day.
In the 2018-19 school year, Thanksgiving was on its earliest possible date, November 22nd, and so the first day of school was on its earliest possible date, which is August 14th. This year, Thanksgiving is on its latest possible date, November 28th, and so the first day of school is on its latest possible date, which is August 20th.
So that answers the question for when winter break is for midweek Christmases. When the holiday falls on a Monday or Tuesday, this corresponds to an early Thanksgiving and so school is closed the week before Christmas. When the holiday falls on Wednesday or later, this corresponds to a late Thanksgiving and so school is closed the week after New Year's.
Also, notice that the length of the first semester in LAUSD -- from the first day of school to the last day before winter break -- is always exactly four months. Thus the first day of school in August is always the same as the last day of school in December. Last year, the first semester ended on December 14th, so the first day of school was August 14th. This year, the first semester ends on December 20th, so the first day of school is August 20th.
All of that is for the LAUSD, of course. My district though isn't LAUSD, though in both districts, winter break divides the semesters. I'm not completely sure how winter break is scheduled in my district, except I know that it has not based on Thanksgiving.
In a previous post, I surmised that the first semester ends on either the third Wednesday or the third Friday in December, whichever date happens to be later. If this is true, then my district starts before LAUSD in years when Thanksgiving falls on November 25th or later (or equivalently, when Christmas falls on Wednesday through Saturday). Notice that in such years, the first semester in both districts ends on the same day. Thus the first semester is always longer in my district (83-85 days) than in LAUSD (79-80 days). In neither case is the semester equal to a mathematical half (90 days).
By the way, speaking of my district, there's actually one more change to the calendar that I didn't notice until recently. In the past, spring break wasn't tied to Easter -- instead it would occur in late March, just after Day 135 or 136. But spring break was not considered to be between the third and fourth quarter, even though 135 is mathematically 3/4 of 180.
Well, now the district calendar shows that this year, spring break really does divide the quarters. This is more logical -- just as winter break divides the semesters, spring break divides the quarters. (For otherwise, why don't we just have spring break near Easter?) Along with the PD day between the first and second quarters, there is now some sort of student break between all four quarters.
Hawking, pages 81-290
It's time for us to continue our summer side-along graphic novel, Jim Ottaviani's Hawking. But speaking of the district calendar, here's the thing -- I want to finish reading this book and turn it back in to the library before the first day of school.
I suppose that once again, I could say that we don't have to finish our summer reading book until the fall equinox, which is September 23rd in most time zones. (OK, I don't think I really would have needed all the way until September 23rd, but August 23rd would have been a nice pace.) But as the school year starts, I wish to focus on Blaugust and Geometry, not Hawking.
But hey -- rushing through the book isn't that bad, because the whole purpose of posting all of this is to get you to want to grab a copy of Ottaviani's book and read it yourself. Thus I hope that I'm posting enough of this book to whet your appetite.
Last time we left off at Cambridge's "May Ball," which took place in June 1963. (What was I just saying again about the weirdness of school calendars?) There he meets two other scientists, George Ellis and Jayant Narlikar:
Narlikar: Hawking's here.
Ellis: Steve! Come on over and tell Jayant that foolish idea you had about Wheeler-Feynman electrodynamics. [dw: Feynman -- where have I heard that name before?]
Hawking: No, downstairs. I want to see if the jazz band is any good...Nonono, I assure you it's a good deal less foolish than your hypothesis. Frankly, your notions are daft.
Jane: -- never give it a rest, do they?
Woman: Like a bunch of football hooligans, but about physics.
Jane: Oh, look. You can see only the men's cuffs and collars.
Narlikar: The math won't support it.
Hawking: Not so surprising.
Let's jump forward a few years. The author now describes a metaphor told to Hawking in 1965. By now Stephen and Jane are married, and the physicist is studying black holes. As for Jane...
"She kept up her weekly commute between Cambridge and London for a year while finishing her baccalaureate degree in medieval literature," Hawking narrates. "I don't know that I demonstrated the appropriate interest at the time...though I did on occasion make the trip to London myself, of course."
Alan Dreyermund (Jane's undergrad advisor): ...very talented. I'm encouraging our Jane to pursue a Ph.D., in fact.
