CTK Insights

The list of the 2010 Fields Prize Winners is now available on the web. There are two articles, The laudations and The work profile, that introduce each of the winners and throw light on their mathematics. The laudations is an extensive math biography, the work profile is a popular rendition of the winner’s achievement. This [...]

CSIRO Education, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute and the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations distribute a useful and interesting newsletter. The newsletter consists usually of a main article and several small problems. This time, the main article dealt with Preferential voting. Towards the end there appeared a claim to the effect that [...]

The US Constitution mandates fair and equitable distribution of seats among the member states. Starting with 1790, the population census has been conducted every tenth year. Several methods (algorithms, one can say) for the seat distribution (known as apportionment) have been considered; some tried at different times bringing to light curious inconsistencies. Needless to say [...]

I found a remarkable talk given by Robert Lang pointed to at the Math Frolic! blog. Dr. Robert J. Lang is an American physicist who is also one of the foremost origami artists and theorists in the world. Among other achievementsm he is known for having proved the completeness of Huzita–Hatori axioms and developing paper [...]

This is a Math teachers at play carnival, issue # which I am going to reveal shortly. See if you can make it from what is known as a single image stereogram. Try focusing your eyes behind the screen. In this month issue: What is the number of this issue? Sad news Interesting and relevant [...]

I think this is the first time in a long while that I read education news both without resentment or disbelief. Detroit Public Schools is set to open its first school without a principal — teachers will be running the day-to-day operations and making all pertinent decisions. (Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki, Detroit Public Schools tries something new: [...]

Professor Kim Sun-woong from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee has published in The Korea Times, Friday, July 2, 2010, an article, Koreans’ education zeal unparalleled globally. The article opens with a well deserved panegyric: Korea is one of the most highly educated nations in the world. As of 2010, the enrollment in primary schools [...]

In a recent post I have opined that an engaging book on the follies of gambling well deserves to be included in the classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, LLD. In fact the latter mentions (p. 425) that gambling was a matter of concern during the third crusade (led [...]

In the Fall 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given $45 million to six school districts, including Denver, for a two-year study of teaching. I’ll quote a response to this news from James D. Starkey, a retired teacher. The purpose of the study is a quest to find out the best teaching practices. [...]

I’ve been charmed by the opening allegory in John Rosemond’s article I reproduce below (Southern Illinoisan [Carbondale, IL], Sunday, May 24, 2009, p. 6D See http://www.southernillinoisan.com/articles/2009/05/24/lifestyles/family/28992003.txt.) I do believe that parents attitude is one of the factors that affects the process and the results of education system. Growing up, children absorb the surrounding culture, with [...]