Just don't say "NO!"

Am I stressed? I don't have time to be stressed, but periodically I do get overwhelmed with all my responsibilities. Things I commit to doing generally seem like a good idea at the time, but when it comes time to actually doing them, it seems like they all come at once. I guess I'm agreeing to more things than I thought I had. I like to help others out, especially since I believe I can make meaningful contributions, but more and more people are in need of help (don't get me started), and apparently my name is getting out as the "sucker" to call on.

Lately, I've getting up at 4:30 am just to have some "me" time. But even my morning coffee and newspaper over the latest episode of "Sportscenter" is becoming increasingly less enjoyable. I lie awake much of the night wriggling in bed either because of my daughter's heel in my back, (yes she STILL sleeps in our bed at the age of 4. I won't tell you where my 7-year-old son sleeps, but his mother's back knows all too well), my spine and neck is out of alignment (don't get me started), or because I'm thinking of all the things I forgot to do the previous day, and everything I need to do in the dawning day. I'm starting to believe that restful sleep is an important ingredient for a healthy mind and body, especially long term, because I've been lately feeling the ill affects of not getting it.

Without going into the details of everything I've supposedly said "Yes!!!!!!!" to (outside of my full-time job of teaching mathematics, which can be a full-time job in and of itself, as I have already mentioned, but this year, I have two new textbooks), such as hosting a budding, future math teacher in a university intern, Math Club sponsor (where I have to keep updated lists of members, design and order t-shirts, schedule and plan meetings, make Abacuses, remind officers that I shouldn't be doing everything I just mention I do for Math Club), UIL math coach (where I have to find and copy materials for three events: Number Sense, Written Test, and Calculator applications, assemble and administer the information, sign up and arrange funding and transportation for practice meets, and remind all my "mathletes" that they actually need to learn the math "shortcuts" I found and copied for them), TV host for a weekly Emmy Award nominated math program, Creator for that weekly Emmy Award nominated math program (where I have to write a concise 30-minute lesson plan that is both informative and entertaining . . . . . . and about MATH, that's a full-time job in an of itself--YOU try to make math funny. Can you say OXYMORON?), a mentor to an at-risk freshman student, a recruited thespian in two musicals ("Once Upon A Mattress" and "Bye, Bye, Birdie--simultaneously. Do you realize that these things require memorization of lines and rehearsals?), afternoon kid picker-up from school, shuttle service for kids' dance and piano classes, mascot hauler for our school, chain crew official at high school football games, and finally daily dog walker and kittly-litter pooper-scooper for my retired, travelling neighbors (who are chronically on extended leave.)

Somewhere I fit in my daily three-mile jog, time with friends playing tennis or swimming the river, weed-eating my two-acre property (there's too much honeycomb rock to mow--don't get me started), feeding one dog, two goats, 5 cats, and three fish, playing handyman for any "fix it" problem my family or neighbors run into, doing small contract construction projects (like remodeling the interior of an RV or building a deck or a doghouse . . .), handling all requests for construction projects in my subdivision in my role as chairman of our Architectural committee, and finally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . writing this blog.

Then there's my family. Who are they?????? I've GOT to be Dad. I've got to help the kids with homework, help their mother with dinner and school lunches, help with laundry, dishes, cleaning, and all the other household chores. I make time to wrestle, read, hug, and laugh with my kids. They still need my help with baths ("did you clean behind your ears? underarms? bellybutton? behind your knees? all other nooks-and-crannies?") and getting ready for bed ("yes, you may use mother's Bon Jovi concert shirt as PJs". But the good news is . . . . . . .

When I'm done with everything listed above, I finally get to spend quality time with my beautiful wife. The bad news is . . . . . . .

It is a very quiet, uneventful time since, by then, one of us is asleep, and the other one of us has collapsed from exhaustion.

I can hardly wait for tomorrow to get here, so that I can take on something else. Chances are, I'll be there to greet it when the clock strikes midnight, reading my latest Abraham Lincoln book, "A Team of Rivals"--the unabridged version!