Hawking: Well, it's a bit esoteric, isn't it? I mean, studing medieval literature is about as useful as studying pebbles on a beach.
Dreyermund: Perhaps, but didn't Newton himself say "I don't know what I may appear to the world..."
Newton (flashback): ...but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary...
Let's jump forward a few years again. In 1970, Hawking is telling a "bedtime story" -- about black holes, of course -- to his wife. By now, she has given birth to two children, Robert and Lucy:
Hawking (in his mind): How does this affect the event horizon? Who cares? The current definition is relative to the reference frame. It jumps around. So, an absolute horizon, not an apparent one. A boundary in space-time. But what am I missing?
Jane: How are you, dear?
Hawking: Just fine. A little cold. Fine.
Soon after that thought-provoking night, Hawking formulates his newest theory:
"It's certainly not intuitive," Hawking narrates, "and most scientists didn't think such ideas were worth exploring. No matter, Jim Hartle and I were able to calculate all the black hole properties I saw that night."
(Written on the chalkboard is an equation: A = 8pi m(m + (m^2 - a^2)^(1/2)).)
"But that was just dotting the mathematical i's. I'd already crossed the theoretical t's. And they were beautiful. As a result, my reputation grew. The topological and geometric methods that Roger [Penrose] had introduced to cosmology were perfect for certain kinds of problems. And those problems -- the kind that could be approached visually -- were perfect for me."
(Note: I've blogged about Penrose before, in connection with topology during another side-along reading book. As I wrote above, Penrose was both a physicist and a topologist.)
"I could see that pencil and paper weren't well suited to life with motor neurone disease, after all."
Hawking (out loud to Hartle): We will reference the book I'm writing with George Ellis here, Jim.
In 1974, Hawking writes a paper -- "Black Hole Explosions?" -- that he submits to the scientific journal Nature (vol. 248, pages 30-31):
Hawking (dictating): "Yours faithfully," and so on.
Jane (typing): "Yours," ... "faithfully, S.W. Hawking." Faithfully?
Hawking: Just an expression.
"Nature accepted the paper," Hawking narrates, "published it in March, and even allowed the question mark to remain in the title."
John Wheeler: I think you'll like this, Jacob. Hawking, expressing doubt!
Jacob Bekenstein: Now people all over the world know what I proposed. (reading) "Bekenstein suggested on thermodynamic grounds that some multiple of the even horizon's area should be regarded as the entropy of a black hole." I did more than suggest it! "He did not, however, suggest that a black hole could emit particles as well as absorb them." Of course I didn't. Nobody did, including you, Stephen. Oh well..."
At a conference in Southern California (where else? -- Caltech) in 1974-1975, Hawking argued, "I would rather be right than rigorous":
Anna Zytkow: Kip [Thorne] and I had some new ideas on neutron stars, yes.
"Brandon Carter wrote a paper soon after mine," Hawking narrates, "stating this concisely. 'The weak anthropic principle says that our location in the universe is necessarily privileged to the extent of being compatible with our existence as observers.'"
Anna: Wait, so we're privileged? An inevitable result of the universe's creation? That's quite a claim.
Hawking: Any more remarkable than the more...common...claims about how the universe began? Perhaps you'll like Carter's "strong" anthropic principle better. It states that our universe must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it. We are here, so the laws of physics must be compatible with our existence. There might be other universe with different laws...but there won't -- couldn't! -- be anybody there to study them.
In 1975 Hawking returns to England. As he explains here, he is now permanently wheelchair-bound, and American-Canadian physicist Don Page has come to live with the Hawkings:
"We partitioned off the stairs -- I could no longer manage them -- and took up residence on the ground floor," Hawking narrates.
Jane: Good morning. Sleep well?
Page: Still a little jet-lagged, but yes. Fine. Thank you. I'm an early riser anyway.
Jane: That's good , then. Let me show you the routine. He'll take these pills with breakfast, along with a laxative.
Page: That's quite...
Jane: A lot, yes. Stephen has taken to being his own doctor. I spend a fair amount of time at the chemist's. So for food, it's boiled eggs, pork chops, rice, and tea. No toast for him, since that has gluten. And I see you have the Times. Set it up on that stand.
Page: He didn't seem to take much notice of the news in California, so why...?
