Only a minority of high schoolers enjoy solving complex math problems. I was not one of them. Usually, the best I could do was tinker with different variables and plug them into formulas on a trial and error basis in the hope of reaching a solution. Over time I became competent enough to use quadratic…
About 1200 years ago, a Persian scientist wrote two important texts about computation and arithmetic. Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī worked at the Grand Library of Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age, and was one of the most famed scholars of the period. Although there are few recorded details about his life, we do know where he…
It might have been 1984. The late Harro Van Brummelen made a call for high school teachers interested in writing curriculum units for novel study. Lloyd den Boer was there, plus Dennis DeGroot and Ray Sutton. It was a new experience for all of us. We brought our suggestions: Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan…
Last month, I discussed a large, well-designed study of early school math ability in girls and boys. At the start of Grade One, the study found no difference between boys’ and girls’ math abilities. Some girls and boys perform well, while others struggle, but girls generally match boys’ performance on standardized math tests. Yet four…
Nestled a short walk from the shores of Lake Malawi is a rust-coloured brick elementary school called Bandawe Primary. Maxwell Jr. is one of its 62 students in the classes for deaf students. The fact that he attends school is a remarkable story in itself – UNICEF reports that only 33 percent of children in…
People differ in their mathematical ability. We all know this. Some of us suffered through high school math classes; others excelled. When looking at the overall distribution of scores on standardized math tests, a curious fact emerges: male students, on average, score higher than female students. Of course, individual females can have very high scores,…
“The volcano room will be here.” The architect indicated the spot with his cursor on the shared screen and continued describing the blueprint for what will be a children’s hospice home in Dundas, Ontario. I was part of a Zoom call with others who were invited to offer feedback in the design stage. The children’s…
Quite frankly, I am not sure what the term dyslexia means, and from the voluminous scholarly literature on this topic, it’s clear there is little consensus about its meaning there, either. After earning a doctorate in Reading Education from the University of British Columbia in 1981, I spent twenty-eight years teaching at The King’s University…
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