[#113texts] Mentor Text Submission--Thinking in Numbers by Daniel Tammet

For my first #113texts Mentor Text Challenge post, I am going out on a limb, out of the box, out of... something. This isn't a typical mentor text for me, nor is this a typical mentor text post. But then again, the #113texts Mentor Text Challenge isn't typical either, now is it?

Caveat: I am not currently teaching in a classroom, and haven't had a chance to use this text with more than a group of two. Typically, for this challenge, I'd suggest sharing a text you've used and including student work. I'll share some of those, too. 

I discovered this book while roaming around a large bookstore-that-shall-not-be-named. In fact, I knocked a pile of these books off of a table and ended up carrying one around the store with me for a bit. I ended up leaving it there and getting the e-book edition at home, but taking it for a walk in the store was enough to set my pea brain to thinking. That, and I remember my dear SI Fellow-WRG-group-member Cynthia asking specifically for texts that could be used in the upper grades. And Mindy who helps us all remember the importance of math as we learn in SDAWP. Hey Cynthia and Mindy--how about this one?  And Kim, didn't you mention a book like this, or even this exact one? Why didn't I read it right then?

Enough fanfare, let me begin...

I have an unreasonable fear of math. It strikes me as a kind of magic that some people can do and that I cannot. Or a language similar to that of the Swedish chef on the Muppets.

I want to speak the language, do the magic, and I might be able to with the right teaching, but as of right now my brain still shuts right down when math approaches. Any math. Even addition.

This book is written by someone that speaks the language of math, but in a format that I can access--words. As we continue to explore the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in ELA and Math, we will be looking for texts that provide complexity, opportunities for deep reading, opportunities to take learning across more than one text, and that allow for students to do more than give us one single right answer. We are also asking teachers across the content areas to focus on reading, writing, speaking, and listening. I say, let's also thread the content areas into each other and into our ELA classes. Enter... Thinking In Numbers: On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math by Daniel Tammet.

Just look at the Table of Contents and consider the possibilities:

• Family Values
• Eternity in an Hour
• Counting to Four in Icelandic
• Proverbs and Times Tables
• Shapes of Speech
• On Big Numbers
• The Novelists Calculus
• Selves and Statistics

I spent some time with one chapter in particular--Chapter Four: Proverbs and Times Tables.I was thinking in terms of the possibility of using this with younger students as they learn multiplication and with older students who may be struggling with number sense or math concepts.  Don't get me wrong, this text is complex and will be a challenge for may grade levels, but rather than look at  what we can't do with it, let's look at what we can do. Try these excerpts from Chapter Four on for size:

Narrative Non-Fiction:

"I once had the pleasure of discovering a book wholly dedicated to the art of proverbs. It was in one of the municipal libraries that I frequented as a teenager. The title of the book escapes me now, the name of its author too, but I still recall the little shiver of excitement I felt as my fingers caressed its quarto pages. " 

Informative/Explanatory:

"One hundred proverbs, give or take, sum up the essence of a culture; one hundred multiplication facts compose the tens times tables. Like proverbs, these numerical truths or statements--two times two is four, or seven times six equals forty-two--are always short, fixed and pithy. Why then do they not stick in our heads as proverbs do?

Opinion/Argument:

"But they did before, some people claim. When? In the good old days, or course. Today's children, they suggest, are simply too slack-brained to learn correctly. Nothing interests them but sending one another text messages and harassing the teacher. The critics hark back to those days before computers and calculators; to the time when every number was drummed into children's heads til finding the right answer became second nature."

These three short excerpts could provide opportunities for close reading for many grade level--as young as third grade, I'd say. Yes, there are some structures that are difficult, some vocabulary they may not know. Perfect, right? And each excerpt above, from each CCSS text type, is rich in discussion and writing opportunities--discussion centered around proverbs, learning, math, and perception. 

Let's go a step further and examine an excerpt where Tammet discusses math as the essence of knowledge:

'The facts in a multiplication table represent the essence of our knowledge of numbers: the molecules of math. They tell us how many dimes make up a dollar (10 x 10), the number of squares on a chessboard (8 x 8), the quantity of individual surfaces on a trio of boxes (3 x 6). They help us divide fifty-six items among eight people (7 x 8 = 56, therefore 56/8 = 7), or realize that forty-three of something cannot be evenly distributed in the same way (because forty-three, being a prime number, makes no appearance among the facts)."