Jane: Right. You haven't been to High Table yet. He keeps up here so he'll have something to talk about with the other fellows at lunch.
"We settled into a new routine fairly quickly."
In 1975-1980, Hawking proposed "the principle of ignorance":
"I'd introduced that one at the Texas Symposium, held in Boston," Hawking narrates. "In ordinary quantum mechanics one can make a prediction of a particle's position or velocity, but not both. The unpredictability of radiation from black holes is above and beyond that. In the case of particles emitted by a black hole, one cannot make any definite predictions at all."
Hawking: Call it the "principle of ignorance."
Bernard Carr: Call it the "principle of ignorance."
"This inability to know either a particle's position or velocity allowed me to expand on Einstein's famous quote about God."
Hawking: God not only plays dice, he sometimes throws them where they can't be seen.
It is now 1981-1982, and Hawking is now attending a conference in Moscow. By this point, the physicist has a full-time position at Cambridge, and his third child, Timothy, has been born. (So he must have been born around 1979-1980, making him close to my age.) He is discussing the theories of Soviet physicist Andrei Linde -- but only to find fatal flaws in them:
Linde (thinking): Wait. Did he just...? My work? The best physicists in Russia are here, and my future depends on them. (in Russian) What could be better?! Excuse me. Umm...Linde has suggested an interesting solution.
Hawking: Unfortunately, Linde's work has many fatal flaws.
Translator: Unfortunately, Linde's work has many fatal flaws.
Linde (in Russian): My work, um. It has -- he says it has fatal flaws.
"I spent a half hour or so explaining the problems with Linde's scenario," Hawking narrates.
Linde: First, it does not work because...
"I suppose that might have been uncomfortable for him."
Linde: Second, Linde's "new inflation" cannot account for...And finally, we see that there is no way Linde's theory can...
We now advance to September 1985. Hawking has written his book A Brief History of Time, but a dramatic turn of events occurs. He catches pneumonia and can no longer speak:
"After I was able to breathe again on my own," Hawking narrates (to the reader of this graphic novel, that is, since he can't say anything right now), "I was taken by air ambulance back to Cambridge. But even in the intensive care unit in Addenbrooke's Hospital, I had choking fits. A tracheotomy was indeed the only option."
Doctor: Count backward from ten, please.
Jane: 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...
"I had vivid dreams afterward. The prognosis was somewhat hopeful, but the reality."
Jane (as he points to a card to communicate): B? O. O. K. "Book." Which book?
"It was tedious."
And this, of course, is when Hawking gets his famous speech synthesizer:
"People spread a rumor that I also have a menu of insulting remarks," Hawking narrates. "After a short while I was up to 15 words a minute -- still a bit slow...but I think slowly, so it suited me well. My nurse Elaine's husband kitted out my wheelchair with a small computer and synthesizer. It doesn't sound like a Dalek. Which is good. The bad news is it gives my an American accent."
Hawking: HELLO.
I will follow Ottaviani's convention and quote speech from the synthesizer in all-caps. Here the author also explains, "The voice is called Perfect Paul, which the company describes as 'clear and logical'...Other possibilities were Huge Harry (loud), Doctor Dennis (quiet warmth), and Eeprom Ernie (??)."
Soon afterward, his book is published, and his fame skyrockets. He now receives many letters from around the world.
"Our privacy was compromised somewhat by all of this, of course."
Jane (reading): "'Fair Lucy, will you marry me? But read my thesis to your father first!'"
"Other letters contained much more serious offers. About six months after the book came out, a fellow named Gordon Freedman wrote me."
Jane: He's a film producer. I thought you already said no to that.
Hawking: I DO NOT WANT TO DO A FILM ABOUT MY LIFE. BUT IF IT IS ABOUT THE SCIENCE OF MY BOOK, I MAY CONSIDER IT.
Jane: What about the proposal to do another book? An autobiography? We could collaborate on it, perhaps.
Soon, a Hawking movie really is produced. Meanwhile, in 1995-1996, the Hawkings divorce, and Stephen ultimately marries his nurse Elaine -- who hands him a check someone has sent him.
Elaine: What? No, the other book.
Hawking: WHAT OTHER BOOK?
"It was a movie tie-in," Hawking narrates, "an idea I had heard about but thought had been dropped."
