[ Comic courtesy of Toothpaste for Dinner.]

For those who haven’t come across Bierce, he was a biting critic of literature and culture in 19th- and early 20th-century America. Bierce’s short stories are singularly engaging and, in my opinion, few in American literature have demonstrated such a command of language. Bierce was introduced to me by a well-traveled writer who said, “On his worst day, maybe coming off a week-long bender, Bierce was sharper than you or I will ever be.” He was probably right.

Bierce occupies some real estate on the shelf to the right of my desk. I decided to pull a sample of the education-related definitions in his Devil’s Dictionary.

ACADEME, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.

ACADEMY, n. [from ACADEME] A modern school where football is taught.

BORE, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

GRAMMAR, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.

HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip.

HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

LEARNING, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.

LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.

ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.

PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

PLAGIARISM, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.

PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.

I reference and sample Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary with regularity – it’s too witty to ignore. Though I use a hard copy, you can get a .txt file of the Dictionary via Project Gutenberg.

And, if you’re so inclined, peep The Ambrose Bierce Project and The Ambrose Bierce Appreciation Society.

“Democrats are Standing up to the Teachers Unions: Can this be True?” asks little Ed over at Ed is Watching. Maybe he’ll get some answers on September 19th [if the event doesn't run past his bedtime]. Yet another thumbs up for the DFER folks.

From RightWingProf, who came across this dandy fop opining out of San Diego: “Sarah Palin often uses lots of notes when she speaks, even going so far as to use tabs and different colors of notecards. This is just so unbelievably tacky and small town I am considering killing myself.” Yipes. I know that frustration, though. I see it every time I obliterate, shame, or otherwise invalidate an argument made by someone who has contempt for ignorant, small town rubes [like  me].

Brown University reformed its curricula in the late 1960s. I wouldn’t have done it, and not the way they did, but no one asked me then. They’re reforming things now – and ACTA says that it’s not perfect, but that it’s a step in the right direction.

Mike S. Adams has founded F.A.S.H.I.S.T. at UNC-Wilmington – Faculty Against Sexual Harassment Initiatives and Sensitivity Training. He asks whether “mandate” is sexist, and then says, “Five years ago the administration chipped in $60,000 to help bring Ludacris to campus. He sang a lot about hos. Shouldn’t we be forcing the administration to attend mandatory sexual harassment training not the other way around?”

Haaaaaaaaaaaahahahha. Awesome.

An interesting video about Senator Obama and edu-huckster extraordinaire, Bill Ayers.

The Onion: The Word “Presumptive” Prepares for Another 4-year Hibernation.

BIG NEWS: Detroit Superintendent hung up the phone on someone. My school board members barked at me like junkyard dogs, used school facilities/organizations to campaign against me, and school employees used in-house computers to suggest that I was a drug dealer. I don’t hang up on anyone [nor do I take or sell drugs].

Today is Battle of Britain Day in the United Kingdom. British resilience is a trait I love, and one that we in Upstate New York share. Let us hope that steely resolve makes a comeback in the wake of Sharia law.

Apparently this was on Deadspin, but I read the education sites each day before I hit sports, so I’ll tip the hat to Mr. Russo.

The Bengals wide receiver formerly known as Chad Johnson legally changed his name recently to Chad Ocho Cinco to reflect his jersey number of 85 – and now “Ocho Cinco” will appear on the back of his jersey in place of the old “Johnson.” Cue the outrage!

Rubes like me don’t know much about Spanish. We just know that Teddy Roosevelt whooped the Spanish single-handedly and that a lot of people in California [like Spain, another foreign country] speak their language. I’ll do my best to sum up the gripes detailed by these scholars of the language – consider this testimony fair warning.

Here’s the meat:

“Why is Carlson, and many other Spanish teachers so upset? “Ocho cinco” actually means “eight-five”, while “ochenta cinco” or “ochenta y cinco” would be the correct formations of 85 in Spanish.”

Yes. Yes, I follow. The question I’m having trouble with is…

… so what? Another scholar explains:

“Aaron Carlson, Spanish teacher from Kearney, Nebraska explains: “Chad’s little prank is making it difficult for us to effectively teach numbers. Students think that we are teaching them wrong because this clown can’t use a dictionary.”"

I wouldn’t call a legal name change a “little prank,” but Kearney is entitled to his mouth-frothing.

Take a step back, Mr. Carlson. Is Chad Ocho Cinco’s football jersey the highest hurdle you face as an educator? If so, don’t let the education world know – your school will get about 40,000 applications for its next job opening.