Let's just pull out the math vocabulary in this short paragraph: square, quantity, surface, trio, divide, evenly, distributed, prime number. Are one or more of these vocabulary words found in your grade level curriculum? I think, perhaps, yes. 

After a close reading of this text, imagine the discussion opportunities! Imagine a classroom full of eager elementary school students--eager to make those odd and personal connections to each topic we introduce.  Where could they take these concepts? Either in isolation (proverbs and then multiplication tables) or together (learning proverbs vs. learning multiplication tables), this discussion could really go somewhere. Our kiddos wouldn't leave the discussion with a correct answer, but would their brains be buzzing?  Would they be buzzing about things we want them to buzz about?

How about in a high school English class? The CCSS demands that content area teachers incorporate reading, writing, speaking, listening into their lessons.  What if an upper level English class incorporated some math? What would happen? 

All of this from just one chapter. A. Maze.Ing.

Here is a summary of this text for the #113texts challenge:

• Title and Author

Thinking In Numbers: On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math by Daniel Tammet

• Text Type and Genre

Informative/Narrative/Argument
Memoir/Non-Fiction

• Approximate Reading Level and/or Appropriate Grades

Excerpts could be used for younger grades.  Chapters for high grades. 

• The ways in which YOU have used the text successfully with as much detail as you can.

I have not yet used this text with students, which sort of breaks the rules. Anyone have some students I can borrow?

• Some excerpts from the book that exemplify the writer’s craft or other writerly tools

See above

[Photo A Day] August Break and Symmetry

A colleague of mine began the August Break 2013 on her blog. I like the idea of making a commitment to posting a photo a day and using that opportunity to reinvigorate your blogging. I am already taking part in a photo-a-day activity with the San Diego Area Writing Project on their blog (which I, ahem, help to administrate), and don't think I can keep track of two topics a day.  So...  I decided to combine the two--August Break 2013 (#augustbreak2013) using SDAWP Voices (#sdawpphotovoices) themes!

What does that mean for you?  I means I'll be posting photos each day and they may or may not have words that go with them.

The #sdawpphotovoices list of weekly themes is posted each month on SDAWPVoices.com. Today is the last day of "symmetry" and tomorrow starts a week of "curves".

I have an odd relationship with symmetry. As a sewist, I try to create symmetry in my work. When I walk around the world I notice symmetry and want to capture it on whatever device I have with me at the time. But I have an equal affinity for discord (don't ask my parents about this), and I LOVE the look of a pop of color or shape in the middle of symmetry. I love the juxtaposition of symmetry and discord. With that in mind I went through my phone photos looking for symmetry. Most of the photos below have a symmetry to them, but a measure of discord as well--either with their surroundings or within the photo itself.

And then I looked at my recent sewing projects and see a similar theme. 

Indulge me for a moment, whilc I apply this visual bent of mine to my work in education... I am an out-of-the-box thinker by nature.  Call it Pisces, call it liberal upbringing, call it creativity run amok. I just don't see things in packages that align with whatever underlying structure is at play. Of course I'd like to see this as innovation or true genius, but I think it's just exactly what it sounds like. I don't see things in structures and sometimes that leads to good ideas and sometimes it leads to a series of quizzical looks and shrugged shoulders. I have learned--am still learning--when to voice these discordant ideas and when to hold onto them. I haven't perfected this skill yet.  I may never.

Both in my new work in educational leadership and in my classrooms, I work to provide structure, or symmetry in my environment. Clear organization, color-coding, classroom procedures.  All of these in order to provide a field for my own crazy ideas and those of my students.  The structure is the guideline inside of which we can have utter freedom. 

So, that is my journey through symmetry with punctuations of philosophy. How does symmetry fall in to your life?  Your teaching?  Your leadership?

By the way, watch out--next week is curves. I loves me some curvy lines and swirls, so I'm thinking this will be a prolific week for me!

