Revival

So, if you dared to look at the posting history, you may perchance have noticed that I haven't used this blog except for the initial mistart when I thought I would use it as a communication forum for my algebra 2 class - THREE YEARS AGO!

That didn't work so well.

The reasons it didn't work were many and not worth going into at the moment.  Let's just say that I have chosen to use other methods to communicate with my students - e-mail, static websites, and Facebook for class-wide discussion.

I am reviving this blog with the intention of sharing my own thoughts, insights and summaries on teaching math in a time that I feel represents a crossroad in public education, particularly in the charter school world in which I have taught for the past six years.  The influence of big government, new standards, large foundations, technology, funding cuts, and  . . . well, the list is long . . . is putting pressures on teachers like never before.  Pressures to adapt, pressures to perform, pressures to comprehend all these changes and the expectation that we will be experts in adopting these changes to the best interests of our students.

It's daunting.

I am constantly browsing other math blogs.  In particular, I want to recommend a couple of my favorites: Dan Meyer's dy/dan and Sam Shah's Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere.  They have different foci, and I hope mine will differ from theirs, but these are worth reading for any math educator.

I'm not sure what path this blog will take - focus on curriculum, teaching methods, use of technology, political pressures, . . . - but I hope to learn from other's learning and create exponential growth in all of us.