Can't We All Just Get Along...

Can't We All Just Get Along...

Learning a foreign language has obvious practical reasons, like increasing native-language ability, improving chances of entering college or graduate school, and improving employment potential. But to me—and this is what really interests me about the process—foreign-language learning promotes better understanding of oneself and one’s culture. Think of it as a study in cultural contrasts.

Take, for example, how different languages show various levels of formality during oral communication. Contemporary English, at least in the United States, shows little evidence of formality. “Sir” or “Ma’am” is still used and there are certain phrases like “May I help you?” that still imply formality. One can show deference in the way one says someone’s name; for instance, by choosing either “Mr. Jones,” “Norman,” “Norm,” or “Jones.” But in general, one would address a relative, a friend, and an employer, with the same parts of speech.

On the other hand, all Romance languages, many Germanic languages, and some Slavic languages have formal and informal “you” pronouns. For instance, Spanish has the informal tú along with the formal usted, while German has du and Sie, respectively. These pronouns are used according to the social position and age (among other factors) of the subject being addressed and require different verb conjugations and possessive forms. To use them under the wrong circumstances would be inappropriate and could even suggest disrespect.

But in some Asian languages—like Japanese—different words actually have different levels of formality associated with them, and you’re supposed to use them depending on whom you’re talking to and whether that person is higher or lower in social status or hierarchy. The grammar is basically the same, but there are a number of words (particularly the specific forms of the verb) that are only used according to the person being addressed.

There are roughly six levels of formality in Japanese:

Blunt: Usually used only by men in very informal situations. It’s used a lot in movies, particularly coming from tough-guy characters.

Plain: anybody can use plain language, but it’s only appropriate for relaxed situations with people you know well. This level is particularly common with young people.

Casual: closer to polite than plain Japanese, but with some changes to make it flow a little more smoothly when you’re talking.

Polite: This is the level taught in most Japanese classes. It’s not too stiff and can be used in most situations where a lot of formality isn’t called for.

Humble: used when you’re referring to yourself while talking to someone of superior status, or whom you’re “at the service of,” such as a business client.

Honorific: used when talking to the same type of social superior, but when you’re talking about them.

Exactly when to use each of these types of speech depends on enough things to make you go mental: your social standing relative to the people you’re talking to, your age relative to them, your position in an organization relative to them, your grade in school relative to them, if they’re a client of your company, whether you’re related, (and in what way), and more. This explains why there are several ways of saying “I,” and “you.”

I

Watakushi (male or female; extremely formal)

Watashi (male or female; relatively polite)

Boku (used only by men; generally younger men)

Ore (men only; not so polite, has a bit of a tough image)

Atashi (used only by women; slightly less formal than watashi)

You

Anata (polite, but used only with people your familiar with)

Anta (a short version of anata; not polite at all)

Omae (informal, can be used between close friends)

Temee (blunt, and potentially insulting, if used in the wrong situation)

Kisama (very blunt, and potentially even more insulting, if used in the wrong situation)

Japanese culture, as reflected by the language, seems very rigid. Every human interaction — verbal communication included — is always shaped by one’s status or position in the social hierarchy. I wonder if we could ever get used to such a concept in our culture.

Hot off the Press! Spanish Vocabulary Activities

Hot off the Press! Spanish Vocabulary Activities

The new series Actividades en español: Spanish Vocabulary Activities, Books 1 & 2 by Lori Langer de Ramirez is designed to provide beginning-level and intermediate-level students with motivational and fun activities that can help them develop vocabulary and decoding skills.

These books feature games and puzzles, such as crosswords, acrostics, searchwords, picture stories, logic puzzles and more, geared specifically for level 1 and 2 Spanish students who usually find puzzles developed for Spanish native speakers difficult. This series is thematically organized and presents interesting and enjoyable topics, such as family, school and classes, jobs and professions, leisure time activities, and the environment. These books are great to use as a supplement to your class textbooks and will keep your students entertained. For more information about this series, visit our Web site, or visit Amsco’s booth at the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in New York, where the books will be on display.

