I'd like to say that Twitter has become a daily presence in my life. But it's much worse than that. Okay, that's society talking. I think it's better. Here's what Twitter had me thinking about this morning - a Sunday morning in the summer -- from 8:03 to 8:21.
8:03. A tweet from Amie Albrecht, now the Australian who inserts her presence in my day more than any other, as she has now surpassed Courtney Barnett.
I always gave this exact answer when I was a kid and people asked why I liked math. As I've continued to grow and learn, I realize that math is all about the journey and less about the destination, but I do find it comforting that there is a "truth" at the end that we can all agree on, even if that truth is that the truth is unknowable. I can prove that root 2 is irrational, I can demonstrate that infinite sets have different cardinalities, I can prove the Pythagoream 40 different ways. (Don't challenge me on that last one.) Proofs are sometimes sensible, sometimes highly counter-intuitive, and sometimes incomprehensible to me (see: Fermat). Yet, without a "right" answer at the end, the whole beautiful exercise could end in murky conclusions like a debate in economics or even science. Those debates are obviously important, but I enjoy the comfort of knowing that an absolute (albeit abstract) truth exists out there.
There's a good discussion in this tweet's thread.
8:06. Another one from Amie. I was planning to do the Quarter the Cross exercise on the first day of geometry, and here's Amie adding another dimension - a card sort! Check it out. Thanks, Amie!
8:08. Again from Amie. (Not really a surprise -- she's tweeting while we're all sleeping.) It's really a link to Fawn Nguyen's blog post about using different colored highlighters to mark student work. I've seen this before and liked it, so I added it to a Wakelet folder (probably for the third time.)
8:09. Andre Sasser asks about getting permission from students to post their photos. I've been wondering about this, and also how to blog honestly about the specifics of what's happening in a classroom without running the risk of embarrassing my students should they read what I've written. I'll always try to make sure I'm communicating fondness and positivity toward my students, but I can't control how they interpret what I've written.
8:11. I don't follow this account, but it shows up via likes every so often and I like it. I like how the post begins: "I pet Sadie." I picture the build-up to this like the lunar module landing on the moon: "I am approaching Sadie. All systems are go. 10 feet. Tail is wagging. 5 feet. Tongue is drooling. Houston, we have contact."
8:12. Math photo scale week. I am reminded of my candy loving (now 23-year-old) daughter, thinking I'd be almost certain to take this same photo when she were younger. I had also seen one of these crazy machines at the movie theater last night, so I was thinking about my daughter and candy.
Also, I want to take some #MathPhoto18 pics, but I keep forgetting to check the theme.
8:14. Somebody saw "GOD" in a sliced eggplant. Good ol' Twitter.
8:15. Back to Andre with a grocery bag suggestion.
This had more meaning to me that I expected. For the past three years, we've had two girls from Ghana at Millbrook, one of whom has lived with us. They were back in Ghana this summer for the first time in three years, and they return this very day. I'll be glad to see them, in part because they are literally my supermarket adventure partners. Here's what it's like to shop with them:
I guess I gotta buy that shopping bag.
8:17. A reminder about EquatIO. I haven't really figured out how this will work for me, but it's on my list to look into this summer. Getting late, though.
Then, in yet another fortuitous coincidence, when I went to log on to my computer to write this, Windows had a message for me:
EquaIO wants to "Read and change all your data on the websites I visit." Uh, no. I don't even give myself permission to do that. I'll check on it later...
[Note: I checked it out, Accepted Permissions and I'm really excited to use EquatiO this year.]
8:21. A retweet from Blank Panther Girl.
I've been thinking about this a lot this summer, without reaching any coherent chain of thought. It began with our trip to Ghana, where we met wonderful people and saw a country that had robbed of its resources, both physical and human, for hundreds of years before this century, largely to the benefit of people like me. We got to meet our two Ghanaian girls' families, which was emotional beyond explanation. The students who were with us worked with a school on some math, some storytelling and some soccer. I know the school appreciated what we did, but it's hard to know how to feel. This photo below of the class playing SET sums it up -- it makes me proud, confused, sad and happy all at once.
Marian Dingle's keynote at TMC18 (watch, read) gave me further reason to reflect and even less clarity (in a good way!). I also thought about my experience with our two Ghana girls, and how it's offered me the opportunity (if that's the right word) to see the pervasive, yet often very subtle, nature of the racism that exists in my world.
And that's a heavy note to end on, but that's about 20 minutes of my Twitter experience. In the middle of the summer. All before breakfast.
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