“Golden Section: (golden mean) A geometrical proportion known at least since Euclid and regarded as a universal law of the harmony of proportions in both art and nature. The common formula is: to divide a finite line so that the shorter part is to the longer part as the longer part is to the whole.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference
Tagged art/architecture/design, numeracy, philosophy/religion, readings/research
“Proton (positive) * Neutron (neutral) * Electron (negative)
The proton is stuck like a plumb pudding together with its neutron partners, wround which whiz the much smaller electron particles, within a space known as the electron cloud. This whole mysterious building block of life is held together by the power of electromagnetism to form atoms, which are listed in all their wonderful variety in that evocative list known as the Periodic Table of Elements.
Democritus, who brilliantly analyzed that the entire universe was ‘all in flux’ back in the fifth century BC, was the first to speculate about an atom–though our focus on the essential building block of life has somewhat shifted back a bit, since we have learned that quarks like beneath the surface of both protons and neutrons.”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged literary oddities, numeracy, readings/research, science literacy
This worksheet on the Greek Word roots pan and panto–they mean all–guides students through an extremely productive root in English. You’ll find this root at the basis of words like panorama and pantheism–relatively commonly used words.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“[1] People love to play the Two Things game, but rarely agree about what the two things are. [2] That goes double for anyone who works with computers.
A few years ago, Glen Whitman was chatting with a stranger in a California bar. When he confessed to this stranger that he taught economics, the drinker replied without so much as a pause for breath, ‘So what are the Two Things about economics? You know, for every subject there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.’ ‘Okay,’ said the professor, ‘One: Incentives matter. Two: There’s no such thing as a free lunch.’
Inspired, Glenn started playing the Two Things Game and recording some of the results on a web page (Google ‘Whitman’ and ‘Two Things’ and you’ll get there). But it’s more fun to try it for yourself–and especially good if you find yourself at a dinner next to a self-important professional. Here are some of the best of Whitman’s:
Finance: [1] Buy low. [2] Sell high.
Medicine: [1] Do no harm. [2] To do any good, you must risk doing harm.
Journalism: [1] There is no such thing as objectivity. [2] The end of the story is created by your deadline.
Theatre: [1] Remember your lines. [2] Don’t run into the furniture or fall off the stage.
Physics: [1] Energy is conserved. [2] Photons (and everything else) behave like both waves and particles.
Religion: [1] Aspire to love an unknowable god. [2] Do this by trying to love your neighbour as much as yourself.”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Here is worksheet on the Latin root greg is the only thing I’ll post this week. It means flock, but if you look at the words in English that grow from it–e.g. congregate–you’ll see that the document is quite appropriate for the holiday season.
I’ll be back next week, however, with a round of new posts.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
Alright, I’m reaching the end of today’s burst of publishing. This week’s Text is a series of four context clues worksheets starting with the noun symmetry and continuing with the noun asymmetry, then the adjectives symmetrical and aysmmetrical. These are heavily used words in a variety of learning domains; students really ought to know them, which is why they merit their own Weekly Text. Put another way, the concepts these words represent cut across fields of knowledge to such an extent that these words are quintessential to learning itself.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
Here’s a worksheet on the Greek root para. It means, variously, beside, beyond, abnormal, variation, and assistant. If you’re serving a special needs population, chances are you’re working with a paraprofessional who works in parallel with you. And if you’re teaching science, especially, you know and probably even use paradigm in your classroom.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
OK: I have a couple of minutes before my presence is required elsewhere, so here is a worksheet on the Latin word root omni. It means all. You find it at the roots of many English words, including omniscient and omnipotent, which is why this post gets a philosophy tag.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
Here is a worksheet on the Greek word roots mono and mon if you can use it. They mean, of course, one, single, and alone. These are two very productive roots in English, and show up in words used across the domains of the common branch curriculum, e.g monocyte, monotheism, monosyllable, and monopoly, as well as in commonly used words in social discourse like monotony and monologue.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
This worksheet on the Latin word root uni should serve students well, particularly English language learners. It means, of course, one. This is an extremely florid root in English, showing up all over the place, and in words across the common branch curriculum.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
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