Aurora

Aurora

I have always been fascinated by the aurora. I don’t mean Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. What I mean are the lights that play across the night sky in the Arctic and Antarctic. My mother told me that during the blackouts in World War II, she saw an aurora in Brooklyn, New York. One of the best places to see the aurora borealis, or northern lights, is in Yellowknife, Canada. Over the South Pole these lights are called the aurora australis, or southern lights.

For many years, scientists wondered about what causes the aurora. Recently, astronomers, with the help of five new satellites, found the answer. It all has to do with Earth’s magnetic field and the solar wind.

Earth’s magnetic field is produced by the circulation of molten iron in Earth’s core. The field acts as if there were a giant bar magnet buried deep within Earth. Now, please don’t e-mail me that the diagram here is wrong. I know that the S pole of the imaginary magnet is near the Geographic North Pole. Just think about it. The needle of a compass is a magnet. We call the end of the needle that points roughly toward the Geographic North Pole the north-seeking pole of the compass. As in love and electricity, opposites attract. Therefore, the magnetic pole near the Geographic North Pole must be an S pole. Lines of force emanate from Earth’s magnetic poles. Since the lines of force encircle Earth from the North Pole to the South Pole, this field is called the magnetosphere.

Solar wind is the plasma made of charged particles (protons, electrons, and ions) that leaves the sun in all directions. These particles travel at high speeds—an average of about 400 km/sec. That is almost a million mph. The solar wind varies routinely through the 27-day rotation cycle of the Sun. It also appears sporadically, in response to violent eruptions in the corona. These eruptions can result in geomagnetic storms on Earth.

A geomagnetic storm is a magnetic storm on Earth caused by solar activity. They produce the auroras. However, they can also cause some very undesirable effects, such as electrical current surges in power lines, interference with radio, television, and telephone signals, and problems with defense communications. They even affect compasses anywhere on Earth.

The astronomers learned from ground observations and the five satellites that the solar wind stretches Earth’s magnetic field well into space. When the field snaps back, Earth is showered with solar particles. This sudden release of energy causes the dancing northern lights.

I hope to see the northern lights some day. However, I don’t think it is likely because I really hate the cold.

The Colorful World of Iguanas

The Colorful World of Iguanas

Well, spring is finally here. That is, officially, since it is still pretty cold outside. But, in spite of the cold, springtime always makes me think of pretty pastel colors. I usually think of these colors adorning plastic Easter eggs, marshmallow chicks, and stuffed toy bunnies. This year , however, I am thinking about these colors on an unlikely item--iguanas. It turns out that these gorgeous lizards include species with a surprising variety of nice colors.

First, for the definition: According to Wikipedia, “Iguana is a genus of lizard native to tropical areas of Central and South America and the Caribbean.” And, “the word ‘Iguana’ is derived from a Spanish form of the original Taino (pre-Columbian Caribbean peoples) name for the species, “Iwana.” Second, “I wanna” tell you about some colorful species!

Seeing Green
Most people have seen, or at least heard about, green iguanas. Also called the common iguana, these are large lizards, growing to over five feet in length. They eat both plants and meat, but are primarily herbivorous. Although green iguanas are not endangered, they are vulnerable in parts of their range due to hunting (people eat them) and habitat loss. In addition, they are popular as pets in this country; but they are not easy to care for and, as a result, do not survive well in captivity. The green color that gives them their name ranges from a bright green to a grayish green and is adaptive, since these iguanas live in tropical rain forests, often high up in the trees.


In the Pink

There has been a surprising development in the world of iguanas. A team of scientists from Rome, Italy, has just announced that the pink iguana of the Galápagos Islands (considered part of South America) is actually a distinct species. Named for its unusual “salmon-colored skin,” this iguana was originally discovered in the 1980s by park rangers working on the island of Isabela; but they did not realize it was its own separate species. The pink iguana is important to scientists not only because it is unique, and rather pretty, but because analysis of its genetics may help fill in a gap about the period, between one and 10 million years ago, when the original land iguanas on the Galápagos evolved into separate species. (There are also marine iguanas on the Galápagos, but that is another story.) More pressing, however, is the need to protect this species because it is so few in numbers and lives only on one volcano on Isabela.