Hawking: TELL HIM I OBJECT VERY MUCH TO HIS SENDING ME MONEY FOR A BOOK THAT IS TO GO OUT UNDER MY NAME BUT THAT I HAVE NOT SEEN. IT WAS QUITE WRONG TO GO THIS FAR WITHOUT CONSULTING ME. I DON'T LIKE THE IDEA OF PUTTING MY NAME ON SOMETHING I HAVE NOT WRITTEN. LEGS.
"But in the end, I reconciled with the Reader's Companion..."
Hawking: IT IS THE BOOK OF THE FILM, OF THE BOOK. I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY ITERATIONS OF THIS THEY ARE PLANNING, BUT I'M AFRAID THE NEXT THING WILL BE A FILM OF THE BOOK OF THE FILM OF THE BOOK.
"It was a busy time. I began speaking in front of many more student groups. Even though the questions I get are similar, I try to just save old answers and give the same one every time."
Student: Has your disability helped you do your work?
In 1992, Hawking lectures on the "Chronology Protection Conjecture," which explains why time travel is impossible:
Hawking: CAN YOU HEAR ME? THERE HAVE BEEN A NUMBER OF SUGGESTIONS THAT WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO WARP SPACE-TIME IN SUCH A WAY AS TO ALLOW RAPID INTERGALACTIC TRAVEL, OR TO TRAVEL BACK IN TIME. ONE MIGHT THINK THAT SUCH TRAVEL COULD BE POSSIBLE USING THE WORMHOLES THAT APPEAR IN THE EUCLIDEAN APPROACH TO QUANTUM GRAVITY. HOWEVER, ONE WOULD HAVE TO BE ABLE TO MOVE IN THE IMAGINARY DIMENSION OF TIME TO USE THESE WORMHOLES...NO GOOD FOR SPACE OR TIME TRAVEL. SO INSTEAD, CONSIDER REAL-TIME, LORENTZIAN METRICS. THE GLOBAL STRUCTURE OF SPACE-TIME MAY ALLOW ONE TO TAKE A SHORTCUT FROM ONE REGION TO ANOTHER, OR MAY LET ONE TRAVEL INTO THE PAST.
But, as the physicist explains, the "Chronology Protection Agency" will always prevent history from being changed -- after all, we haven't been invaded by hordes of tourists from the future.
In 1994, Hawking debates on "The Nature of Space and Time":
Hawking: CAN YOU HEAR ME? ROGER [Penrose] AND I DIFFER IN OUR APPROACH TO QUANTUM GRAVITY AND, INDEED, TO QUANTUM THEORY ITSELF. I AM REGARDED AS A DANGEROUS RADICAL BY PARTICLE PHYSICISTS, BUT...I AM DEFINITELY CONSERVATIVE COMPARED TO ROGER. I TAKE THE POSITIVIST VIEW THAT A PHYSICAL THEORY IS JUST A MATHEMATICAL MODEL AND THAT IT IS MEANINGLESS TO ASK WHETHER THAT THEORY CORRESPONDS TO REALITY. ALL THAT ONE CAN ASK IS THAT ITS PREDICTIONS ARE IN AGREEMENT WITH OBSERVATION. I THINK ROGER IS INSTEAD A PLATONIST AT HEART AND THAT HE THINKS THE MATHEMATICS AND THE THEORIES HAVE AN INDEPENDENT REALITY.
"The discussion was mostly technical," Hawking narrates, "especially in Roger's portion. My arguments were somewhat less so, but still controversial. After discussing classical singularity theory, I went on to the problem of quantum black holes."
Hawking: MANY PEOPLE WORKING ON QUANTUM GRAVITY WOULD REJECT THE IDEA THAT INFORMATION ABOUT THE SYSTEM COULD BE LOST. HOWEVER, THEY HAVE HAD LITTLE SUCCESS IN SHOWING HOW INFORMATION CAN GET OUT OF A BLACK HOLE. THIS IS A SPACE-TIME PICTURE OF A STAR COLLAPSING TO FORM A BLACK HOLE."
(The 2D picture is a bit too complex for me to describe here on the blog, but Hawking here jokes about Cambridge being too cheap to provide him with 3D -- or 4D -- screens. I think I'll leave out the rest of the debate.)
