TI-Nspire

I had grandiose plans for the TI-Nspire in my Calculus BC class this year. Unfortunately they do not seem to have panned out. As I have previously mentioned, the design of my class is such that the textbook is really a long, long problem set. The students are assigned problems each night, then post and present their results the next day. All of the topics that I have typically covered in the BC class remain, and they are spiraled through the problems, but I do not follow the typical “present, practice, homework, test” model of teaching.

The group that I am teaching this year has demonstrated both strengths and weaknesses over last years group (the first of which I followed this model, but the 5th year in which I taught the BC class). One of the things that I am trying to help the students recognize is the proper use of technology when solving problems. Particularly at the beginning of the spiral I want them willing to use any tools they have at their disposal to help them understand the problem. By the end of the spiral, they should be practicing the skills. Last year I introduced the students to Maxima, which is an open-source CAS program. Unfortunately it is cumbersome to use for the uninitiated and requires access to a computer. So this year I had our department purchase a class set of TI-Nspire CAS calculators for the students to use. The input of the math is far more intuitive (although navigating the Menus for those intimately familiar with the TI-83 and TI-84 calculators is troublesome) and they are portable.

However, more often than not the students ignore the Nspire when they should be utilizing it and returning to their 83s and 84s. I have demonstrated some of the ways in which they can use the Nspire, and I wrote an Euler program for them to use, but they still act surprised when I suggest using it. Even when they do think to pick it up, they often give up quickly because they have trouble navigating the menus and finding what they want.

To a certain extent I think this has been my fault. While I have demonstrated some things for them, and am usually on hand to help them, I am also not as fluent on the calculator as I would like and so when they ask me something I haven’t done already or in a long while I often have to spend a few minutes working it out. Also, I am planning on making some video podcasts for next year using the TI-Nspire TE software that will walk the students through some of the more routine uses of the calculator.

We’ll see how it goes.

Catholic Church is Run by Idiots

For those of you following the story of the 9 year old girl in Brazil who was raped by her stepfather and aborted the resulting twins, this latest chapter just twists my stomach. The story is here.

As a general rule I do not believe in abortion. I subscribe to the idea that life is created at the time of conception and that it is our responsibility to foster that life as much as we can. For the most part this stems from my feeling that most of the time abortion is used as a way of avoiding the natural consequences that can occur from having sex. Our society, in general, shies away from taking responsibility for our actions, and I do not like abortion on these grounds. Pregnancy is a natural consequence of having sex, and an abortion is often used as a way of getting out of that consequence. In my view, if you want to have sex, great, enjoy it, but accept the consequences. Even if you use birth control, nothing is 100% effective, so deal with it.

At the same time, I don’t believe in legislating against other people’s stupidity, so I will never support a law to outlaw abortion.

However, this little 9 year old girl did not ask for this. And it seems pretty clear that a 9 year old’s body is not up to dealing with the consequences of trying to carry twins. Does the Church give a shit about this little girl though? Oh, they haven’t excommunicated her because she is so young – but apparently they think she is old enough to have these children. Of course they excommunicated the people around her that were looking out for her well-being. What kind of message of love does that send this traumatized little girl?

The one good thing in this whole situation is that it just reinforces that the Church doesn’t give a crap about its people – only its rules.  Wait, it’s been awhile since I was a Catholic myself, but didn’t Jesus have something to say about that?

So I have this to say to the Church. Keep it up you morons, show the world that you are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Maybe the next generation will leave you even quicker and you can fade into the obscurity you so deserve.

Oh, and as for the stepfather – castration is a good start for what should be done to you.

Random Thoughts as My Calculus Class Takes a Test

It has been awhile since I last posted. Life has intervened, as it usually does. I am excited to start posting again, and I have some good ones I am working on, including my review of the Kindle 2.0 – when I get it, of course! I am supposed to have it by February 27^th. We will see!

At any rate, I am sitting in my Calculus class watching my students take a test. I designed this test as a group test. Given an 80 minute block period I let them discuss the five questions for twenty-five minutes, and then they had the remainder of the period to write up their work individually. I have not figured out a way that I am comfortable with to have them submit group work yet – maybe next year. After I grade it I plan on handing it back and having them make corrections. Much as if the initial test was a “rough draft” and the corrected one the “final draft.” The level of discourse between the students I thought much improved over the first test of the year (which was the first group test they took), and I am impressed with their growth. Even so, I am making notes for changes to my curriculum (again!) for next year.

