A 3,800-year journey from classroom to classroom

http://news.yale.edu/2016/04/11/3800-year-journey-classroom-classroom

what a fascinating piece of news, for a man who is looking for his first clay tablet to somebody who loves history and mathematics and teaching, this is amazing news.

and this weekend I am going to go see the film on Ramanujam :)

Thirty-eight hundred years ago, on the hot river plains of what is now southern Iraq, a Babylonian student did a bit of schoolwork that changed our understanding of ancient mathematics. The student scooped up a palm-sized clump of wet clay, formed a disc about the size and shape of a hamburger, and let it dry down a bit in the sun. On the surface of the moist clay the student drew a diagram that showed the people of the Old Babylonian Period (1,900–1,700 B.C.E.) fully understood the principles of the “Pythagorean Theorem”1300 years before Greek geometer Pythagoras was born, and were also capable of calculating the square root of two to six decimal places.

Today, thanks to the Internet and new digital scanning methods being employed at Yale, this ancient geometry lesson continues to be used in modern classrooms around the world.

“This geometry tablet is one of the most-reproduced cultural objects that Yale owns — it’s published in mathematics textbooks the world over,” says Professor Benjamin Foster, curator of the Babylonian Collection, which includes the tablet. It’s also a popular teaching tool in Yale classes. “At the Babylonian Collection we have a very active teaching and learning function, and we regard education as one of the core parts of our mission,” says Foster. “We have graduate and undergraduate groups in our collection classroom every week.”

The tablet, formally known as YBC 7289, “Old Babylonian Period Mathematical Text,” came to Yale in 1909 as part of a much larger collection of cuneiform tablets assembled by J. Pierpont Morgan and donated to Yale. In the ancient Mideast cuneiform writing was created by using a sharp stylus pressed into the surface of a soft clay tablet to produce wedge-like impressions representing pictographic words and numbers. Morgan’s donation of tablets and other artifacts formed the nucleus of the Yale Babylonian Collection, which now incorporates 45,000 items from the ancient Mesopotamian kingdoms.

Discoverying the tablet's mathematical significance

The importance of the geometry tablet was first recognized by science historians Otto Neugebauer and Abraham Sachs in their 1945 book “Mathematical Cuneiform Texts.”

“Ironically, mathematicians today are much more fascinated with the Babylonians’ ability to accurately calculate irrational numbers like the square root of two than they are with the geometry demonstrations,” notes associate Babylonian Collection curator Agnete Lassen.

teachers do provide a helping hand

Geography Lesson

Kannu

I saw this poem on fb. It's a beautiful poem son. Talks about great teachers and their dreams. 

Follow your dreams son. Don't have regrets :) be there where you always wanted to :) 

Love

Baba

Geography Lesson
by Brian Patten

Our teacher told us one day he would leave
And sail across a warm blue sea
To places he had only known from maps,
And all his life had longed to be.

The house he lived in was narrow and grey
But in his mind’s eye he could see
Sweet-scented jasmine clinging to the walls,
And green leaves burning on an orange tree.

He spoke of the lands he longed to visit,
Where it was never drab or cold.
I couldn’t understand why he never left,
And shook off the school’s stranglehold.

Then halfway through his final term
He took ill and never returned.
He never got to that place on the map
Where the green leaves of the orange trees burned.

The maps were redrawn on the classroom wall;
His name forgotten, he faded away.
But a lesson he never knew he taught
Is with me to this day.

I travel to where the green leaves burn,
To where the ocean’s glass-clear and blue,
To places our teacher taught me to love –
And which he never knew.

National Adjunct Walkout Day: Should We Feel Sorry for Adjuncts?

Having had taught in several universities in several countries, son, this is indeed an issue. Most professors don't like to teach. They prefer to research. The boring job of teaching is frequently pushed on to adjunct professors or doctoral or postdoctoral students. You yourself have been undergoing this phenomena.

