Old Wooden Chairs

I am taking a math course being taught in a building at Arizona's "world class university." 

Every now and then, I am the first person to arrive. Here is what I see.

Wooden chairs




Our flag, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights





The view from Engineering 308

We have a quiz tomorrow. I'll report back.

I haven't sent an email message to Charisse, my potential editor. Hopefully I'll get that done tonight.

I Couldn't Stop Myself

Today's algebra class was supposed to consist of a quiz and then soldering on through the rest of Chapter 2, graphs and linear functions.

4:00 p.m., no professor. No surprise.

4:05 no professor but a few students who put together the pattern wander in.

4:10 nope. The students are actually more passive and I can imagine. There are almost no sarcastic remarks. And, to my surprise and in some ways, disappointment, no anger.

4:15, one of the students receives a text. It's from John, our professor. He'll be here in 10 minutes. He's stuck making copies of the quiz.

4:25, one of the kids announces, "at 4:30, we're out of here." Plenty of nods in agreement.

4:29, John walks in the door.

I tried to convince myself to sit still and act like a passive freshman. I tried to convince myself that I should stay in my reporter mode and just tale notes about how the class unfolded, that I should not become part of the story. But I couldn't stop myself. So I raised my hand.

"John, we really need to have a class meeting. There are some things we need to talk about."

That got my classmates' attention.

John smiled and said, sure, what's on your mind.

No need to quote myself here, but in a nutshell I suggested that if for whatever reason he can't make it to class at 4:00, let's agree to meet at 4:15, that our time is also valuable. I pointed out that calibration was important and he still hadn't returned our first quizzes. I also suggested that he create a more detailed syllabus or plan for the class that would impose some discipline to get us through the material and let us know exactly when tests would be and what they would cover.

He good naturedly and non-defensively seemed to agree with all that.

He asked for others to speak up and they did. One girl had a great plan for how to use the class time. She suggested that as soon as class starts he hand out a very short quiz based on the most recent homework (tied to the schedule in the syllabus). Then he should take time immediately afterward to go over and difficulties that students had. And right after that, move on to the key points that we needed to know in the following section. And then save the last part of class for work with the students who need more individual or hands on attention.

John liked that idea and implemented a version of it immediately.

Because so many people had left before he arrived at 4:30, he had decided not to give the quiz. Instead, he handed it out to us to complete with the idea the we would immediately look at the problems as a class. It worked.

I like John and believe his heart is in the right place. I think he wants to do a good job and wants his students to learn. I believe that he is incredibly smart. I also believe that it must be quite difficult and demotivating to try to teach low math-aptitude college freshmen about numbers in an antiquated classroom for not very much money.

It is also apparent (I imagine appropriately for a physics Ph.D.) that classroom management, planning, and high level social skills, are not big parts of his personal portfolio.

Still, respect needs to run both ways. We show up on time. He needs to also. We are counting on him to lead us through the material in this course. Most of the students are taking this class because they eventually need to pass college algebra. Hopefully this class will supposedly prepare them for that. College algebra is a pre-requisite for all kinds of majors.

We just learned about using graphs to predict progress or outcomes. According to my linear function, it is apparent that at the rate (slope: y=mx+b) we are going, we will not get through as much of the book as we need to. That realization made me probably overstep my bounds. I decided to talk with John after class.

Gail (my wife) was kind of appalled when I told her this story, but I went up to John and asked whether I could volunteer to help him write the detailed syllabus that I had brought up at the beginning of class. He was open to the idea.

I also told him about how impressed I was with the online help and the CD videos that were available for everyone who had purchased the book. I suggested that he think about switching more responsibility for learning the material to students and using classroom time for evaluation (quizzes and tests), prioritization, clarification, and remedial work for those who needed it. There is simply too much material in the book to cover in three and a half hours a week.

We agreed to try to get together some Tuesday or Thursday to talk more.

A Snapshot into a Different World

One of my classmate's dads landed on this blog. He sent a nice note saying, "I enjoyed your blog immensely, a snapshot into my daughter's world." (Thanks!)