Let's now jump up to 2002 -- the year that Hawking turned 60:
"I almost didn't get to deliver any lectures that year," Hawking narrates. "including at my 60th birthday celebration a few months earlier."
Reporter: What happened?!
Hawking: I BROKE MY HIP JUST AFTER CHRISTMAS.
Another Reporter: ...Hello, Elaine. Are you doing okay, Stephen?
Hawking: ROSENBROOKE'S HOSPITAL DID A VERY GOOD JOB OF PUTTING ME BACK TOGETHER AGAIN.
"I began my 'Sixty Years in a Nutshell' talk in a way intended to head off unwanted speculation."
Hawking: CAN YOU HEAR ME? AS YOU CAN SEE, IT WAS ALMOST 59.97 YEARS IN A NUTSHELL. I HAD AN ARGUMENT WITH A WALL A FEW DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS...AND THE WALL WON. HA HA.
Audience: Ha ha.
"Many of the talks that day were technical, but mine was a survey of my discoveries over the years. I ended it with my vision of the origin of the universe."
Hawking: QUANTUM FLUCTUATIONS LED TO THE SPONTANEOUS CREATION OF TINY UNIVERSES OUT OF NOTHING. MOST OF THEM COLLAPSE BACK TO NOTHING, BUT A FEW THAT REACH A CRITICAL SIZE WILL EXPAND IN AN INFLATIONARY MANNER. THEY WILL FORM GALAXIES AND STARS, AND MAYBE BEINGS LIKE US.
At this point, there is a picture of Hawking's appearance on The Simpsons.
"And I was also able to continue doing more lectures and appearances..."
Audience Member: How do you make a legal signature if you can't write?
Another Audience Member: How do you feel about the Americans with Disabilities Act?
Yet Another Audience Member: Will you write an autobiography?
Hawking: I WOULD RATHER NOT GO INTO DETAILS OF MY PRIVATE LIFE.
Still Yet Another Audience Member: What are Klingons really like?
Hawking: WELL, I HAVE ONLY MET ONE, AND THAT WAS TEN YEARS AGO, AFTER MY POKER SESSION WITH DATA, EINSTEIN, AND NEWTON.
Audience: Ha ha.
Hawking: A RED ALERT BROKE UP THE GAME BEFORE I COULD COLLECT MY WINNINGS.
"Even though I was unwilling to write an autobiography, I did write more books. And I edited a few, and then I co-wrote one. It had more pictures, and they were in color. The type was also larger and the line spacing a little farther apart than in the original."
By the way, the book Hawking co-wrote with Leonard Mlodinow was A Briefer History of Time.
In 2005, Hawking lectured about information loss in black holes:
Hawking: I AM SORRY TO DISAPPOINT BOTH KIP [Thorne] AND SCIENCE FICTION FANS, BUT BECAUSE INFORMATION IS PRESERVED, THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY OF USING BLACK HOLES TO TRAVEL TO OTHER UNIVERSES. IF YOU JUMP INTO A BLACK HOLE, YOUR MASS ENERGY WOULD BE RETURNED TO OUR UNIVERSE...IN A MANGLED FORM THAT CONTAINS THE INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT YOU WERE LIKE...BUT IN AN UNRECOGNIZABLE STATE. SO EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT RETURNED IN A USEFUL WAY, INFORMATION IS NOT LOST. LEGS.
"I conceded by bet to [John] Preskill," Hawking narrates about a famous bet made among the three physicists regarding black holes, "and presented him with a baseball encyclopedia. I had offered one on cricket, but John is all-American. So I had Total Baseball flown in."
Preskill: Well, I'm glad of course, even though it will be hard to get home. Maybe I should have asked for a CD-ROM instead of print. But print is the right choice -- it's heavy, like a black hole. And it takes much longer to get the information out -- that's like a black hole too.
In 2005-2005, Hawking has more trouble with his hand, so he can't use his speech synthesizer any more, until an infrared switch is added to it:
"But it worked," Hawking narrates, "and I was back to leading a normal like. I returned to Israel the next year. I didn't get back to the Dead Sea, but I was able to make giving a lecture in Palestine a condition of my visit. My first trip to that part of the world had been just before A Brief History of Time came out. Now I could not travel anonymously."
