Boy and Girl Scouts

Last year the writing was on the wall that the school I teach in was not the right match for my own children. Unfortunately the way it was handled left a lot of hard feelings I am still working through. However that is not what this post is about. My children ended up going to a local public school, and they both expressed interest in joining scout groups. In my daughter’s case it was because a parent of one of my daughter’s classmates, who also left my school last year, wanted to start a troop in part so that some of the girls who had become friends during the 5 years they were at the school could remain connected to each other. In my son’s case, he is having difficulty making friends at his new school, or so he feels, and one of the kids he has connected with is joining the cub scout troop at the school.

In both cases, given the social ramifications that our children were dealing with after pulling them from a school they fully expected to spend 13 years in, we had to seriously consider it. My wife and I were both very reluctant because of the stories a few years ago regarding scouting (boy scouts primarily) and the high profile situations with regard to religion and homosexuality. Being a family with a buddhist father and a pagan mother, our children have an odd background in religion to begin with, and we did not want them to have to deal with problems related to this. Secondly, my daughter’s birthmother (we adopted her from my wife’s sister) is a lesbian, which we have absolutely no problem with, and we certainly do not want negative or derogatory comments made about homosexuals in front of our children.

So when the situation arose that they both wanted to join troops, my wife and I had to have a long talk about whether or not we were comfortable with that. The cub scout promise,

I, (name), promise to do my best

To do my duty to God and my country,

To help other people, and

To obey the Law of the Pack.

is okay except for the part about God. I was mollified as I read further that they at least allow for any higher power and not necessarily a christian god. In fact, it was interesting to read that there were even buddhist sponsored troops. Of course, the buddha-nature that my teacher talks about is not really what I think of when people mention a “higher-power” but I can reconcile it as thinking of it as something bigger than ourself. Of course I thought that their reasoning here was interesting:

Q.  Why is duty to God important to Scouting?

A.  Since its founding in the United States in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America has had an ongoing commitment to encouraging moral, ethical and spiritual growth. The Boy Scouts of America believes that the principles set forth in the Scout Oath and Law are central to Boy Scouts’ goals.

Sounds like they are of the mind that one cannot be moral or ethical without belief in a higher power. I definitely do not agree with this. Fortunately the person actually running the troop at my son’s school made it very clear that any religious aspects of the program were meant for home, family, or church and would not be addressed at any meetings.

The girl scouts promise is very similar:

On my honor, I will try:

To serve God* and my country,

To help people at all times,

And to live by the Girl Scout Law.

In fact, notice the asterick after “God.” This is what they say about using the word:

* The word “God” can be interpreted in a number of ways, depending on one’s spiritual beliefs. When reciting the Girl Scout Promise, it is okay to replace the word “God” with whatever word your spiritual beliefs dictate.

Overall, this made us feel much better about letting our children participate. Of course there is still the issue of homosexuality. First of all, I want it to be clear that I am not advocating that any organization for children promotes homosexuality… or heterosexuality for that matter. But at the same time, I do not want negative statements made about homosexuals. We do not feel that they are evil or immoral, and we absolutely reject anything that would voice this. Which puts us in a bit of a bind with the cub scouts.

While the girl scouts have apparently taken a neutral stance on homosexuality – neither promoting it nor decrying it – they have stated clearly that all girls are eligible for membership and no discrimination is allowed. However the boy scouts are not so enlightened. In fact, I anticipate that if my son continues in the scouts, at some point we will run into a problem. In my mind a group that specifically excludes others based on, honestly, close-minded religious principles is not appropriate for our family. In fact, they say here:

Q.  Is Boy Scouts implying that homosexuals do not have good moral or emotional character? What about other types of sexual immorality?

A.  Boy Scouts regards homosexual conduct as not morally straight as required in the Scout Oath. Morally straight is a broad term which includes all types of moral behavior.  There are many persons who may be unsuitable role models of the Oath and Law for adolescent boys.

Morally straight? In my mind and philosophy any person or group who discriminates against homosexuals is not morally straight. And yes, it is discrimination. They actually say in response to a question about whether their policy is discriminatory that to say so is just name-calling. They hide behind the idea that these are traditional values and, as such, should not be called discriminatory. I hate to break it to them, but when your rules say that certain individuals are unfit to be leaders or members of your group, then you are being discriminatory. That is what the word means. You can call it whatever you like, but that does not change the reality.

So, in the end, my wife and are allowing our children to join, our son somewhat more reluctantly than our daughter, if for no other reason than to give them some additional social outlets since they are dealing with leaving my school. My son, to this point, has not always wanted to continue in things so I can only hope that once, if ever, the discriminatory nature of the boy scouts becomes an issue he will be long gone. If not, well, we’ll see.

No Homework

At a meeting of department chairs at my school our position on homework came up. I have previously written about what I do with homework, but I found my natural resistance occurring this morning. It is expected that in every class the default position is no homework. That homework should only be assigned if it is effective, essential, and efficient, and that ultimately we should err on the side of not giving homework rather than doing so.

