Ode to Concrete

Note this post is for the National Day of Writing. It is being submitted to Bud Hunt's gallery in the National Gallery of Writing.   It has nothing to do with education or technology or does it ....

my school sidewalk

Ode to Concrete

To most people concrete is grey, cold, sterile, and under their feet. It is hard, rough, practical, taken for granted, and ugly.
To me concrete is the greatest material in the world. It is the ultimate in tensions.

from Andrew Carr

Concrete is natural. It is aggregate(sand and stone), cement, and water. It is earth. It was invented by the Romans and it is the only thing left from the ancient world not built of stone.
Concrete is technology. It is man-made and full of chemicals: fly ash, water reducers, superplasticizers, accelerators, and retarders. There are complicated mix designs for innumerable applications. It is chemistry and science at its finest. There is even translucent concrete now.

Concrete is hard. It is sidewalk that scratches knees.

Concrete is soft. It is like pancake batter or chunky soup when mixed. It changes form. It is fluid and then very solid. It is a shape-shifter that adapts to any container. It can be formed, molded, carved, or engraved.

Concrete is strong. It is

walls that hold back earth, foundations that hold up massive skyscrapers, and bridges that hold thousands of cars.

Concrete is weak. It shifts in cold climates and always cracks. It requires steel inside for tensile strength. When designed and placed improperly it crumbles under earthquakes and kills thousands.

from Andreas Levers

Concrete is ugly. It stands for industrialism and urban landscapes that are bleak with no life: the concrete jungle.

Concrete is beautiful.

It can be formed, molded, carved, engraved, ground, polished, and stained. It can be personalized with embedded objects. It is my art and I love it for its flaws and imperfections.

Concrete is a lot like me.

PS Here is a slideshow of some of my concrete art.

No one is "Waiting for Superman"

No one knows about or cares about Waiting for Superman Really.

I have not seen the movie, but have read many blogposts and newspaper reviews about it. I feel fed up with the negative portrayal of teachers just like many others. But does it really matter?

Very few people are going to see this movie or even know about it. Probably more people saw the "commercial" for it on Oprah than will actually see the movie. Jackass 3-D was the number one movie this past weekend and Superman fell two places to 18th on the list of movies viewed.

from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2010&wknd=42&p=.htm

With just over 2.5 million in total sales at $10 a ticket that is only 250,000 people. If we double that to half a million people to count for free viewings and cheaper tickets (I am being overly generous here) that is around 1 out of every 700 Americans.

Try this quick quiz with some people you know in real life:

1. What is Waiting for Superman?
2. Tell me everything you know about it.
3. Who is Michelle Rhee?
4. Tell me everything you know about her.
5. Who is Joe Klein/Geoffrey Canada/fill in your favorite "reformer" here?
6. Tell me everything you know about them.

You can add any fun questions you want to this list. Ask your spouse, neighbors, or friends. I am willing to bet you will get responses like this:

Now ask your colleagues at school. Did you get better answers? Again I bet probably not. So if no one watches Superman and no one knows about it then how dangerous is it really? I think for the average American it is as important as this is.

PS: Of course, I know that it matters that we debate this stuff at many levels, but I think edubloggers are over reacting at the effect of this movie on the average American.

10-10-10

So Binary Day is a cool day. It is a lucky day to the Chinese to get married. Why not have a baby?

You may have to click to my post to see the video. It is not showing up in my Google Reader.


Turns out locally (story) that one couple has had a baby each of the last three years. The birthdays are 08-08-08, 09-09-09, and now 10-10-10. An interesting story and the first thought I had are what are the odds of that?

I think this leads into an interesting problem/ discussion. I would ask students: "How random was this or do you think that they cheated?" Students could decide if they were "aiming" for these dates and if this is a truly "random" problem.

What do you think? Is this worthy question for your class and how would you use it?

Get rich or die tryin'

I found this fun lottery simulator from a tweet from unklar.

I thought it would be useful for a probability lesson. How would you use it?