Hawking: IT IS NOT ENOUGH FOR ME TO WEAR DARK GLASSES AND A BEARD. THE WHEELCHAIR GIVES ME AWAY.
"It is recognized everywhere I go. Now that I was speaking via an infrared switch, they were added to things like the doors of my home so I could operate those on my own. Just as well, as Elaine and I were divorced that year."
From 2006-2011, Hawking wrote a series of children's books based on his grandson George:
"For George's Secret Key to the Universe," Hawking narrates, "my role was consulting scientist, ensuring it was accurate and education. I recruited short essays from Brandon Carter, Lord Martin Rees, Kip, and a few other friends for the next books. I also wrote one myself in the voice of 'Eric,' the main scientist character. In the third book -- George and the Big Bang -- a mysterious group wants to destroy the Large Hadron Collider to stop the secrets of the early universe becoming known."
Lucy: ...Yes, they propose quite a bit more than just color for the cover.
"I came up with that plot myself."
Lucy: Dad must have thought, "What the hell. I'm writing the story."
Jane: Lucy! The boys! Little pitchers have big ears.
Lucy: Yes, right! Sorry...
Hawking: IT'S TRUE. I WANT TO SHARE MY EXCITEMENT AND ENTHUSIASM. THERE'S NOTHING LIKE THE EUREKA MOMENT OF DISCOVERING SOMETHING THAT NO ONE KNEW BEFORE. I WON'T COMPARE IT TO --
Jane: Yes, Stephen, we know. Again, I must remind you...Little pitchers.
Hawking explains some of the ideas behind his books:
Hawking: THAT'S WHY, AFTER I KNEW I HAD MOTOR NEURONE DISEASE, I CHOSE COSMOLOGY. ALSO BECAUSE THE FIELD WAS UNDERDEVELOPED AT THE TIME, WITH LITTLE COMPETITION. SO MY DISEASE WOULD NOT BE A SERIOUS IMPEDIMENT.
Helene Mialet: Wait. I'm sorry, but previously...here you've said that you chose cosmology before knowing about the disease. Which is correct.
Hawking: THERE WERE LOTS OF EXCITING DISCOVERIES TO BE MADE, AND NOT MANY PEOPLE TO MAKE THEM. NOW THERE IS MUCH MORE COMPETITION. LEGS.
Helene: I'm sorry, but which is correct?
Hawking: BY NOW, MOST PEOPLE ACCEPT THAT THE LAWS OF SCIENCE SHOULD HOLD EVERYWHERE, EXCEPT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE. BUT UNLESS ONE ALSO KNOWS WHAT LAWS HELD THEN, ONE DOESN'T KNOW WHICH UNIVERSE EMERGED FROM THE BIG BANG.
A few pages, there is a scene where Hawking points out an error where someone is writing on the chalkboard the value of tau -- not pi, but tau = 2pi. It's only fitting -- after all, recall that it was back on Tau Day when I first spotted this Hawking book at a local comic book store! Oh, and we can't forget about Hawking's famous time travel party, scheduled for Tau Day 2009 -- exactly ten years before I first saw the Hawking book. I don't have a time machine, so I can't attend the party.
And so let's go to the final scene of the book, when his daughter Lucy asks the physicist whether he remembers the equations he dreams about:
Hawking: NO. I DON'T. BUT IN MY DREAMS I REMEMBER...what this is like.
Hawking died on Pi Day 2018, exactly 139 years after Einstein was born. And thus concludes our side-along reading for the summer.
More Issues with STEM
Since this is my last post of the summer, I wish to delve into the sort of controversial topic that I try to avoid during the school year.
One issue that I've always been concerned with is the gender gap in STEM. Perhaps part of the reason for my concern is my fear that I, as a teacher, didn't help the girls in my classes learn enough. Many of the arguments I had back at the old charter school were with girls -- especially in the older (seventh and eighth) grades. I once read that for many girls, they were turned off from STEM because of a single male math teacher during the middle school years.
And so I must ask myself, did I, even subconsciously, favor boys in my classes -- leading to more arguments with girls? And did any such arguments lead to their being less willing to learn from me?
Recently I found an Atlantic article dealing with the issue of women and STEM. Even though it was written last year, somehow I didn't notice it until this year:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/
Though their numbers are growing, only 27 percent of all students taking the AP Computer Science exam in the United States are female. The gender gap only grows worse from there: Just 18 percent of American computer-science college degrees go to women. This is in the United States, where many college men proudly describe themselves as “male feminists” and girls are taught they can be anything they want to be.