I had a chance to experience a different aspect of that world today, all by myself, sitting at a computer solving graphing problems. I got a feel for how much discipline it must take on the part of an 18-year-old to spend time at a desk doing homework to pass a class that they know in their hearts (accurately or not) will have no use to them for the rest of their lives.

Tucson was warm and beautiful today. I have a couple of great bicycles in my garage that are a pleasure to ride and I haven't been on one of them since Thursday. Mt. Lemmon is already cool enough for a light jacket. There is still water in Sabino Canyon and Romero Pools. And I spent the day struggling through beginning functions.

The good news is, I know a bunch of stuff now that I didn't on Friday morning when I jumped in. Some of the stuff is sticking. It is a little exciting having light bulbs turn on. I might actually pass Monday's quiz.

I feel for some of my classmates. The ones for whom this is just review from high school will do fine. But for those of us who need to learn this material for the first time, it's not going to be easy going. There is no bluffing in math. The answer is right or wrong, at least at this level. I don't see how a lot of the kids are going to pass. I'm not sure about me.

But, have times ever changed. Inside of the classroom, not so much. It might as well be 1962. A teacher, a book, and a blackboard. O.K., a whiteboard. But at home, everything is different.

That $135 package that I complained about so much came with all kinds of goodies that I am beginning to appreciate. There are CDs packed with videos that cover every section of the book. There is a "solutions" book that works out problems step by step. And there is an online version of the book, the problems, and solutions that you can work through.

You click on a problem and a graph pops up where you can plot the points. There is a button that reads, "Help me solve this." You click on that and it walks you through the problem. You can ask for an example of the problem. You can watch a video clip where a teacher talks about what you need to know to solve the problem. And, when you enter the right answer, the screen produces a graphic that says "wonderful," "great job," and things like that.

It's like there is no excuse for not learning what's there except for wanting to be outside pedalling my bicycle up Mt. Lemmon at least to Windy Point rather than sitting in a dim room all day Saturday looking at a computer screen, scrawling numbers and letters on scrap paper, and wiggling my fingers over a grungy keyboard.

The Book

I need to write a note to Charisse and haven't yet. Hopefully tomorrow. In the meantime, I've been thinking about it.

My early thoughts are that I might not have the time or talent to write the book that I think would be the best. I don't know whether I can write as funny or as clever as I'd want the book to be. And, for that matter, I am not even sure I could write illustrative news stories as tight and credible as they ought to be. And, I'm pretty sure I would rather not take actual news stories from papers (even with permission) to illustrate what I'm writing about, because that would date the book so quickly.

So, I've been thinking about other formats.

One idea was to have a series of conversations between a fictional journalist/math guru and a young reporter about telling readers the truth with numbers and how.

When I was a freshman in high school my thing was drama. I wanted to write, act, direct, all of it. Gerald McCoy, one of my most important and best teachers, turned me on to Acting: The First Six Lessons, by Richard Boleslavsky. At the time, I though it was one of the two or three most important books I had ever read. It was written as a series of six conversations between a director and an acting student. The language was accessible and at the time I thought the lessons were profound. I haven't seen the book for probably 40 years. I wonder what I would think of it now. But it is still a classic.

Another idea is to create a book that is similar in concept but involves discussions with notable people in the journalism world about why numbers matter. Those individuals will inevitably share examples of good things and bad things they had seen during their careers. After their discussions, I would write about the kinds of things they were referring to and give instruction on how to do those things.

And yet another slightly different approach would be to ask editors the question: "In terms of numbers, what is one thing that all working journalists absolutely must know how to do?" The answers, I imagine would be different, and using quotes from these leading editors as a take off point, I'd go into the hows and whys of particular skills that journalists should master.

Still, I need to get back on my bike tomorrow so I can think about some of these things.

"I Like the Idea"

At 12:00 sharp I got a call from Charisse Kiino, the Chief Acquisitions Editor for College Publishing at CQ Press.

She again apologized about missing yesterday's phone appointment and explained how executives from SAGE Press, which had bought CQ Press in May, were having a series of meetings that she was involved in (without her Blackberry).