[SDAWP Photo Voices] "Green" Link Up

Hubris.  That's how I entered the "green" week with SDAWP Photo Voices--with hubris. Green? What a breeze! It's summer in San Diego! The place is positively brimming with green! Early into Day 1 I spied this leaf outside the SDAWP offices:

I didn't even the see  awesome bug on the bottom right hand side of the photo until later.  And veins on the leaf itself--who knew an iphone could do that? (Lot's of people, I think, but I'm new to it). 

The next day I had to look for green.  It turns out I wasn't accepting just any green, and it was limiting me.  Kim talked about this on her blog as well--I had set the bar too high with red. Green was stumping me and continued to do so.  I settled on my spray cleaner bottle, but felt like I was cheating:

A few days later I captured this bike outside Price Center and these books in Giesel Library though I never did post the books.

And here I am on Sunday evening with very little to show for it and a distinct feeling that I missed some gorgeous greens. In fact, let me tuck my hubris away for a moment, eat some humble pie, and go take a five-minute walk-about.  Let's see what I come up with...

About five minutes later...

Well then.  There it is.  A bumper crop of green.  I didn't even leave my front yard. My favorite is the one with the splash of red.  I'm a sucker for a pop of color. 

What did you find this week?  Link up at  the SDAWP Voices "Green" Link Up!

[SDAWP Photo Voices] Orange Link up

I complained about yellow, but orange was a sticky wicket.  Now I need to look up sticky wicket...

Here is my favorite of the bunch:

[SDAWP Photo Voices] Yellow Link-up

I finished off my yellow week with a few pictures that I liked. Yellow was tough for me, for some reason, but I think I made friends with it.

[Life] The One Where I Compare Doodling, Jogging, and Beauty

I am a doodler. I like the word doodle when I say it over and over again in my head (because if I did it out loud I would appear crazy).  I mostly doodle for free-motion quilting ideas, but I doodle for other reasons as well.  I doodle to focus when I need to, I doodle to play with lines and color when my brain needs to refresh, I doodle to see if some day I can doodle my way into being artistic.  I have books on doodling and watch You Tube videos about it. My doodle books are written by real artists.  I see that doodling is art, but I still call myself a doodler rather than an artist.  But then I remember...

doodler : artist ::  jogger : runner

Just like running books say to motivate yourself by calling yourself a runner rather than a jogger, and professional publications say to dress for the job you want, I suppose I should try on the word artist. I think I use the word doodler because I'm not willing to call myself an artist.  I see what art looks like and I don't feel like my pen doodles or thread doodles are art. BUT, if I were one of my students and they said something like that, I would instantly say to them "You are an artist!"  They would protest, blush and shake their heads at me and I would insist.  "You are! You are an ARTIST.  Own it!" And I would provide the opportunities to explore that new idea and the skills involved and mentor to help them develop a vision. In my own head though, when I call myself a doodler rather than an artist or when

 I say "I like to write" rather than "I am a writer", the voice that protests is very quiet.  Quiet enough to ignore.

In the last few  days this theme, this lesson, has come to me in a variety of forms.

First, I separated out the two sides of my life--education and artsy stuff--into two Twitter accounts, and re-separated my blog into two blogs By Pen or By Thread and Wear the Cape. It set me to thinking about how I don't declare my creative side to my education life very often, and I don't declare my education side to my creative life much at all. Why is that?  They feed into each other constantly. Some posts, like this one perhaps, belong on both.

Then, "Make Cycle #4" started with the National Writing Project Making Learning Connected #clmooc.  And yes, that sounded like a new language to me at first, too.  The focus of this Make Cycle is the develop a credo. I was especially drawn to the idea of using Bull Durham's iconic speech (linked here, but please be warned it is not G-rated.  Bull Durham was, indeed, human) as a mentor text, I probably still will, but this idea of declaring your own beauty, your own intentions just keeps tip-tip-tippity-tiptoeing around me and poking me. What would be my focus for my credo?  Education or Creativity?  Would I dare combine them?

And yesterday a co-worker told me about the You Are Beautiful Campaign which is based on the idea of sharing one simple thought with your world--the thought that you are beautiful in every moment--by placing "You are beautiful" stickers all around the world. Here is a wonderfully concise video explaining it.