Personally speaking I think academic staff need to do all three activities ideally, research teaching and administration. But what happens if that as usual specialisation happens. Some people do more in one area. And as economics will predict, their earnings will differ.

And yes people pile into doing a PhD without thinking through the implications. If you do a PhD from a good school and in a good area then you're good. But think about it. I'm embarking on a history PhD. If I'm lucky I'll get a job as a school teacher. Forget teaching in a university. Even on an adjunct basis. How many students want to study history eh? So sadly, this area is suffering. Finance. Mathematics. Economics computer science all top of the heap.

Anyway. We are but the choices we make son.

Love

Baba

National Adjunct Walkout Day: Should We Feel Sorry for Adjuncts?
http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2015/02/national-adjunct-walkout-day-should-we-feel-sorry-for-adjuncts/
(via Instapaper)

---

Thesis: Adjuncts are victims of their own bad choices.

Caveat: Universities are run badly. Brown was run like the Russian government, and Georgetown is run like the Catholic Church. Universities suffer from a wide range of public choice-type problems. I mean it. I’ve even given public lectures (e.g., at a SUNY school last month) elaborating on the what and why of their persistent wrongdoing and mismanagement. Everything below is written with that in mind.

Lessons learnt for teaching

Well, these were beautiful lessons to learn, and yes, I have ordered the book. Now that I am also teaching school children as part of the STEM Ambassadorship, its vital for me to make sure that every minute I have with them is lighting the fire. This was really really interesting. I started to apply this to my junior talent pool members who I run a training course every 2 weeks.

So few lessons learnt for this teacher.

• Bring everybody with you, not just the first person to raise their hands. wait till everybody else has had a think about it.
• move around the room. This is what I hate, when I am lecturing or teaching, and i have to be stuck out there in the front. Moving around is fun and allows you to engage everybody.
• Teaching can be taught, and you can learn even now when you're my advanced age…
• and yes, teaching isn't just imparting lessons, its a performance art.
• explain to the students what you are trying to do and how you are trying to help them.
• road to mastery leads through hard work, you have to push myself.

the article talks about TeachFirst, something that I am involved with heavily, its a great initiative..Also look at this letter we got, isn't that nice?

Letter from the Rt Hon Greg Clark MP The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities, Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, recently joined STEM Ambassadors to launch British Science Week at a school in Kent. The Minister participated in the activities and commended the STEM Ambassadors attending. Following the event the Minister expressed his desire to thank all STEM Ambassadors for volunteering their time. The Minister’s letter follows below. Kind regards, Kirsten Bodley, CEO STEMNET

Dear STEM Ambassador, I want to thank you for volunteering your time and energy to support the STEM Ambassadors programme and inspiring young people to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics. I was fortunate enough, on the first day of British Science Week, to see some of you in action at a school in my constituency. I met more of you on my recent visit to the Big Bang Fair in Birmingham. I was pleased to see the diverse range of sectors and professions that the STEM Ambassadors represent and highly impressed by the enthusiasm and commitment of those of you I met. During my recent visits I joined STEM Ambassadors and a group of Year 8s on several activities involving glow sticks and a 3D printer, and could see the enthusiasm these hands-on activities inspired. I know that all year round STEM Ambassadors plan and present exciting activities like these, which are an important part of the educational and inspirational process.  You’ll know how important the STEM workforce is to the country’s current and future economic growth. And to remain a world leader in research and technology we need a future generation that is passionate about, and skilled in, STEM. That is why the Government funds activities like the STEM Ambassadors Programme and British Science Week.  I am delighted that the STEM Ambassadors Programme is approaching an important milestone of almost 30,000 volunteers. I’m encouraged that 40% of these are women, inspiring both girls and boys to consider STEM careers.  I have been extremely impressed with what I’ve seen and heard during my recent visits and want to extend my thanks to all of you for your continued support for the STEM Ambassadors Programme, and your commitment to inspiring future generations. We couldn’t do it without you, thank you.

Does giving a laptop to a child help?