Feeling Blue

Another colorful iguana species is the blue iguana, also called the Grand Cayman iguana, because it is found only on that one Caribbean island. Like the green iguana, the blue iguana is very large, growing to about five feet in length. It also is very long-lived (up to over 60 years). But, unlike its green relative, the vegetarian blue iguana lives in “open areas in dry forests or near the shore” and, more importantly and most unfortunately, it is critically endangered. Blue iguanas were not rare until after Europeans settled on Grand Cayman. By 2003, after years of predation by cats and dogs, along with some habitat destruction, their numbers were reduced to about a dozen individuals in the wild. Since then more than 200 blue iguanas have been bred in captivity; they were later released into a preserve on their home island, where conservationists are working to protect them.

Herodotus Once Removed

Herodotus Once Removed

The Father of History. The Greek writer Herodotus is often labeled “the Father of History” because he was first person to write a comprehensive account of what he knew about the present and learned about the past. Sure, other people had written histories that were less comprehensive. And the oral tradition had been strong for who knows how long. Herodotus owed much to Homer, but we don’t consider The Iliad and The Odyssey to be history books.

Herodotus’s major work is called The Histories. But the Greek word historia differs in meaning from our word history. It means “inquiry” or “investigation.” Herodotus included the results of all kinds of inquiries, not just those about the past.


Herodotus had no libraries to go to, no archives of documents. Instead, he got his information by traveling around the known world and asking questions. (He had an insatiable curiosity.) Then he would write about some past event, beginning with a statement such as “. . . this is what the Persians and Phoenicians say. I am not going to come down in favor of this or that account of events, but I will talk about the man who, to my certain knowledge, first undertook criminal acts of aggression against the Greeks.”

Herodotus believed that the Greek gods had their origins in the gods of Egypt, which, he claimed, had an older culture. Moreover, he claimed that all of Greek culture owed its origin to ancient Egypt. This must have been a controversial claim then, as it is now to some Western historians who would not want to admit that European history came out of African history.

I have always wanted to read Herodotus’s Histories but have been intimidated by its length. Fortunately, I found that I did not have to read that long tome. Instead, I have found a shorter, more readable book that entertains while it discusses and quotes from Histories.

The Once-Removed Book. There is a fascinating book out there about the world in the 500s and 400s B.C. and the world in the A.D. 1950s and 1960s. It is called Travels With Herodotus, by Ryszard Kapuściński. This Polish journalist traveled to many foreign countries during his career and seems to have taken Herodotus’s book with him wherever he went. He found that reading it helped him to relax and stimulated his intellect as well.


Kapuściński’s Travels. Kapuściński’s first trip outside Communist Poland was to India in the 1950s. This country had recently gained its independence, and the writer comments that there were refugees or homeless people everywhere. They slept on the highways. They occupied every square inch of the train stations, even the platforms. Kapuściński was frustrated because he knew none of the languages that Indians spoke. So he tried to teach himself English by buying and studying English guidebooks to India.

Kapuściński’s next trip was to Communist China, which he found very frustrating since the government guide assigned to him never let him out of sight, even at night while he slept.

His trip to Egypt had a funny/scary story about a street person who persuaded Kapuściński to visit an old mosque. The guide took him up a narrow set of stairs to the balcony of the tower, only to rob Kapuściński of all his money. Other trips in Africa included visits to Senegal, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Algeria. These trips were full of adventures, and Kapuściński’s accounts always included quotations from The Histories.

Is She a Good Shaman or a Bad Shaman? Ancient Witch Unearthed in Israel

Is She a Good Shaman or a Bad Shaman? Ancient Witch Unearthed in Israel

What is the difference between a shaman and a witch? I suppose the latter has a negative connotation and the former does not. Modern practitioners of the Wiccan religion engage in rituals designed to indicate respect for the Earth Mother and the forces of nature. By so doing, they find harmony with these forces and a sense of well being. The shamans of antiquity served their hunting and gathering, pastoral, and early agrarian societies in much the same way. Using their superior sensitivity to the forces of nature, they performed the rituals that their societies believed were essential to survival, e.g., rituals that ensured successful hunting, rainfall, crop growing, animal and human fertility, and recovery from illness and wounds. Shamans were respected, often high status, people.