Perhaps Kearney and others could use this as what the proper ed-school graduates and certified teachers – not me – call a “teachable moment.”

Really, how often does grammar in any language come up in pop culture? It’s a fairly interesting bit – taking 3 minutes to describe how “ocho cinco” reflects the “8″ and “5″ on his jersey and not the cardinal number “85.”

This might be one of the few times when I’d argue that the discussion would facilitate engagement among students, and that the engagement would be a valuable thing.

Chad Ocho Cinco seems to grasp the gravity of the issue:

““I really don’t care, you cant stop me either way,” related Ocho Cinco. “Maybe next year I’ll go with Acht Fünf. That’s some German right there.”"

As soon as these teachers pound out a solution to this intellectual rift, they might want to tackle two other problems in high school education.

1. High school teachers don’t know basic English, as evidenced by the mean GRE Verbal score of 484.

2. High school teachers don’t know basic math – algebra and geometry – as evidenced by their mean GRE Quantitative score of 576.

Both of these scores are well below the mean. Verify it here [PDF] at your leisure. I recommend you take solace in knowing that your bosses aren’t any better off.

Good job, guys. The grammar myth of The Ocho Cinco Jersey? Consider it busted.

Hell, the Spanish teacher article is probably a fake, but since I read 20 real education articles a day this ridiculous, I’ll treat it as true.

28

As measured by how many kindergarteners we could take in a fight, that is. Tammy clocked in at 15.

Really, Tammy? 15?

I bruised up 28 before those little rapscallions got to me. If we worked together, we could probably best 50 tiny scamps – which is roughly how many kindergarteners are in one classroom in New York City.

I posted the rules for no-holds-barred fights with children about 8 months ago, so click or read on. How many could you take?

Here are the ground rules:

• You are in an enclosed area roughly the size of a basketball court
• There are no weapons or foreign objects
• Everyone is wearing a cup (so no kicks to the groin)
• The children are merciless and will show no fear
• If a child is knocked unconscious, he is “out.” The same goes for you.

My favorite question:

During the fight, would you feel morally comfortable picking up a child and using him/her as a weapon to throw at other children?

• No
• Depends on if he/she attacked me first
• Yes, I’ll do whatever it takes to win

28 for me! Feel free to take the quiz and post your results.

From their website:

Please Note: All our badges and widgets that you can install on your blog come with an extra link attached that you may remove if you wish. The extra link is the <a> tag located at the very bottom of the HTML code we provide. Removing it will not affect the widget in any way.

They’re up front with that extra link – excellent. Sneaky link tactics stink.

“It’s a Southern thang, y’all wouldn’t understand.”

Kicking myself for not getting it.

I wonder if I could make one of my own that said:

“It’s an educator thang, y’all wouldn’t understand.”

Maybe public schools could give it out at budget votes. Who do these ignorant parents and community members think they are, anyway?!?

A hearty thanks goes out to those teachers, administrators and board members – and those who weren’t voted in – who understand that the public has dignity and, usually, something important to offer.

Those other teachers, admins and board members who routinely show contempt for the public? Well, for now, we’ll have to take it from Weapons of Math Destruction and have a laugh at their expense as we work toward better days.

The National Mathematics Advisory Panel released a few weeks ago its comprehensive report on the state of math education in the US. The panel recommends that algebra be treated as algebra again, among other things.

You can:

• Get the full report and read it
  
• Watch/listen to the Panel’s Chair, Dr. Larry Faulkner, discuss the highlights of the report [3 minutes, 11 seconds]
• Browse a list of topics detailed in the report
• Read the New America Foundation’s take on the implications for K-3 math

Alternatively, you can:

Pretend to read the 120page report, then select carefully a paltry 3 sentences to show your community, all of which support your political agenda and unyielding commitment to poor math education and a general lack of transparency. Although I usually find The Ridgewood Blog compelling, they’ve made a serious mistake here. They’ve assumed that Tim Brennan read the whole report to select those 3 sentences [doubtful].

Discard the report’s merits entirely. Even the Constructivists, who could embrace this report and align it with their calls for relevance, have chosen instead to be defensive and reactionary.

Friend/foe Gary Stager dropkicks the report:

“It’s easy to see how someone might think that several years worth of fraction study prepares a child for Algebra. Fractions have numerators over denominators, separated by a horizontal line. Many algebraic equations have something over something else, also separated by a line. That’s all you need to know. Right?”

He goes on:

“Children who struggle to manipulate fractions do so because the skills are taught absent a meaningful context in a culture where fractions are rarely ever used.”