During the last couple weeks the issue of tracking students in math has come up several times at my school. There are teachers and administrators that support an elimination of tracking, at least in the 7^th and possibly 8^th grade, and there are those that think we do not track enough. I tend to change my mind on this often, so I will probably devote an entry to the issues I see involved. It is not an easy question, and my gut reaction is that, like everything else, a one-size-fits-all approach probably does not work.

Yesterday I attended a discussion at my school about the issue of one-to-one computing, i.e., putting a laptop into every students hands. I would love this as it happens frequently that I would like my students to have access to Excel, Geometer’s Sketchpad, Geogebra, Winplot, or even Mathematica. A teacher from another school that has such a program was here, and while she was excited about what they were doing, she readily admitted that the math teachers were holdouts in that they never used the technology. Sad.

Well, the test is nearly done, so I will sign off for now. I look forward to some regular blogging soon.

Further evidence the Pope is irrelevant

Imagine my surprise when I woke up during a week devoted to the birth of their savior and I get to read the following article.

In comments at the Vatican that are likely to provoke a furious reaction from homosexual groups, Benedict also warned that blurring the distinction between male and female could lead to the “self-destruction” of the human race.

In his address to the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration, he described behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations as “a destruction of God’s work” and said that the Roman Catholic Church had a duty to “protect man from the destruction of himself”.

It is not “outmoded metaphysics” to urge respect for the “nature of the human being as man and woman,” he added.

“The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less.”

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official described homosexuality as “a deviation, an irregularity, a wound”.

The Pope said humanity needed to “listen to the language of creation” to understand the intended roles of man and woman.

He also defended the Church’s right to “speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected”.

via Pope: Saving world from homosexuality like saving rainforests – Telegraph.

I was raised Roman Catholic and for some reason I still think it important to look up what the Pope says on occasion – it was drummed into me that he (God forbid it ever be a she!) was the head of the church – God’s mouthpiece on earth, so to speak. And then I read this. Preventing love between two human beings is just as important as saving the rainforests? Oh, so I guess their God is now a god of love only for those that some short-sighted misogynistic little man thinks deserve it.

I recognize my own bias here. I try to be open to the notion that there are multiple paths to spirituality, but I know that my knee-jerk reaction to certain religions is that they are full of shit. Catholicism is high on that list, perhaps because I am the most familiar with it.

Why the anger? Let me tell you a bit about my path.

As I said I was raised Catholic. My mother is a religious education teacher, and has been for as long as I have been alive. Although I went to public school from kindergarten through grade 8 (my parents could not afford to send me to even the relatively cheap Catholic school), I was in religious education classes (CCD we called it – I have no recollection as to what the letters stand for anymore) the entire time. I had my first confession and my first communion. Confession always terrified me because I was sure that I was bad enough to go to hell. Now that I am older I realize that I was just a pretty normal kid, but the fear of God and Hell was definitely a motivator in my moral development. I wish I could say that even as a young boy I had questions about being Catholic, but I didn’t. There was nothing else in my experience – well, I did have a Jewish friend. So those were my choices – Catholic or Jewish – and I was taught that while Jews were accorded respect they had missed the boat on Jesus. In addition, I was a dutiful altarboy through all this. I didn’t know of other religions until high school.

For various social reasons I ended up going to an all-boy Catholic high school. Interestingly enough one of the first books I had to read was “Zen and the Art of Archery.” This had an effect on me many years later, but at the time it was just an interesting book that sort of resonated with me.

My new friends were all Catholic and the girls I dated were Catholic. In fact, I stayed with one girl for three years. Like a good Catholic we did not engage in pre-marital intercourse, but that did not stop us from experimenting in other ways. I digress however.

Once in high school, and surrounded by Catholicism I started to think about this religion I was raised in. I started attending CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) at a church with friends and my girlfriend. While I had been introduced to many priests growing up, it was here I met one that really seemed to embody what I thought a priest should be – Fr. Rich. He was an amazing guy. To be honest I developed a bit of hero worship I believe, and even felt that I wanted to be a priest.

Before you assume too much, this does not end with him molesting me… he truly was a good guy.

Coming up to my junior year in high school I was approaching my Confirmation – the rite of passage where I, as an adult, proclaimed my allegiance to the Catholic faith. Looking back, how can anyone truly make a choice like this when they are never exposed to anything else? What kind of faith is it if you never seriously question or doubt it? The funny thing was is that I had begun questioning anyway.