Led by archeologist Leore Grosman, a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has spent the last thirteen years excavating a cliffside cave in northern Israel. In 2008, the Hilazon Tachtit cave (shown below) yielded a collection of artifacts consisting of the shells of 50 tortoises, parts of wild boars, cows, leopards, gazelles, stone martens, the wingtip of a golden eagle, a set of tools, and a severed human foot. The team also discovered the 12,000-year-old remains of a woman. Because of the unusual collection of artifacts buried with the woman, Grosman hypothesized that the she was a shaman, the first female shaman found in the Mediterranean region.

Grosman started exploring the cave in 1995. At first, her team’s work yielded little. Eventually, the cave yielded certain artifacts that caused the team to move to an adjacent area where they found a Natufian burial ground with four undisturbed graves and several pits containing the remains of at least 25 other individuals. The location of the cave is not far from previously excavated Natufian sites. Flourishing in the region between 15,000 and 11,500 years ago, the Natufian culture existed at a time when Middle Eastern cultures were transitioning from hunting and gathering life styles to agriculture. Hundreds of Natufian graves have been excavated in Israel, Jordon, Lebanon, and Syria. The 2008 find at Hilazon Tachtit, however, is unique because of the presence of ritual or shamanic objects in proximity to a woman’s remains. Grosman sometimes refers to her as “the witch,” but with fondness.

When she died, the shaman was approximately 45 years old, an advanced age in her culture. She suffered from severe skeletal deformations, such as a fusion of the coccyx and sacrum, and deformations of the pelvis and lumbar and sacral vertebrae. This would have caused her to limp or drag her feet and she would have had an unnatural, ill-proportioned appearance. She was buried in a plastered oval pit hewn into bedrock and sealed beneath a large slab. According to a zooarcheologist working with Grosman, the shaman’s burial ritual would have included the killing and eating of turtles, followed by the arrangement of the turtle shells around the deceased woman. Also, boar bones had been cracked open and the marrow had been removed before the bones were placed beneath the woman’s hand.

Why did the Natufians go to the trouble of burying the shaman in a pit carved high in a cliff? Usually they buried their dead in simple graves next to their living areas. Grosman is not sure. She points out, however, that at the time the shaman was buried, the Natufians were making the transition from a nomadic hunting and gathering way of life to a settled agrarian society. They may have needed special locations and topographical features with spiritual meaning. Grosman believes that the site became a cemetery because the shaman was buried there. Her presence made the location sacred.

The excavations at Hilazon Tachtit are increasing our knowledge of a very ancient culture of the Middle East and of the role of women in that culture. Was the woman buried there a shaman because she possessed unique qualities? Or were women regarded by the Natufians as more likely to have the ability to relate to the forces of nature and the spirit world? Continuing excavation may provide answers.

The Green Scene

The Green Scene

To love St. Patrick’s Day, you don’t have to be Irish. Take me: an Italian-Austrian-Polish-American. I’m not big on parades, but look great in green. I love pubs, and the traditional holiday meal, but I’ll take a fat corned beef sandwich over cabbage and boiled potatoes.

I’m also intrigued by the holiday’s history. According to History.com,
for over 1000 years, the Irish have celebrated this day as a religious holiday. Since it falls during Lent, Irish families would go to church in the morning, and celebrate in the afternoon. On that one day they were allowed meat during Lent—Irish bacon (the corned beef of today?) and cabbage.

The first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place here in New York City, not even in Ireland! That was in 1762. Eventually, in 1848, many New York Irish aid groups combined their parades into one BIG New York City one.

Like I said, I’m not big on parades. What I am big on, is literature. And St. Patrick’s Day is the day to celebrate three of my favorite Irish writers.

When you hear the name Bram Stoker, what do you think of? Dracula! Though this great horror novel is set in Transylvania (closer to where my ancestors hailed from, vs. Stoker's), it sprang from an Irish mind. Stoker was a sickly kid who later overcame his illness to become an award-winning athlete. He worked in Civil Service with Dublin Castle, and began writing theater reviews for the Dublin Evening Mail. Eventually, he wound up in London, and became a part of its theater circle.

