Why Nerds are Unpopular...

...is Paul Graham's take on the relationship between high school culture and being smart. He's got a lot of insightful things to say about why high school culture in the United State (and, by extension, Canada, I think) is the way it is, specifically, why it is all too often cruel and pointless if you're not at the top of the popularity hierarchy.

Consider:

"So far I've been finessing the relationship between smart and nerd, using them as if they were interchangeable. In fact it's only the context that makes them so. A nerd is someone who isn't socially adept enough. But "enough" depends on where you are. In a typical American school, standards for coolness are so high (or at least, so specific) that you don't have to be especially awkward to look awkward by comparison.

Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires. Unless they also happen to be good-looking, natural athletes, or siblings of popular kids, they'll tend to become nerds. And that's why smart people's lives are worst between, say, the ages of eleven and seventeen. Life at that age revolves far more around popularity than before or after."

and

"Merely understanding the situation they're in should make it less painful. Nerds aren't losers. They're just playing a different game, and a game much closer to the one played in the real world. Adults know this. It's hard to find successful adults now who don't claim to have been nerds in high school.

It's important for nerds to realize, too, that school is not life. School is a strange, artificial thing, half sterile and half feral. It's all-encompassing, like life, but it isn't the real thing. It's only temporary, and if you look, you can see beyond it even while you're still in it."

Survival Skills for Occasional Teachers

From your friendly neighbourhood (Ontario) teacher's federation comes Survival Skills for Occasional Teachers. I cant' speak to its quality. I haven't read it myself yet but I plan to in the next couple of weeks.

Link.

Mathematics Technology Reource

In the course of researching for an assignment in my Mathematics ABQ, I came across the following resource from the University of Illinois' Math Teacher Link site. It's an elearning resource targeting teachers interested in using technology to teach Mathematics.

There's some particularly good stuff on using and teaching Geometer's Sketchpad. They also have modules on Mathematica and Fathom.

Why is Math harder than English?

Why do most people who are not math-heads find it so hard compared to, say, English? I think that one reason is that when students are learning English or History they are, for the most part, being asked to employ skills that they have already mastered (language) and use in everyday life. When it comes to Mathematics, however, students are being asked to employ an essentially artificial skill set that they don't make regular use of in everyday life.

There's indirect evidence that this is indeed true in that one of the ways to lead students towards mastery of math skills is to encourage them to use math skills in everyday life and, for that matter, to model that use yourself.

Things I Do Wrong All the Time

Good tip from a fellow student in the Teaching and Learning in the Senior Division course we all have to do for an ABQ (Sr. Mathematics in my case).

Most students have something (or things) that they consistently get wrong (or forget to get right). Do this. Get them to note that thing in the back of their notebook or textbook. ("I always confuse there and their.") Then tell them to forget about it when initially doing the work. Afterwards, they check the back of their text or notebook and go through their work and correct it.

The Tao of Teaching (literally!)

Two thought-provoking quotes from Ursula K. LeGuin's translation of the Tao Te Ching (verse 27).

"Good people teach people who aren't good, yet. The less good are the makings of the the great."

and

"Anyone who doesn't respect a teacher or cherish a student may be clever but has gone astray. There's a deep mystery here."

Hunting the elusive snark, er... job.

This relevance of this post is restricted by geography. Some parts only to Ottawa and the Ottawa Carleton District School Board (OCDSB). Other parts apply to Ontario, more generally.

At one point during the school year just past, there was some discussion about the bureaucratic hoops we needed to jump through to get our certification from the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) and to get hired locally in Ottawa. Here are a couple of things I learned yesterday that I didn't know before and that had tripped me up.

1. The OCT needs a number of documents from you in order to complete your application and issue your license to teach in Ontario. One is a recommendation from your Faculty and another, not surprisingly, is a transcript of your marks. The Faculty of Education at Ottawa U. will automatically forward a recommendation to the OCT for you. However, your transcript comes from the Registrar's Office and, as a result, you must initiate the forwarding of your transcript to the OCT. I got caught on this and, as a result, there's now a delay in processing my application to the College.
2. You can request a transcript online and the neat thing about doing so is you can make the request prior to convocation/graduation and it will be processed when your transcript is available.
   
3. If you want to be a substitute teacher in the OCDSB or apply for an Extended Occasional Term (EOT) contract (which is what gets posted to replace someone on maternity leave, for instance) then you have to get on the Occasional Teachers List. To get on the Occasional Teachers List, a principal needs to recommend you electronically on applytoteach. I had thought that you needed to have your OCT application complete and finished and processed before the principal could do this but I was wrong. I called Human Resources at the OCDSB and they said that that was up to the principal's discretion. Obviously, you have to have enough of your portfolio completed on applytoeach for the principal to be able to review it.