Vision and Goals 2007-2008

It's that time of year again: time to submit my Educational Vision and Annual Academic Goals to my administrators. As part of my professional evaluation, which ultimately leads to my being offered a job contract in subsequent years, I must maintain an Educational Portfolio. Each year I must revisit, reevaluate, and reissue the aforementioned documents. Realistically, my vision doesn't change much, but my goals typically do. Here's what I have so far for my "Vision Statement." What do you think?

Vision Statement

In addition to providing a challenging, rigorous, and stimulating opportunity to learn advanced mathematics, I want to teach students the vital skills that transcend the classroom: a strong work ethic, an intellectual curiosity, problem solving methods, disciplined habits of mind, self-confidence, a healthy informed skepticism, and the ability to write, talk, and communicate mathematics. What we hope to achieve in character, we must exhibit in our schools. If we, as teachers and parents, permit dishonesty, selfishness, apathy, and anything less than best efforts in our children, we need not be surprised when we see these things in our society and in the world. We are not just teaching our respective disciplines, we are teaching children. We must demand the most of them, lest they be content with mediocrity. We must emphasize the methods as well as the product. We must push them to the edge, but also give them the support and incentive to stay there. We must repose them with a sense of confidence and sound intuitive judgement. We need to help them learn the things that no test can measure. In the final analysis, it is not what we have done for them, but rather what we have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful.

Sound impressive, doesn't it? John Wesley Young summed it up more concisely: "It is clear that the chief end of mathematical study must be to make the students think." A major reason the beginning of each year is so difficult for me, my students, and parents is because of my efforts to get all of us looking in the same direction. Many students don't immediately adopt my vision, and sometimes parents are quick to defend old lines of sight. Eventually, though, those that stick with it have no alternative but to espouse my beliefs. What power I have!!

So what are my goals for this year? I've got the following prospective list so far.

1. To withstand the temptation to yield to the reactionary demands of students and parents to be an “easier” teacher, and continue to find the strength, motivation, and medication to “go against the grain,” and “swim against the current” of making kids think for themselves, be responsible for themselves, and take a leading role in their own successful education.

2. Win the lottery

3. Find a cure for apathy and ignorance

Pretty good goals, I have to admit. Now our administration would not consider these "measurable" goals. No, I must somehow incorporate a way to "check off" the goal once it is reached. I'm kind of surprised that a bureaucracy would not embrace vague, platitudinous, immeasurable goals. Oh well, I'd argue that I can write MANY checks if goal number 2 is achieved (and by the way--I WOULD continue to teach.) I do have SOME control over goal number 1 but how can I quantify that "student A has taken a leading role in his own successful education." Producing an actual homework paper apparently doesn't count, but is a minor victory nonetheless. As for goal number 3, well if that goal was achieved, I wouldn't need goal number 2, would I? What a rich many I'd be.

Here are some alternative "measurable" goals:

1. To implement the curriculum of two new textbooks in precalculus and calculus, making the detailed, worked-out solutions to each homework assignment available to students online at my website so that they can reference my work when they are stuck or when confused as to how to present a solution. This is a major time commitment, but I believe it will pay dividends in terms of student understanding and responsibility.
2. To encourage as many students to take and pass the AP calculus exam as possible, and to increase both the number and percentage of students passing. I would like at least an 80% passing rate. Also, of those passing, I am hoping at least half of them are 4s or 5s
3. To continue my commitment to professional and personal growth, modeling intrinsic motivation, enthusiasm, successful habits, and sense of humor, emphasizing that math does not have to be boring as long as it still taken seriously, that mistakes are a necessary part of progress, and that not all solutions are easy or immediately obvious.
4. To complete another successful television season filming "Deja vu, It's Algebra 2," creating curriculum that will help students be more successful in the classroom.
5. To implement the use of technology, allowing students more self-guided time on computer software for remediation, increased and more refined use of graphing calculator and calculator programs including computer animations to illustrate concepts. I will also continue to use and improve my use of TI-Interactive and TI-Smartview software to created complex mathematical graphs for worksheets and tests, and to use the TI-graph link driver. I also hope to keep my website updated with lesson plans, information, and copies of class handouts to provide students with a resource outside of class.
6. To increase each student’s ability to read, write, and communicate mathematics. Often students understand how to do a problem, but have difficulty explaining it to someone else. I will accomplish this goal by having students explain in class the answers to the “why” and “how” questions, and by providing them the opportunity for short answer responses on tests, quizzes, and homework.
7. To increase communication with parents on a regular basis, especially proactively, and to be more “customer friendly.”
8. To prepare and push the UIL mathletes enough so that we my place in the district competition in all three events: Number Sense, Calculator Applications, Written test.