Besides Dracula, Stoker was known for novels like The Lady of the Shroud and The Lair of the White Worm. My favorite Stoker work was his short story “The Judge’s House.” Student Malcolmson needs an isolated place to study, and winds up in the house of this evil dead judge. In the walls are rats, which make tons of noise. In the middle of the room, a rope leads to a great alarm bell on the roof. One day, a gigantic rat comes down the rope and stares poor Malcomson down. When he hits Super Rat with a Bible, it screams and runs, but the story gets even better from there. . . .

• Does the evil judge come back from the dead?
• Is Super Rat really the evil judge?
• What’s up with that rope?

You’d hate me if I gave away the ending, so read this one once the corned beef is digested.

Though the flamboyant Oscar Wilde is known more for his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, my favorite Wilde work is “The Happy Prince.” In this fairy tale, a dead prince is reborn as a beautiful golden statue, crusted with jewels. From where he stands on top of the city, he sees its poverty, degradation, and misery. His “tears” fall on a swallow, who becomes his right-hand man. At the prince’s command, the swallow plucks jewels and peels gold leaves off the prince’s body, in order to care for the needy. This story is so heart-wrenching, the ending made me cry. As a grown-up!

But my favorite Irish writer will always be James Joyce. Dubliners is one of the greatest collections of short stories ever. “Araby” describes the pangs of first love in such a way, our own teen crushes feel fresh and just as torturous now, as they were then. The narrator is in love with a neighbor, his friend Mangan’s sister. “I had never spoken to her. . . .” Joyce writes, “and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.”

Everywhere the boy goes, he carries her image with him, “even in places the most hostile to romance.” He lies on the floor watching and worshipping her through an inch of space beneath the blind. He cries and doesn’t know why. This little tough guy is growing up, and it makes no sense to him!

Finally, he learns how to win her heart: bring her a trifle from the local bazaar, Araby, as she can’t go herself. He lives for Saturday night, and his mission, but can only go if his uncle takes him . . .

And his uncle, well . . . can’t make it. By himself, the boy rushes to the bazaar just as it’s closing, and goes home, empty-handed:

“Gazing up into the darkness,” Joyce writes, “I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.”

Who hasn’t felt that way sometimes? Now, as much as then?

Today of all days, let’s celebrate our sameness . . . and the wee bit of Irish in us all.

Congratulations, You Survived!

Congratulations, You Survived!

Today’s blog is for all of you middle school math teachers and students who survived last week’s New York State exams. I know that all of you worked really hard and did your best.

However, there’s still math to learn before the school year ends, namely the dreaded Post-March Topics. Gasp! Grade 8 teachers, don’t let your copies of Reviewing Mathematics: Preparing for the Eighth-Grade Test get dusty. Get your students ready for Integrated Algebra 1 by going over these starred* post-March sections:

*5.11 Graphing and Solving Inequalities
*9.6 Constructing and Bisecting Angles
*11.5 Slope
*11.6 Slope-Intercept Form of a Linear Equation
*11.7 Graphing Systems of Linear Equations
*11.8 Exploring Nonlinear Functions


That said, it’s Monday and you just conquered your exams. You deserve a few minutes of quality slacking. I recommend this silly video of a guy singing a pseudo-rap song about his kitten, Sparta. (Non-middle school math teachers/students can watch, too.)

Using Music to Teach English Language Arts

Using Music to Teach English Language Arts

I was recently excited to learn that March is Music in Our Schools Month. I am a big fan of music in the classroom, and I think that all subject area instructors, not just music teachers, should plan something to celebrate this month.

English language arts teachers can use music to help improve literacy. When teachers present students with a variety of texts and forms of expression, including song lyrics, it helps validates students’ own literacies and make them more willing to work on their reading skills. Students can find meaning in song lyrics and apply that skill to fiction texts. English teachers can also use music to engage students in lessons on literary devices such as figurative language, tone, and mood.

Here are some more specific ideas from the National Council of Teachers of English on how to bring music into the ELA classroom.

• Use hip-hop to teach literacy. The article, “Shades of Literacy: Hip-Hop as Authentic Poetry,” from Voices from the Middle, explains how hip-hop can have a role in middle-school literacy instruction. The English Journal article ,“Writing for Something: Essays, Raps, and Writing Preferences,” talks about how to bring hip-hop to the high-school level—for example, a student can write an essay and a rap on the same subject.
  
