Terribly Untitled

Several highly-caffeinated thoughts:

1) Humility in mathematics. I spent most of today researching a topic in which I'm very interested: education and tracking. I felt right at home among the dusty books and tattered articles my professors generously loaned me, coffee mug in hand. Easily, I lost myself for five hours. Then, to switch gears, finally cracked open my GRE practice book. Skipped the verbal section and headed straight to math, where for an hour or so I waded through once-familiar concepts (ah, oh yes...PEMDAS... comparing fractions? Bowtie method, right...) and felt the fog of mathematical illiteracy creep up on me. Feeling discouraged, I decided to translate my seeming inadequacy into productivity, and now have two beautiful Post-it notes on my desk with the times tables for 13 and 14 (I never memorized any of the tables past 12, did you?).

2) Tracking in schools. Along with *Nsync and middle hair parts, the tracking debate seemed to have fizzled out in the late nineties. Now—much like middle parts, actually—I'd like to argue that the controversy over tracking is making a comeback, and we need to start caring again. Downtown College Prep, a school five minutes away from the Santa Clara campus, is a radical new charter school aimed to serve the "low track" of middle school, and only the low track. In a way, DCP is like a fancy, revamped, high-pressure, high-resource "low" track that, by students' senior years, outputs "high track" students. Cool. Very cool. Looked at public schools, like Santa Clara High, that still offer remedial writing classes and felt slight nausea upon reading the brief class descriptions in their course catalog. Remedial writing classes—for the ninth all the way up to twelfth grades—were described as classes for students "who have yet to acquire English." However, Santa Clara High also has an ESL program with its own writing classes, so I have to wonder, from where does the assumption arise that these students have not acquired English? They can speak, can't they? The summary for the 12th grade class continued, "[Students] will learn that writing is a tool." Do the constructors of this curriculum really believe that students can't comprehend that learning how to write well is useful? Ew.

3) That said, education is a sensitive topic. I read this line of thought somewhere and it's really stuck with me. We cling onto our ideas about education the same way we cling to our religious values and political beliefs... so it must be important. Today I read part of a book that was published in the early 90s that predicted that in the 21st century, teaching would be an esteemed and well-paid position. Yeah, false.

4) We really do live up to what is expected of us. Somewhere between microwaving chicken nuggets and rushing off to meetings it was established in my house that my roommate and I can't really cook. Today we made a fabulous meal of spaghetti and meatballs. The day before I made a garlic-parmesan chicken pasta bake with mushroom alfredo sauce. Over winter break I made a mean honey-pesto salmon with herb-roasted potatoes and grilled asparagus. Common factor? I was home alone, free to cook without scoffing eyes! Roomies, I love you, but know that just because we don't, doesn't mean we can't. And I need to tell myself the same thing, and start preaching to myself (@JustinBuzzard)—believe the best in others, see the best in others, know the best in others, show the best in others. This applies to education, too (of course).

5) I felt like I had to finish this post with 5 points. Wow, so much coffee in me right now. Dangit.