And last night I read Kim's post  on Thinking Through My Lens where she shared a video about embracing your creativity by David Sivers.

 Now those sentiments from  the last couple of days are banging around in my head. What would happen if I embraced those phrases that I hide from?  I am an artist.  I am a writer.  I am beautiful.  What does it feel like to say those  things?  To declare them boldly?  How are we helping our communities--professional, personal, classroom--to embrace their own creativity, their own beauty?  Isn't there more power in the message if we do it ourselves as well?

For today, I'm still turning it all over in my mind.  Doodling... jogging... creativity... beauty... education.

Also posted on By Pen or By Thread

[SDAWP Photo Voices] A Yellow Walk

The theme for SDAWP Photo Voices this week is "yellow." Last week was "red" and it was surprisingly easy to find interesting red things. Yellow... so far... not so much. So early this morning,, after being pounced on by the puppy at 5:34 A.M.  precisely (every, single. morning.  5:34 A.M. ) I took my trusty "big camera" out on a yellow walk.

As I walked I meta-cognated (it is too a word!  and if it isn't, it ought to be). Why was yellow harder to find?  Where does yellow become orange and when does it become brown? And what about how yellow makes you feel?  And why didn't I enjoy my yellow walk as much as my red walks last week?

From Psychological Properties of Colours by Angela Wright

YELLOW. Emotional
Positive: Optimism, confidence, self-esteem, extraversion, emotional strength, friendliness, creativity.

Negative: Irrationality, fear, emotional fragility, depression, anxiety, suicide.
The yellow wavelength is relatively long and essentially stimulating. In this case the stimulus is emotional, therefore yellow is the strongest colour, psychologically. The right yellow will lift our spirits and our self-esteem; it is the colour of confidence and optimism. Too much of it, or the wrong tone in relation to the other tones in a colour scheme, can cause self-esteem to plummet, giving rise to fear and anxiety. Our "yellow streak" can surface.

Well then... What an amazingly powerful color--both optimism and depression, self-esteem and emotional fragility, emotional strength and anxiety?  Maybe my eyes didn't know what to think as they scanned the streets and fields on my morning walk.

This discovery lead me to think about a short story my artsy cousin K shared with me years ago. It's called The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (full text here).In some ways similar to The Bell Jar, the author here has shared a ficitonalized account of her own forays into mental illness (forays? perhaps not quite). I read a few literary critiques about the story and there is a lot of discussion about the underlying themes of "andocentric hegemony" and allegorical reference to "yellow journalism." For my purposes today though, how about a close look at the color yellow? Out of 6000 words yellow appears only 10 times excluding the title (thank you Google Chrome "find" option.) 

The first:

The second:

Then half of them in this excerpt:

And then:

While I'm tempted to squirrel away my yellow photos in order to have something to share all week, this contemplation makes me want to show what I have today and challenge myself to keep looking--warring emotional well-being and all. 
So here is the yellow wallpaper of my walk today



Try a yellow walk of your own and see what happens--what do you see? what do think? how do you feel?

[Books] Reading List

My "to-read" list of books has recently spilled over the edges.  I'm carrying a couple of books in my work bag, storing a couple more next to my bed, one more on my desk at work, and three on the Kindle app on my tablet. I want to have read them all.  I actually want to read them all!  I plan to list them here and make a declaration that I will read them.  First the list, then the declaring:

Books in my work bag:

Mindset by Carol Dweck

Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement by Stephanie Harvey

The book on my desk:

CELDT Coordinators Manual by the California Department of Education

Books on my Kindle app:

Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess

The Daily Five by Gail Bousey

Books by my bed:

The Instructions by Adam Levin

Write Like This by Kelly Gallagher

Okay, those are they.  There are seven of them, and they range wildly in their content, interest level, and weight (in the singular case of The Instructions--it's too heavy to lift). 

I do hereby declare that I will read these books and post on my progress before the end of the Summer (officially, Labor Day). I do also hereby declare a caveat in the instance of The Instructions as it is quite long and might be too heavy to lift. 

There. It has been said.