Well, unfortunately to the aficionados of giving laptops and ipads to kids, it doesn't seem to make a whit of difference as all the kids did was to use it to search for information on the internet. No change to the mathematics skills or on the reading levels. Go figure. When will people go back to basics, hire the best teachers possible, remunerate them on performance, support them well, bring in parents into the education process and make it fun to teach. All this poking around with technology detracts from the basics. Read and weep, think about the sheer amount of resources wasted on this boondongle.

We present evidence on the impact on students´ math and reading scores of one of the largest deployments of an OLPC program and the only one implemented at a national scale: Plan Ceibal in Uruguay. We have unique data that allow us to know the exact date of laptop delivery for every student in the sample. This gives us the ability to use days of exposure as a treatment intensity measure. Given that there is some variation in the date of laptop delivery across individuals within the same school, we can identify the effect of the program net of potential heterogeneity in the rate schools gain improvements on students´ achievement over time independently of the OLPC program. Our results suggest that in the first two years of its implementation the program had no effects on math and reading scores. The absence of effect could be explained by the fact that the program did not involve compulsory teacher training and that laptops in class were mainly used to search for information on the internet.

Should Education Ministers have education experience? You betcha

as per this paper, they should. The authors look at the relationship between higher education ministers and the performance of the sector that they govern and use the European sector as an example. They find that if the minister has prior experience in the sector, the performance of the sector is higher as measured by ranking data.

Now you can quibble about whether or not ranking data is a good enough measure, but it goes without saying that it makes sense for somebody with expertise to drive this ministry.

As a small test, I looked up the central ministers in India who were responsible for Education since Independence. Here is the list. It started with Maulana Azad who was the Minister for Education from 1947 to 1958. Great man. And because of his amazing contributions, the National Education Day is celebrated every 11th November on his birth anniversary. The successors to his post were all brilliant, educated men frequently with direct experience in this sector. But not always.

Karan Singh was the minister till 1980 and then the rot started…Take for example, SB Chavan, who was in office for 18 months 1988-1989, he had his degree from Osmania University…good heavens. Shela Kaul had a degree in teaching so that’s good. KC Pant also was good in terms of education, but no experience. Narsimha Rao, good education and well intelligent, but no experience. P Shiv Shankar, educated but no experience. VP Singh, educated but no experience. Arjun Singh, no information on education or experience, but guess none. Scindia has had a good reputation but no experience. ABV, educated but no experience. Bommai, educated but not experienced. MM Joshi, well educated and experienced. Kapil Sabil, educated but no experience. MMP Raju, educated but no experience. And then we have the current minister, Smriti Irani, who is not educated nor experienced.

Tragic. Weep for Indian Students you lot, weep. Such is the future of the country – in the hands of these career politicians who are, by and large, educated but not experienced. And now we have literally hit the bottom with a minister who is not educated nor experienced. 

1. The Lives of Real Teachers

By special permission from Richard Lederer (author and broadcaster)
Excerpts from his forthcoming book A Treasury for Teachers, which Marion Street Press will publish in the summer of 2011.
A request from Richard:  "Richard Lederer is working on A Treasury for Teachers (Marion Street Press (fall 2011) and needs stories about teachers. If you have any, please wing them to Rich at richard. lederer@pobox.com."