And finally,

9. To blog daily as a way of creatively expressing myself and and a source of self-preservation (or as my wife says, "to hide from the family.")

Cultural Portrayal of Math

I have a 4-inch, 3-ring binder full of overhead transparencies that are comic strips poking fun at mathematics. It was, unfortunately, not very difficult to amass this impressive collection, which grows weekly. Most of the comics draw on the readers’ mutual understanding and experience that math is boring, difficult, or unpopular. I show them in class. My students laugh lukewarmly at the punch lines (after all, the jokes are tepid and predictable) but laugh louder at me laughing at the comics themselves. To me, the comics themselves are the jokes. I acknowledge the sentiments of the cartoons, but simultaneously laugh at the absurdity and narrow-mindedness of their presumptions. Since I teach AP students, most of my students can relate to my histrionic, hyperbolic laughing.

But what makes math the perfect fodder for unrelenting cameos in jokes and comic strips to begin with? I believe that the appearance of math in the strips is a perpetuator, if not a partial cause, of the cultural acceptance of math as an undesirable activity.

In most of the comic strips, there are two central themes: those who can do math, and those who cannot. It is interesting to note the differences in the portrayal of each of these types of individuals. The first case is by far the more rare variety (Foxtrot for one), whereby the character succeeds at doing an outrageous math problem, to the amazement and bewilderment of the other characters. They are usually odd in some matter (appearance, social ability) and are quite nerdy. This causes a collective chuckle among the readers, “Yah, I remember a guy like that in my school!”

The second theme is more prevalent, whereby the character is “undone” by mathematics. He is usually working on, again, an outrageously difficult, dry, boring, and unimportant question . . . and failing miserably. Again we all collectively chuckle out of our ability to relate to the levels of frustration and anxiety these problems can cause. The joke becomes a type of catharsis for us. These individuals, invariably, are portrayed as normal human beings, or perhaps even “cool.”

What about television? How much are they contributing to the degradation of mathematics? Can you think of any math characters on TV? Until recently, with the premier of CBS’s “Numb3rs,” the only roles that even come close to being interested in math and/or science were Alex P. Keaton (Family Ties) and Steve Urkel (Family Matters): both were nerds. Thank goodness they had good families that didn’t judge them and nurtured them. Urkel’s character was downright pathetic, especially in contrast to Eddie the athlete, whom everybody liked. Who would you rather be? Alex P. Keaton, although not as nerdy as Urkel, when compared to his beautiful, dumb sister Mallory, came across as being unique and different, but not necessarily someone we would want to aspire to be. Finally, in “Numb3rs,” we have a semi-cool math professor helping out his older brother to solve crimes for the FBI using mathematics. His character is portrayed as being passionate, good social skills, good-humored, and dresses like all the rest of us. Aside from his occasional preoccupation and self-absorbed blocking out of the world, his character finally give mathematics a viable role in reshaping our cultural beliefs about it. But are people watching this show? Is it too technical for the average person? Is it too far a deviation from what they expect someone doing math to look like and act that they believe the show is not credible? It will be interesting to see if the show is renewed for a second season!

Let’s look at mathematician roles in movies. A Beautiful Mind, Good Will Hunting, Pi, Sneakers, The Mirror has 2 Faces, just to name a few, are some of the more popular movies in which a mathematician is the main character. The interesting thing to note is HOW all these mathematicians were portrayed in their role: socially inept, nerdy, genius, insane! How inspiring this must be for those searching for their niche in life. Had John Nash not be schizophrenic, A Beautiful Mind would never have been produced. The fact that he won the Nobel Prize, in itself, would not make a very interesting story. It was alluring to producers because he had mental illness. A prevailing American myth is that there is all successful mathematicians suffer from mental illness. The movie, then, for those with little experience with actual mathematicians, became a movie, not about John Nash, but about the mind of a mathematician.

