How Students (and Teachers) Can Use Feedback
Every semester, usually just after midterm, I get an email or have an office visit from a student that includes one of the following questions: “Why do I keep making…
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Two Mediocre Stories Delivered Poorly
Review of Sea Wall by Simon Steven and A Life by Nick Payne The stories here were okay, and may have seemed better to me had I read them in…
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Notified
When my grandsons are watching videos on their mother’s phone or playing games on my iPad, they display intense concentration, which is not really surprising. We have all seen such…
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Winning a New Name (Meditation 71)
We live in a dualistic culture where it seems everything is a competition and our only purpose is winning. Worse, when we do not win, whatever that actually means, we…
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An Unhelpful History of Mathematics
Only Tony Shalub’s voice saves the audiobook of W. Rouse Bell’s A Short Account of Mathematics from being truly awful. Let’s start with the book’s lack of understanding of audience.…
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Enduring Love Grown Cold (Meditation 70)
It seems that when cataclysmic events happen, some preacher or self-proclaimed prophet points to the more apocalyptic parts of the Bible, connects a handful of loosely related dots, and declares…
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Wisdom Vision (Meditation 69)
At funerals, we usually say nice things. By general social convention, we have decided that it is wrong to “speak ill of the dead,” even if we feel poorly towards…
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A Hidden Reward (Meditation 68)
It is human not only to desire acknowledgment but to feel it is necessary. We work hard, and it seems natural to expect not only the compensation that is due…
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Al Di Meola + Beatles = Excellent Listening
Jazz giant Al Di Meola has released a number of interesting projects in recent years that should prove to listeners that he isn’t just a guy with fast fingers who…
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Learning the Way (Meditation 67)
I sincerely wish that everyone could have the experience of learning from at least one great teacher. Not the cool teacher or the nice teacher, but one who awakened a…
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