Here‚s a true story: Beth, a high school English teacher in Maine, lived with her friend Sam, an intelligent golden retriever. One day, Beth‚s mother was riding in the back seat of the car with Sam, who insisted on leaning on Mother. Mother told Sam to "lay down and behave." No action. Mother repeated, "Lay down, Sam." Still no response.
Then Beth commanded, "Lie down, Sam," and down the dog went. He was, after all, the companion of an English teacher.
Here‚s another true story: Rushing to work, Branita drove too fast and was pulled over by a highway patrolman. The state trooper noticed that her shirt was emblazoned with the name of a local high school. "I teach math there," Branita explained.
The trooper smiled, and said, "Okay, here's a problem. A teacher is speeding down the highway at sixteen miles per hour over the limit. At $12 for every mile, plus $40 court costs, plus the rise in her insurance, what's her total cost?"
Branita replied, "Taking that total, subtracting the low salary I receive, multiplying by the number of kids who fear math, then adding the fact that none of us would be anywhere without teachers, I'd say zero."
The officer handed the teacher back her license. "I once had a teacher who taught me to enjoy math," he confessed. "Please slow down."
Beth and Branita are real teachers, and real teachers are rare and astonishing people:
      Real teachers give themselves away in public because of the dry erase pen marker smudges all over their hands. Real teachers can‚t walk past a crowd of people without snapping their fingers, straightening up the line, and correcting behavior. Real teachers ask quiet people at parties if they have anything to share with the group. When anyone leaves the party, real teachers ask them if they have forgotten their hats, scarves, and mittens. Real teachers always have a tissue in hand in case somebody sneezes. When real teachers empty their pockets at night,  they find two used hall passes, one unused bus pass, a pencil stub, and no money.
      Real teachers' relatives refuse to attend their parties if "it's going to be mostly teachers" because they all talk shop. Real teachers amaze and annoy their friends by correcting their grammar. Real teachers move their dinner partner‚s glass away from the edge of the table. Real teachers refer to happy hour as "snack time."
      Real teachers are irritated by adults who chew gum in public, and they hand pieces of paper to their friends and make them spit out their gum in front of them. Real teachers declare „no cuts‰ when a shopper squeezes ahead of them in a checkout line. Real teachers ask if anyone needs to go to the bathroom as they enter a theater with a group of friends. In a theater, real teachers often turn around and shush the people behind them. Real teachers send other adults to detention when they use bad languageand they go! Real teachers‚ voices are permanently set on high volume from attempting to be heard over students' voices day after day. Any loud noise at home causes them to impulsively flick the light switch off and on.
Real teachers say, "I like the way you did that!" to the mechanic who successfully repairs their car. They ask "Are you sure you did your best?" to the mechanic who fails to repair their car satisfactorily. Real teachers say everything twice. Real teachers say everything twice.
Real teachers wear fuzzy slippers with little animal faces on them. At least one item of their jewelry lights up. Real teachers have at least a dozen colorful sweaters and sweatshirts for each of the holidays, including Flag Day. Real teachers are among the nation's biggest buyers of pipe cleaners. Their neighbors drop off empty coffee cans, margarine cups, L'eggs eggs, milk bottle cartons, scraps of material and old newspapers at their home. While everyone else at the beach is catching up on the latest novels, real teachers are cutting out little oak tag people for their September bulletin boards. Real teachers make little turkey name tags for everyone at their family's holiday dinner.
Real teachers have no social life between August and June. Real teachers want to slap upside the head anybody who says, "Must be nice to work from only 8:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. and have summers off." Real teachers grade papers during commercials, in faculty meetings, in the car, in the bathroom, at social and athletic events, and sometimes even in church and synagogue. Real teachers know the difference between what should be graded, and what should never see the light of day. Real teachers cheer when they hear that April 1st does not fall on a school day.