She told me a little about both CQ and SAGE and why she was happy about the acquisition. She has been with the publishing house for 10 years.

She sounded like a "high energy -- think of the possibilities!" person on the phone and I liked that.

We got right into the idea of a book to help journalists navigate numbers. She asked about me my thoughts about the books that were already out there and I told her most of what I have written here in earlier posts. I even went so far as to suggest that if I were in her shoes I would consider working up a distribution agreement with the IRE and try to get Sarah Cohen's, Numbers in the Newsroom, a wider readership.

I suppose I was more excited about talking to Charisse than she was to me, so I did too much of the talking. But, on the other hand, it is my idea we were talking about and I am excited about it. And she probably talks to college professors every day and I've only spoken with one other publishing house acquisitions editor.

I told her that I want my "Navigating Numbers for Journalists" book to be fun to read, not just be a boring reference book that people buy because they think they ought to, but never open after the first day because they fall asleep during the second paragraph, or in this case, equation.
People actually read for enjoyment, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation , by Lynne Truss.

Bill Walsh did exactly what I want to do with his two books. After a long career as one of the country's top newspaper copy editors, Bill took a way too boring topic and made it fun. Not once, but twice.

He wrote The Elephants of Style : A Trunkload of Tips on the Big Issues and Gray Areas of Contemporary American English and followed it up with the even more cleverly titled, Lapsing Into a Comma : A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print--and How to Avoid Them ..

Both were full of great information. But they were funny and quotable and well written at the same time.

Another really fun book is a new illustrated version of The Elements of Style. Maria Kalman brought the book back to life with happy illustrations.

So, the (fantasy?) vision is, If I can do for numbers and news what those guys did for words, that would be too cool.

Back to the talk with Charisse and business. I had several questions that she was nice enough to answer for me.

CQ Press is highly respected and very serious. Check their list. I asked Charisse whether a light, fun to read, but accurate and credible math guide for journalists is consistent with their mission. (I learned to use words like mission when I got my MBA in the late 80s).

She said, sure.

Taking Tom Miller's advice, I asked her whether the press or she individually would be comfortable working with an agent. This is when I really started to like her. Instead of just laughing or saying something like, "gimme a break," and then laughing, she gently explained that the main reason that authors are represented by agents is to negotiate big advances with big publishers in case the book doesn't make it. CQ Press doesn't market books that "make it" in the big seller sense. Their books "make it" because they are useful to people who need them and they sell for years and years and authors slowly and consistently collect royalties.

I told her how I might have taken in $500 or so in royalties from my book, Race and Class on Campus: Conversations with Ricardo's Daughter, published in 1997.

I didn't tell her how yesterday at lunch (that I got to join thanks to her not calling) Ted Robbins, Tom, and I had a good laugh as Ted joked about the whole idea of still us believing that you can make money as a result of creating intellectual property.

She said, if I was more comfortable working through an agent, she is fine with that.

Next steps

Charisse said the next step would be for me to work on a chapter and run it by her. I said, I'd do that. (O.K., now what do I do?)

She didn't ask me to prepare a formal proposal. I might anyway. I know how to do that.

Then she asked me when I'd like for her to give me a call "to nudge me along. In a couple of months?"

That struck me. Months? I've been telling my students that in today's Internet news world, there are no weekly or even daily deadlines. The deadline is every ten minutes.

I suggested that she let me get back to her. Is next Thursday too anxious? I'll at least email her tomorrow about how much I enjoyed talking to her.

After we finished talking about the book, I wanted to ask her a ton of questions about herself --my reporter's curiosity kicking in. I had googled her and there were plenty of interesting things I wanted to ask about, but it seemed too stalky. One cool thing though, a big deal for a small town Arizonan, is that she is the second person I now know who had their wedding written up in the N.Y. Times. The first was Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords.

We finished our conversation and in moments I transformed back from a potential big time writer through a moment or two as a low ranking university professor, to being a student in a remedial math class at Pima Community College. It was back to section 2.2, graphing functions.

Didn't talk -- Yet

I cleared my desk and my head. I had three good "math for journalists" books in front of me along with a list of topics I thought should be in my book. At 11:55 a.m. I shut my office door in anticipation of the call from the publisher.