Meanwhile, in Algeria, 41 percent of college graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math—or “stem,” as it’s known—are female. There, employment discrimination against women is rife and women are often pressured to make amends with their abusive husbands.
According to a report I covered a few years ago, Jordan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates were the only three countries in which boys are significantly less likely to feel comfortable working on math problems than girls are. In all of the other nations surveyed, girls were more likely to say they feel “helpless while performing a math problem.”
Of course, the real reason for concern about STEM is the wage gap. STEM jobs tend to pay more than non-STEM jobs, and thus the gender gap in STEM also means that women end up making less money than men. Thus by closing the STEM gap, it's hoped that the wage gap will close as well.Here's another thought experiment concerning the wage gap. Imagine that there was a magic red button which has the following property -- if the red button is pushed, the purchasing power of every woman will immediately double. Notice that I wrote "purchasing power" rather than "wages/salary" in order to avoid the argument "Yeah, but prices double too, so women aren't any better off." It's built into the magic of the red button that whatever a woman can buy now, she can buy twice as much after the red button is pressed.
If the red button is pushed, then not only have we erased the wage gap, but we've overcompensated -- or have we? Notice that so far, I haven't said what would happen to men's purchasing power.
You see, if the red button is pushed, the purchasing power of every man will immediately triple. It's built into the magic of the red button that whatever a man can buy now, he can buy thrice as much after the red button is pressed.
(By the way, to deal with the non-binary case, assume that the red button will cause the purchasing power of every non-binary individual to multiply by some factor between two and three. Thus everyone will be able to purchase 100-200% more than before the button is pressed.) Oh, and assume that the button can only be pressed once, not infinitely many times.
And so I now ask, should we press the red button? Not only does the red button fail to close the wage gap, it suddenly increases the gap, since men's purchases triple while women's merely double. It might appear that it would be sexist to push the button. But one could counterclaim that women are twice as well off with the button than without it. Thus, this thinking goes, failing to press the button would actually be sexist.
Of course, in the end it doesn't matter, because there really is no red button. But now let's return to Olga Khazan's article:
According to a new paper published in Psychological Science by the psychologists Gijsbert Stoet, at Leeds Beckett University, and David Geary, at the University of Missouri, it could have to do with the fact that women in countries with higher gender inequality are simply seeking the clearest possible path to financial freedom. And often, that path leads through stem professions.
In other words, not only is the magic red button real, but it's already been pressed in Western countries, while it hasn't been pressed in Middle Eastern countries! In Western nations (especially Scandinavia), the button has been pressed, so that both men and women have greater purchasing power than in the Middle East, yet the STEM gap (and thus the wage gap) is large. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the button hasn't been pressed, and the STEM/wage gap is smaller. In fact, the article argues that it's because of the lower purchasing power in the Middle East that women there seek out higher paying STEM jobs.
Later in the article, it's pointed out that overall, girls do better than boys in school (which I call the Bart/Lisa syndrome -- that's why Lisa, not Bart, joins Mensa in the Stephen Hawking episode), but males have a comparative advantage in math and science while females have a comparative advantage in reading. It's stated that non-STEM jobs naturally make women feel happier on the job while STEM jobs make men feel more satisfied. (Just look at the Hawkings -- Jane enjoyed studying medieval lit, but Stephen, the physicist, thought it was a waste of time.) Khazan strongly implies that the origins of these differences are biological in origin.
On the surface, there's no problem with the members of each gender choosing jobs that make them feel happier. The only reason that there's any problem at all is the pay gap between these careers.
What this means is that, in both Scandinavia and the Middle East, women are forced to choose between the jobs they naturally enjoy and the jobs that pay more. The article tells us that in Scandinavia they choose happiness, while in the Middle East they go for the money. But in both regions, men aren't forced to make a choice. The jobs they naturally enjoy just happen to be the jobs that pay more.
I wish I had a solution that leads to equality here, one where women aren't forced to make a choice that men don't have to make. But unfortunately, I admit that I don't know any simple solution. All I can do is be the best teacher I can for all of my students -- girls and boys alike.