Real teachers know that secretaries and custodians really run the school. Real teachers have the assistant principals‚ and counselors‚ home phone numbers. Real teachers know that rules do not apply to them. Real teachers do not take "no" for an answer unless it is written in a complete sentence. Real teachers really care that you learn the capital of Idaho. Real teachers never conjugate the verbs lie and lay to ninth graders. Real teachers plan their seating charts so that the shorter pupils can't hide behind the taller ones. Real teachers have already heard every possible homework excuse. They know that dogs are carnivores and not "homework papervores."
Real teachers always have time to listen. Real teachers have their best conferences in parking lots. Real teachers understand the importance of making sure that every kid gets a valentine. Real teachers vow to do a better job than the teachers they had. Real teachers know they teach students, not subjects. When a real teacher meets a parent, she or he instantly knows the answer to "Why is my student like that?" Real teachers understand that they can't reach all their students, but that doesn't stop them from trying.
Real teachers are medical marvels. Real teachers are written up in medical journals for the size and elasticity of their bladders and kidneys. They have eyes in the backs of their heads and the preternatural ability to hear someone in the class whispering. Real teachers have stiff necks from writing on the blackboard while keeping their eyes on their students. They are immune to the smells of collective bad breath and throw-up, kids‚ viruses, and the sound of chalk squeaking across a blackboard.
Real teachers are able to memorize thirty-six names (including nicknames) within the first week of school. Real teachers often remember your name at a twenty-fifth class reunion (and you remember theirs!). Real teachers know every knock-knock joke ever created. They actually know the differences between glue and mucilage and oak tag and poster board.
Real teachers learn to inhale their lunch in as little as three minutes. They actually like fruit cup. Real teachers are able to consume anything left over in the teachers‚ room. Real teachers laugh uncontrollably when people refer to that room as a "lounge." Real teachers buy Excedrin and Advil at Sam's Club.
Real teachers let their life partners know that they won‚t be the primary breadwinner in their marriage. Real teachers drive rustbucket cars they're still trying to pay off and for which they can barely afford the insurance. Real teachers don't wear the latest fashions, unless they got them at half price at a discount store. Real teachers have vacation time but no money to travel. Real teachers get paid to work six hours a day but actually work eight or more. Real teachers spend their summers as waiters, temps, camp counselors, and the like. When real teachers get their first pay check in September, they are reminded that teaching is a job, not just what they love to do.
Real teachers have a highly developed sixth sense. Real teachers know exactly how many Oreo cookies are in a package and how many jelly beans are in a jar. Real teachers can predict exactly which parents will show up at open house. Real teachers know when it's a full moon without having to look outside. Real teachers know that the first class disruption they see is probably the second one that has occurred. Real teachers can "sense" gum. Real teachers never sit down without first checking the seat of the chair. Real teachers hear the heartbeats of crisis.
Real teachers get a lot more valentines than the rest of us. Real teachers are some of the most courageous, caring, and committed people you've ever met. Real teachers lovingly labor in the most unheralded, labor-intensive, multi-tasking, exhausting, income-challenged, and rewarding of all professions. Real teachers are indispensable.
So . . .
      If you sing "The Alphabet Song" to yourself as you look up a number in the telephone book;
      If you fold your spouse's fingers over the coins as you hand him or her the money at a tollbooth;
      If your own children must raise their hand to capture your attention;
      If your refrigerator door looks like a military command center because it is covered with notes, calendars, coupons, phone numbers,
      and a thousand other things;
      If one of the drawers in your kitchen is full of pencils, pens, crayons, markers, erasers, glue, and the like;
      If you stop at the curb to pick up discarded old shelves, bookcases, file cabinets, or magazine racks;
      . . . then, even if you don't work at a school, you are a real teacher.
Permission is granted to reproduce and distribute this article provided the entire piece including the initial two paragraphs ate included. (©2010 Richard Lederer)