My first inclination, as a math teacher, is that the only way to learn math is that it needs to be practiced – in some form or another – everyday. Now I have already modified my assignments, at least in my Geometry class, so that rarely do students have required problems, although I do recommend and suggest problems to do. However, I do have them turn in a homework assignment outlining what they learned, what questions they still have, and what problem was difficult for them. So in essence, my default position is that there is almost always homework because I think they need to at least be thinking about what we are doing a little bit each day, although not necessarily problems.

So how do I reconcile what I do with what is asked of me. I know that there are some authors out there – Alfie Kohn comes immediately to mind – who would probably wholeheartedly agree with my administrations, position. And philosophically I somewhat agree as well, but I cannot shake the feeling that there needs to be some thinking done about classtime nearly every day.

I will continue to think on this… perhaps I will have a better answer the next time I post on homework.

Amazing math cheat sheets!

There is another blog that I look at occasionally called Math-Blog: Math is Wonderful. There has not been a lot lately, but just today they posted a list of great math “cheat sheets” which he accumulated from various places around the web. Here they are, but feel free to check out the blog as well.

1. General Math Cheat Sheet (iPaper and other formats)
2. Elementary Algebra Cheat Sheet (PDF)
3. Trigonometry Cheat Sheet (PDF)
4. Calculus Cheat Sheet (PDF)
5. Derivatives and Integrals Cheat Sheet (PDF)
6. Laplace Transforms Cheat Sheet (PDF)
7. Abstract Algebra Cheat Sheet (PDF)
8. Probability Theory Cheat Sheet (PDF)
9. Matlab Cheat Sheet (PDF)
10. Mathematica Cheat Sheet (PDF)
11. Maple Cheat Sheet (PDF)
12. Maxima Cheat Sheet (HTML web page)
13. LaTeX Cheat Sheet (several formats)

I hope you find them helpful. I have personally used the LaTeX sheet often.

Check them out.

Update: Another source for math review is Pauls Online Math Notes.

Math wars in my corner

This is actually about my own little experience, on a local level, with the confusion that comes from trying to explain the approach that I take. The mother of a student of mine called (first the school counselor and then my co-chair before finally calling me) to complain about my course. Her concerns were that her daughter learned math best by having the teacher explain each concept thoroughly (which means what exactly?) and then having the students practice the problems they learned. And why the hell wasn’t I doing that?

So I spent about a half hour with her on the phone telling her that we did do that sometimes in Geometry, but that it is really important for students to learn how to attack problems they have not seen before – and that they will not get good at it without having to do that. So I also ask the students to read on their own and try problems before we go over them. I do not do it all one way or the other. I also put a lot of emphasis on student questions – and primarily not the “How do you do number three?” variety. We have discussions about the material, we try different things – sometimes they work, sometimes they do not.

Another issue is the book that we are using. It is Geometry: A High School Course by Serge Lang & Gene Murrow. It is a great book for paring down the geometry curriculum to something that is manageable. Our school had been using a book that presented a theorem or postulate nearly every page – sometimes more than one! – and just plowed through topics. I love geometry, and I found many of the topics in that book fascinating, but the reality is that there was too much information for a typical geometry student to understand, much less master. And the truth? Most people probably forget 80% or more of the geometry they learned in high school unless they have a really good reason to know it – like they become a high school geometry teacher!

I went to a conference last winter on brain research and how it relates to learning. I do not pretend to be an expert by any means, but what I heard supports what I am trying to do. Students need to learn decision making – that part of their brain is beginning to really develop in high school – and they can only do that by making decisions. Learning concepts in any class divorced from a context the student understands nearly guarantees that the best they will be able to do is retain it long enough to regurgitate it on a test. Or that a student’s mindset can have more to do with how well they perform than their “natural ability.”

Now I do recognize that not all students learn the same way, but at what point to we sacrifice our desire to help them become independent learners who can solve novel problems so that they feel more comfortable? That is what I struggle with. At no point do I think that basic skills are unnecessary or unimportant, but without a context or ability to use them when it matters they are useless.

I do not want my students to leave my class unable to use what they learned.

In the end I think that the mother and I agreed to disagree, although I did ask her point-blank if I had addressed at least some of her concerns, and she said yes. I will be meeting with her daughter regularly to help her adjust to what is being asked of her, and give her as much of the support she needs as I can within the context of what she is being asked to do. Time will tell.

Geometry Essential Questions

While there are a lot of individual things that are very fun and exciting about Geometry to teach, I have boiled my Geometry class down to five essential questions. These are at the heart of what I want my students to know when they leave the class. We still work on a lot of traditional geometry, but ultimately it must serve the following five questions.

1. What makes a logical argument?
2. Why is the notion of equivalence important?
3. What is important about knowing objects are similar?
4. What mathematical facts are important to know?
5. When does algebra help us understand geometry, and when does geometry help us understand algebra?

I have told my students that they have free rein to ask me, whenever we are working on something, where what we are doing fits one (or more) of the five questions. If I cannot answer that, then we stop doing it.