Remember, Gary – fractions aren’t just numbers separated by lines, though it’s a convenient straw man. Fractions are ratios, which are, at the most basic level, comparisons of one thing in terms of another. Then we assign meaning to that comparison of values. Then we can apply it to context, if necessary.

We all do this a hundred times a day [not just in cooking recipes] – and the Constructivists should be the first to admit that.

Threaten to kill your teachers [and yourself] if they fail. It’s science, not math, but that’s ok. The issue is the same: do we meet the challenge, do we admit that we aren’t trained to meet the challenge, or do we just freak out and draw national attention? Well, someone chose that third option:

NEW BRAUNFELS — A middle school principal threatened to kill a group of science teachers if their students did not improve their standardized test scores, according to a complaint filed with the New Braunfels Police Department. [Hat Tip: Intercepts]

Lament that your students will use math. One thing schools of education don’t want its graduates to do is to make cannon fodder for that most evil institution: the United States Military!

“Patriotic or not, I feel like the Army is snatching my student away. College funding or not, I feel like the happy and prosperous life I wish for my students is somehow incompatible with conscription. Maybe it has something to do with the sentiment expressed by Kurt Vonnegut, who fought in the Second World War, that the US military today is “being treated, as [he] never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.”” [snip]

“There’s an email in my inbox from the Conference on Math Education and Social Justice. It says teaching math in New York City helps create balance in an unjust world. It doesn’t know that it might actually send Stephanie into harm’s way.”

Please, dear diarist, if you care about Stephanie, don’t teacher her math. Keep her safe instead. Might our diarist be a former student of Monmouth’s Jim Horn?

Edwize is starting to be a daily source of black comedy. I’d enjoy it more if I didn’t know it was real and anything but uncommon.

And some just say to Heck with it! Is Algebra Even Necessary?

O math, why must ye causeth such deth and stryfe?

Graham Wegner is annoyed that the rest of the world doesn’t share the same opinion about the spelling of “Celsius.”

In truth, Mr. Wignar, there’s only one way to spell it: Celsius. It isn’t “celcius” today and it won’t be tomorrow. That’s because astronomer Anders Celsius was the first to create a temperature scale with 0 as the freezing point for water and 100 as the boiling point. We pay homage by invoking his name for that system. And, as I’m sure we’d all agree, names aren’t a matter of opinion.

The Fahrenheit system is also named after a guy. We capitalize both Fahrenheit [F] and Celsius [C] because they are names.

Gramm spits some snark toward the oppressive masses that make up Wikipedia:

“I pride myself on my spelling ability. So much that I can get indignant when confronted with the accusation that my lifelong memory of a word is actually incorrect. But who can argue when the Wikipedic wisdom of crowds defines the right spelling for me…”

Well, Grehim, I’m not accusing you, I’m just telling you that you’re 110% wrong and that there’s absolutely no basis for your objection. You could’ve read all the way to the third [!] sentence of the Wikipedia entry on “Celsius” and seen this:

“Celsius” is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701 – 1744), who developed a similar temperature scale two years before his death.

But you didn’t. You made a cartoon and wrote a blog post instead.

Worghner wraps up with this:

“Luckily for me, perhaps I’m merely contributing to the evolution of the English language…”

Haha! Oh, Grimm, you charming little scamp. That quip is almost as predictable and banal as me spelling your name wrong 5 times in this blog post.

What bothers me most about the post isn’t Wegner’s attempt at the lighthearted/humorous – I’m sure most of his readers chuckled. It’s the 7 comments to his blog post that really concern me.

I’ll summarize them:

1. Love the hat!
2. Paragraph citing irrelevant research that has become a pop culture meme
3. Your hat looks like a pith helmet
4. I can’t spell accommodation***
5. Wegner explains that he’s wearing a bucket hat
6. Commenter mentions something about a surname
7. Someone posts the full lyrics to “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”

The usual drivel – nothing remarkable here. Except for Comment #6, that surname bit, which suggests gently that:

“Well, since it’s a guy’s surname, perhaps we should try to get it right.”

Unfortunately for Commenter Karyn [whose blog is a good read, by the way], no one noticed or cared.

Oh, the Read-Write/Web 2.0 at its finest. It’s not what you publish, it’s just that you participate. Gold stars and hugs for all!

The rest – like the last names of seminal scientists or conceptual/historical links between our everyday term and a man 3 centuries gone – are just pesky details that, as Wegner foreshadows, probably will be lost over time. I just won’t call it “evolution.”

*** There’s a trick for spelling accommodate and its sisters. Say to yourself, “Accommodate is a large enough word to accommodate two Cs and two Ms.” You won’t spell it wrong again.