Unfortunately, successful mathematicians are geniuses, and the genius strand and the mental illness strand are closely related. Our culture, although respect the mathematicians ability, fail to fully acknowledge his genius as a positive, because is often portrayed so tightly with mental illness and social ineptness.

What are the consequences? Will young students be drawn to a field or subject where those in it are consistently portrayed as wackos or geeks? Are our young students capable of drawing their own conclusions about stereotypes? Once a mathematical door is closed, it is very difficult to open it up again. Until popular culture changes its view, I doubt that math will ever break out of its infamous, unpopular role. I believe small steps can be made from within the ranks of the math profession itself. Perhaps it is the job of the “normal” lovers of math to provide alternative representations of the extreme cases students see and read about. But are there enough of us out there with access to and the ability to influence young students? Perhaps “Numb3rs” is a start to increasing them.

Too many cooks

You've probably heard the expression, "Too many cooks spoil the soup (or broth)." If you haven't heard it, read it aloud to yourself and listen. Don't get caught up trying to decide why they are cooking soup, and exactly how an increasing number of participators in a broth-fest can reach a point of diminishing marginal returns. It's just a metaphor to describe the situation that when too many people work together on a project, the result is inferior, especially if the kitchen is small.

Another adage that lends itself nicely to what I will eventually get at is this: If it's everybody's job, it's nobody's job. You actually may have not heard that one, but it is true.

Because of my upbringing and through the course of my existence in this world, I have learned to be self-sufficient. I prefer to work independently. I want to control the outcome of any situation. Unfortunately, in the real world, there are other people (you're probably one of them, especially if you're not me.) Sometimes we need to use . . . I mean cooperate with . . . other people to accomplish a goal. Face it--somethings require other people. This might mean getting with someone to brainstorm a tricky math problem, getting a buddy to spot you on the bench press, or getting another person to press the button on the TV remote for you. We cannot be experts in every field. I don't know every loophole in criminal law, although that would be handy information. I don't want to cook my food for each meal (toast gets old quickly.) I hate ironing, so dry cleaners are valuable to me. You get the idea.

But when I have the chance, even if it requires a giant learning curve, I would prefer to do things myself, especially if it's the first time (I will not shingle a roof by myself in the Summertime ever again) and especially if the matter is of imminent eminence (like providing first-aid to my son as he lay in 350 degree cooking oil, running him to the cooling waters of the bath tub as I watched his skin melting off of his arms--I LOVE that kid.)

So recently, when I was faced with an opportunity to take the "bull by the horns," I stepped up and did so, but there was some horrible backlash. Toes were stepped on, feelings were hurt, reputations were impugned. Without getting into details, I did something that was supposed to be the job of two other cooks.

To keep the metaphor going, let's say that I'm the chef that's stirring the soup (mmmmmmmm soup.) Over my shoulder, I see the person who's supposed to be cutting up the carrots and another whose job it is to turn on the oven burner (what a sweeeet job!) Well, I notice that the person who is supposed to be cutting up the carrots is just finishing cutting up the potatoes for ANOTHER soup that was supposed to be done yesterday. The person who is supposed to preheat the burner coils is busy turning on other critical things like the lights and the air conditioner and the radio and the customers. So what do I do? Well, I run over and turn on the oven burner, grab the carrots and begin cutting them with with my left hand as I continue stirring the soup with my right hand--all without complaining. I'm a team player (as long as I can contribute independently, remember?) You would think that this is great on my part, but . . . . .

The carrot-cutter-uper and the oven burner-turner-on-er now have their feelings hurt. Even after I apologize for stepping on their toes (I WAS in a hurry, and I DO have size 14 shoes), they are noticeably hurt and embarrassed. The oven burner-turner-on-er immediately turns the oven burner OFF, then right back on. The carrot-cutter-uper yanks the knife from my hands and begins to cut with her left hand (incidentally, she IS left-handed).

Now I feel bad. But should I? In the end, the job gets done. The soup gets made. At it was made in part by those who are being paid to do their jobs. To the soup consumer, they care not that I was an integral part of the soup touching their lips. They just want their soup!

Tomorrow I think I'm going to quit and open my own soup kitchen. I just need to hire a oven burner-turner-on-er.