Conclusion
During Blaugust, I like to end with a link to a real Blaugust participant. Today's Blaugust link is Steve Dull, an Indiana high school math teacher:
https://tweakingfornoreason.wordpress.com/2019/08/11/whos-teaching-who/
There are teachers out there who have been working hard the last few weeks to develop a theme for their classroom this year, whether it be overt in the decorations and bulletin boards, or more subtle, a “guiding principle” for their teaching and learning.
One year early in my career, as I prepared to teach kids who were repeating Algebra I, I settled on Buzz Lightyear triumphantly pointing a finger at Woody and boasting “Can!” after he (sort of) flew around Andy’s room as my guiding principle. I wanted my students to know I believed in them whether or not anybody outside of our district did.
Hmm, it's never occurred to me to give my students any sort of "theme" or "guiding principle" similar to Buzz from Toy Story 4. But anyway, this idea backfired:
It seemed a perfect motivation for kids who struggled in math, maybe had their doubts about whether they even wanted to be “good at school”. I related my plan to my next-door teaching neighbor, a gamer/sci-fi/animation geek who went about 6-6. He looked at me and said, “You know Buzz was delusional, right? He really couldn’t fly?”
And so he comes up with another way to motivate his students to learn. He describes his classes:As I write I sit on the cusp of a new school year. In less than 24 hours I’ll meet a senior homeroom (graduation is May 31st you guys!), then 155 brand-new math students. Well, not all brand-new. I have a handful of holdovers from my freshman classes a year ago. Plus my son (and some of his knucklehead football buds) will be in my 7th hour Math 10 class. Ora pro me.
He explains that Friday was freshman orientation day, where he meets each of his freshman classes for five minutes:
So that took like 30 seconds, now what? Despite being a teacher I’m kind of an introvert by nature and small talk is not my strong suit. But I have a trump card: ask questions about the other person. Let them carry the conversation. Then listen. It’s a philosophy that’s helped me avoid a lot of awkward silences thru the years.
“Where did you go to school last year?”
Now we’re getting somewhere.
Well, I admit that small talk isn't really my strong suit either. But this question works, as his freshmen are eager to tell him about themselves. This explains the title of Dull's post -- and reminds me of that Louis Sachar line I quoted earlier this year: "A teacher can often learn a lot more from a student than a student can learn from a teacher."My old charter school didn't have anything like freshman orientation as it was a K-8 school. But again, there was that "Advisory" written on the Wednesday schedule, along with that extra time on Mondays, with all three grades, before the coding teacher arrives. Earlier in this post, I mentioned that there was something more worthwhile I could have done during that time than just having them work on the Monday and Wednesday workbook questions.
Dull tells us that he asks students questions about his students. An obvious question I could have asked my students on Mondays was "How was your weekend?" It's possible that I could have had the students -- both girls and boys, of course -- talking about themselves all the way until the arrival of the coding teacher.
Advisory Wednesdays would be trickier, as there's no obvious question to ask. But once again, it's possible that I might have come up with something to talk about -- and that discussion, along with some trivial worksheet (like a puzzle or something), could have carried the full 30-minute Advisory.
As Dull explains, it's all about giving the students a sense of belonging. And perhaps if my students had felt that they belonged in my classroom, they would have behaved better -- and maybe I would have been able to complete the school year.
I’m gonna miss summer. I’m gonna miss reading in the sun with a cold drink and a bowl of fruit at my side. I’m gonna miss sleeping in, and afternoon naps. I’m gonna miss sitting around the fire with friends. I’m gonna miss sunsets on the beach, and concerts in the park, and a million other things.
The district whose calendar the blog observes also has a freshman orientation day on Tuesday. It's very similar to Dull's (except that the students have eight minutes rather than five). I've never posted before on Freshman Tuesday, since if I were a real teacher in that district, Geometry would be the very last thing I'd want to do that day. Thanks to Dull's post, I now know what I should do on Freshman Tuesday if I'm ever hired as a full-time teacher in this district.
So instead, my next post -- the first Geometry post -- will be on August 14th. Like last year, we will start out with Michael Serra's Discovering Geometry for Chapter 0, then return to the U of Chicago Geometry text.
Enjoy what's left of your summer!
No comments:
Post a Comment