A side story to tell at sometime is about how, as religious as she was, I credit my mother with developing my mind to the point where I could question things.

I decided that I could not get confirmed. I was not sure I believed, and I did not feel right about going through with it if I doubted. To make my parents happy (something that drove a lot of what I did in high school and into college) I continued with the classes and agreed to meet with the pastor of our church. I am still not sure what exactly occurred during that meeting, but I left it convinced that I had been “visited by the Lord.” Our pastor was a kindly gentleman with an open and caring attitude. We had a great talk, including about my doubts, but as I was leaving I felt like there was a presence with me. I was so excited I shared it with my parents, my friends, my girlfriend and her mother. I felt that my doubts were cleared, and I wholeheartedly agreed to go through with my confirmation.

What happened? I still do not know. It was an experience I still carry with me, although I now see it as a recognition that spirituality is still important, not evidence of a god.

The next part of my life was a wholehearted devotion to Catholicism. Upon getting confirmed I was nominated and voted onto the parish council for my church, as well as joined a retreat team for younger people at my church, and I continued to participate in the CYO at the other church.

I went to a private, yet Catholic, university where I immediately joined their retreat team. I remained Catholic throughout college, although my faith began to be severely shaken. Another priest I had become friends with in high school got forced out of his position by yet another priest. This other priest was commonly known to have a ‘female friend,’ although I admit now that this was only rumor at the time. In addition to my priest friend losing his position, the older brother of one of my best high school friends got caught up in the situation as well and was fired. This other priest, the one responsible for getting rid of my friend and my friend’s brother, was a sleaze. This is based on the several times I met him and the feeling I got every time I did. No evidence again, but I have learned to trust my instinct.

In addition, I had numerous unsavory (again – no molestation!) encounters with priests at my university. Men who, I believed were basically good, but because of their position were drunks or power hungry.

There was no crowning moment when my faith fell away. It just sort of crumbled. My wife and I got married in a Catholic church – my parents church with the pastor who I spoke of before officiating. But it was really the last hurrah. My questions from high school came back, and started asking about why women were excluded from the priesthood – I had met many religious women, nuns and others, who would have made great priests. Why couldn’t priests be married – I thought back to the one priest in college who was actually a really great guy, but drank way too much. I couldn’t help but think he was missing something.

I was becoming exposed to other religions. For the first time I really started to learn about other branches of Christianity as well as Islam, Buddhism, Hindu, and others. And I read a series of books by a priest, Joseph Girzone, which depicted a church the way I thought it should be… but never would be.

Again, my faith in the Catholic church left, not with a bang, but a whimper. If there really was a moment when the door was shut on catholicism it was when my mother told me she felt I was going to hell for becoming Buddhist.

It really is another story, but I eventually became Buddhist, my wife is now a pagan (a witch, if you will), and we raise our children to be present in each moment, and to look at all religions equally (even if we do not always feel that way ourselves).

And I finally have decided that, after 40 years of life, I now know that the Pope is irrelevant.

Life is wierd…

As I mentioned previously, life took a little bit of a turn for me when I was hospitalized for cellulitis. My diabetes has been not in the best of control either, and now it seems that going on a insulin pump may be my best alternative. I’m not sure I want to do this. When I was first diagnosed with diabetes I managed to, in about 8 months, drop about 100 pounds (I know… way too much, way too fast…), and change my sugar levels to that of a normal, healthy non-diabetic. I was able to go off medication, and I expected to live a long healthy life of eating well and exercise (both of which I did to lose the weight – not a crazy diet).

Here I am, 7 and a half years later, back to my original weight and much less control over my diabetes. I don’t exercise enough, and I am lazy about what I eat. And I am ready to do something. The thought of diabetic complications in the hospital scared me…

I’m just not sure I am ready for a pump. I cannot decide if this was the wake-up call I needed to get back on track on my own, or if it was a sign that I should use the pump. This woman, Janine, has a nice page of the pros and cons, and I have to admit the pros sound pretty good, and the cons not so bad.

On the financial side it turns out that if I order the pump before the end of the year I don’t have to pay anything out of pocket for it. If I wait until after the 1st of the year, my insurance resets and I would have to pay $700. Something to consider at least.

I’ll let you know.