• Have students make a soundtrack for a book they have read. The ReadWriteThink.org lesson, “On a Musical Note: Exploring Reading Strategies by Creating a Soundtrack,” has students decide what songs would be appropriate for the soundtrack of a novel they’ve read in class; students have to justify their choices. The assignment has students thinking critically about aspects of the book such as characterization, tone, and mood.
  
• Teaching Metaphor through music. ReadWriteThink.org’s lesson “Stairway to Heaven: Examining Metaphor in Popular Music” teaches students how to illustrate and explain metaphors they find in music lyrics. Students then make connections between this music and the literature they’re reading in class. I’ve done this kind of lesson before, and it does capture students' interest! The challenge is finding songs that students like and that have clean lyrics you can use in a classroom. Also, I remember that when I was a student teacher, I had students compare the lyrics to the Dixie Chicks song “Wide Open Spaces” to the lyrics of “Overprotected” by Britney Spears. Students talked about how the theme of wanting to break free from one's parents was covered by both songs but handled in different styles. And the teacher I was working with at the time did a lesson using Meatloaf’s "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights" and Chekhov’s play “The Proposal.” Students compared the frenetic pace, rhythm, and themes of these pieces.
  

For additional ideas on how to incorporate music into the ELA classroom, check out the book From Dylan to Donne: Bridging English and Music by Brock Dethier

--Lauren

What’s in a (Middle) Name?

What’s in a (Middle) Name?

Today’s guest blogger is veteran Amsco author, Henry I. Christ, who shares an amusing observation about some famous “names” in history and literature.

“In all the literature courses you took, did you have favorite writers?”

“The Victorians like Makepeace and Babbington were a little stuffy. I preferred the Romantics like Bysshe and Savage. I must also confess my guilty pleasures in the works of Litwidge and Schwenck.”

Do you recognize the authors from their colorful middle names? They may have a practical function. In a crowded telephone directory, a middle name may identify a William Smith.

Some are born with one or more middle names. Others choose the name in adulthood. Harry S. Truman chose the letter S. That’s all! Family friend Gabrielle was blessed with three middle names: Josephine Rosalie Marie.

Middle names flourish at some periods and languish at others. The greatest Elizabethans are famous without middle names: William Shakespeare, Francis Macon, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson, Sir Walter Raleigh, Richard Burbage. The middle-name drought continued in the 17th century: Andrew Marvell, Izaak Walton, Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace. The 18th century provided an explosion of great writers, all without identifying middle names: Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Daniel Defoe. The Victorians reversed the trend.

“Who are your favorite American authors?”

“Of course, I read Waldo, Wadsworth, and Cullen, but I really preferred Lee, Arlington, and St. Vincent.”

American history is peppered with glorious middle names: Presidents Quincy, Birchard, Gamaliel, Delano, Fitzgerald, Baines, Millhouse, and a return to the Founding Fathers in Jefferson. There are some interesting oddities. Both Wilson and Coolidge preferred to be known by their middle names; Thomas Woodrow Wilson and John Calvin Coolidge. The strangest of all is the naming experience of President Grant. Ulysses started out as the middle name of Hiran Ulysses Grant, but when Grant entered West Point, his name was recorded as Ulysses Simpson Grant. The change gave Grant the charismatic U.S. He adopted it. His opposite number on the Confederate side, Robert E. Lee, has the perfect initial: E. Robert Lee sounds dull. Robert Edward Lee sounds overdone. Robert E. Lee is just right.

If you Google “middle names,” you’ll be presented with pages of information and suggestions about choosing a middle name for your baby. As we have seen, a good middle name can add a special quality to the name. Warning! Be sure the acronym of the name is not a problem: Susan Ann Peterson or, worse, Stanley Eric Xenias.

If you plan a party with middle names as the game, be wary of duplications. Henry appears in William Henry Harrison and Richard Henry Dana. David appears in Dwight David Eisenhower and Henry David Eisenhower and Henry David Thoreau. Colorful names are the best, like James McNeill Whistler, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Christina Georgina Rossetti, and that glorious William Tecumseh Sherman.