Two wins and a great feeling

It was a good week indeed. Firstly, we received information that the funding for the HSH charity is now confirmed for another year at least and that is excellent news, we were on the verge of starting our close down process which would have been tragic for all the families in severe distress we support and our employees. But very happy about it and now we are going to really fix this place.

In particular, what I want to do is to launch an initiative where we train our families in proper financial management and literacy. This will improve their lives and be able to handle financials. Lack of financial management in families is one of the biggest causes and symptoms of family distress. Plus I should be able to get some funding for this. So I have engaged the LSE SIFE team to see if they would be able to find out what is out there in terms of financial education for families and explore ways that we can deliver thi provision. Should start hearing back from them soon.

I am having a chat with a chap from India who has done some amazing work with technology for social purposes, that is promising indeed, hopefully we will get some traction on that end and can get the IT4CH charity to fund it.

Found out some people in India who are working in the area of West Bengal and education, hopefully will be able to speak to them next week to determine some more local details on what can and cannot be done locally. Also speaking to somebody who is in the government to see what are the requirements that charities have to fulfil to operate in Didi’s state.

Tomorrow we have the launch of the Transformation Trust’s pilot with LSE SIFE with the trading futures game, that promises to be an excellent large impact initiative which, if it works out, will hit almost 800 schools and we will be able to improve financial literacy and hopefully get the students interested in trading.

Might also be helping to run a strategy session for STIR sometime this side of the year. I just hope my imminent knee operation doesnt muck up all these plans..

Good stuff, but I am personally very happy, extremely happy with the fact that HSH got funding, now we can make it sustainable and real high impact. Very very chuffed. It took a heck of a lot of huge effort, pain and work to get there. I was quite depressed and disheartened for several weeks, we lost people, we lost trustees and we lost hope (almost) but we succeeded. Pushed very hard, spoke to the MP’s, spoke to the council, spoke to funding agencies, spoke with the employees, constantly emailed and spoke with the trustees, big big job done by the Chairman. Big Society, here we come. Very happy.

Teach First

Well, I have been working with SIFE LSE to get them working with the teachers in the teach first organisation. The concept behind teach first is to take 500-600 absolutely brilliant teachers per year, give them individual coaches, give them a good grounding and then deploy them to the most challenging and difficult secondary schools in the country. The SIFE team is working to get the trading game into the schools via this channel.

But besides this, I thought that I should get a bit involved as well, so have put in a bid to be a coach for one of the teachers. Lets see how that works out. I am quite excited about this opportunity to work closely with these Brits who will teach for England. Now that’s the kind of passion and commitment that is rare in this world and if I can help in some little way, so be it.

The influence of a teacher stops at eternity

You might recall that we are trying to improve the financial literacy of British children by an investment trading game that we run for school children. One of the ways we are thinking about expanding the scope is by training teachers to do this rather than rely on the LSE SIFE team.

So one of the things that the firm sponsors is TeachFirst. This is an initiative which tries to bring teachers into challenged secondary schools in the UK. The charity assists in helping top graduated become excellent teachers. Not too many, 5-600 teachers per year and the idea is to make a small but significant difference. So we had a nice little meeting with them, along with the LSE SIFE team, we discussed ways of getting the trading game packaged up and then given to the teachers, we discussed ways of getting a competition going and again, funding for this wouldn't be a major issue.

Also spoke to our internal brokerage about seeing if they could support us, but lets see where that goes.

I am quite chuffed about this all, if we can get these 5-600 teachers yearly to use the trading game and push it out to the students, hey, big impact :) Very happy.

News on the #charity front

Apologies for missing out the last week’s update, I have just moved off from my current project and am spinning up a giant new transformation programme which is making my hair hurt, eyes itch and toes curl. Nothing big or huge to report on the past two week’s progress but some little ones.

1. In last year’s SIFE competition, London School of Economics team, which I had the privilege to advice, won the rookie competition and the HSBC financial literacy prize. Very chuffed indeed. Very good work, girls.

2. The SIFE team and I are meeting TeachFirst on Monday. To see how we can get the trading game and our financial literacy mission into the teaching of these excellent high calibre teachers. If 800 of these excellent teachers annually pick up our game and we squirt this out to the schools, this will become brilliant and big.

3. Am also working on how to see this teacher pack business become global in nature, but very hush hush for now :)

4. Have also been thinking about old laptops. The fact that I found out that so many students are unable to study at home because they dont have pc’s (IN THIS internet DAY AND AGE!!!) is shocking. Or even at work, quite a lot of schools are disadvantaged in this. Do not have good equipment. So am working with our IT department to see if we can kick loose some 100-200 old laptops for one school as an experiment. We are going to go meet the school in 2 weeks time, so wait for that :)

5. I attended a charity fund raiser for VSO. Quite impressive. Getting more details on it. And it was a chocolate tasting event, so wait up for that essay.