Full names of persons mentioned:

William Makepeace Thackeray
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Percy Bysshe Shelley
John Quincy Adams
Walter Savage Landor
James Birchard Buchanan
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
Warren Gamaliel Harding
William Schwenck Gilbert
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Ralph Waldo Emerson
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Lyndon Baines Johnson
William Cullen Bruant
Richard Millhouse Nixon
Edgar Lee Masters
William Jefferson Clinton

The First 100 Days or How History Repeats Itself.

The First 100 Days or How History Repeats Itself.

As we live through what everyone is calling "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 30’s," it is interesting to note that today, March 9, was the first of Roosevelt’s 100 days that he spent with Congress to get emergency legislation passed in order to save the country. Roosevelt hurled blame at businessmen and bankers: "Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. . . . The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization." Governors had closed most banks in their states by March 4, 1933, and Roosevelt kept them closed until his legislation was passed in Congress. On March 9, Roosevelt sent to Congress the Emergency Banking Act, drafted in large part by Hoover's Administration; the act was passed and signed into law the same day. It provided for a system of reopening sound banks under Treasury supervision, with federal loans available if needed. Three-quarters of the banks in the Federal Reserve System reopened within the next three days. Billions of dollars in hoarded currency and gold flowed back into them within a month, thus stabilizing the banking system. By the end of 1933, 4,004 small local banks would be permanently closed and merged into larger banks.

All sounds a little too déjà vu, doesn't it? It highlights the point I am trying to make: History repeats itself over and over and over again. People used to ask me why I was majoring in history and why I went so far as to get a masters degree in the subject. They don't get it. If Americans had taken the time to read up and investigate the history of deregulation of the banking industry, perhaps some of our current troubles could have been avoided. Thus, it is astounding for me to hear that some high schools are moving away from the civics and history courses that used to be staples.

Those who have studied the Great Depression know that one thing Roosevelt had that we lack is bipartisan support from Congress for programs very similar to those President Obama is trying to push through. Every one of Roosevelt’s programs was passed by Congress with almost unanimous support, regardless of political affiliation. The economy slowly turned around towards the end of 1933 and returned to its pre-Depression level by 1937. The economy had a mild slump that year, but recovered and held steady until the beginning of World War II.

So, the question is: Did the lawyers and professionals now in Congress go to high schools where civics and history were required?

Now Hiring: Careers in Mathematics

Now Hiring: Careers in Mathematics

In the current economic climate, with unemployment rates rising, who worries about what math courses high school students take? One group, KnowHow2GO.org, is sponsoring an advertising campaign for--of all things--algebra. I saw this poster in my neighborhood and was puzzled: why would you advertise algebra, a required course for virtually all American high school students? It turns out that KnowHow2GO is concerned that students from low-income families, or who are the first in their families to pursue higher education, don't make it to college. Research shows that these students often lack the guidance they need to prepare for college.

The campaign, which started in January 2007 and is sponsored by the American Council on Education, Lumina Foundation for Education and the Ad Council , encourages secondary-level students to prepare for college by following these four steps:

1. Be a pain – Let everyone know that you’re going to college and need their help.

2. Push yourself – Working a little harder today will make getting into college even easier.

3. Find the right fit – Find out what kind of school is the best match for you and your career goals.

4. Put your hands on some cash - If you think you can't afford college, think again. There's lots of aid out there.

The algebra poster above illustrates Step 2: College-bound students should challenge themselves by choosing rigorous courses, including Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 & Trigonometry.

Advertising mathematics is not a new phenomenon, as illustrated by the WPA Federal Arts Project poster above (c. 1935), which points the way to a list of math-related careers that are still relevant today (though the title "calculating machine operator" has gone out of fashion.)

The American Mathematics Society maintains an excellent Web resource of careers for recent graduates who hold a Bachelor's degree in mathematics. Students who think that sounds totally boring should check out the "What Can I Do With a Math Career?"poster and the "Career Information for High School Students" brochure. Does being an animator, a pollster, an air traffic controller, an urban designer, or a climate analyst sound boring? (Comment below if it does.)

My last stop in this reverie about careers in mathematics was the job-search site Monster.com, which returned 4,209 postings for the key word "math."