12 noon. Nothing.

12:05. Maybe she was fixing her hair before the call.

12:10. Perhaps the 80 percent rule was going to kick in. That goes something like: If you're expecting something to happen, 10% of the time it does. 10% of the time it won't. But 80% of the time, it gets put on hold.

12:15. OK, Tom Miller and Ted Robbins are waiting for me to have lunch with them at Beyond Bread, a 10 minute bike ride away. I'm outta here.

I called and left a message saying that I hoped I got the time and date right, would be around tomorrow, and headed out.

Tom's two best quips:

"Well, there goes your best seller."

and, with his voice of experience speaking:

"You know, Jay, if a publisher stands you up for an appointment, it means thay must offer you a contract."

She called at 1:00 but I didn't hear or feel the phone. After I got back to my office, I got her message explaining what happened. Their publishing house is being acquired by a larger one and the place was crawling with executives and she was part of all kinds of meetings and couldn't break away to call me. O.K., I've been there.

So, I've spent the last hour and a half on the computer doing graphing problems to get ready for Monday's quiz. I promised myself that I wouldn't check either my email or the New York Times until I got through section 2.2 (I need to work through 2.6 this weekend). When I came up for air and checked my email, I saw in the subject line: "Talk today?"

I clicked and read this message:
------------------------------------------------------

"Jay,I am so sorry about yesterday. I found myself in a meeting with my boss,my boss's boss, and a xxxx exec and could not easily extract myself. You said in your voicemail that you'd have some time today to talk. Would around 3pm EST work for you?

Thanks for your understanding.

Best,
xxxxx "

----------------------------------------------------

I'll report back after lunch.

New Insights

My classmates

One of today’s insights was about empathy.

At the end of class today, there were three students still standing (actually sitting). Everyone else had bailed – some early, some late. Besides me, there were two probably freshmen females, who were both distinguished by having a heart.

They approached Prof. John and offered some suggestions about how to get students to stay longer. John seemed puzzled and then asked if it was disruptive to them that other students left during class. They said yes, but what bothered them was how rude and disrespectful they thought it was. I couldn’t tell how John felt about their comments, but I admired both of them for their concern and compassion.

The class is made up primarily of freshmen who didn’t qualify to get into “college algebra” which they need to be admitted into some majors. Their age category was verified when I overheard one of them remark, “I got my skateboard fixed. I went to the hardware store and got some screws for it.”

The class seems to be made up of four types of kids.

There are students who have either dropped the class or stopped coming. I suppose some of them will show up to take exams and hope for the best. They may even know the material and just need the class on their transcripts.

A handful of students attend about half of each session, are quiet enough, take notes, and just seem to be there.

The “high self esteem” group is not happy to be in class and does not have much patience (or, respect) for our teacher. They are the ones who suggest that class end early, that everyone get A’s, make eye contact and giggle if John stumbles over anything, and get up and leave when they've had enough for the day. These kids have personalities. They’re fun and sometimes funny and probably have plenty of friends. But, as I sat in a class given by a community college for no university credit, I thought back 25 years to a sign hanging on the wall behind a news director’s desk at a TV station where I worked. The sign read something like, “If you’re that spectacular, why are you still working in Peoria?”

And there are the couple of students who have been blessed (I hope) with more than the average share of empathy.

During our first class, I have already forgotten exactly when – after class or during the break – one girl asked out loud to no one in particular, “Why is everyone being so mean?” I thought good things about her. She was one of the girls who stayed until John finished the last problem on the board today. She was the one who first approached him about students leaving during his teaching. I don’t need to embarrass her here by using her name but she is a freshman, out of state student. She hopes to major in business and needs this class and says she doesn’t do well in math. She feels for the teacher and it bothers her personally that many of her classmates are “rude.” She’s not sure he even notices the rudeness, but, even so . . .

I think I have a lot to learn from her.

Fessing up

Before class started I was at my desk writing notes – like the quote about the skateboard. One of the students was curious enough to comment on my writing in my yellow legal pad and ask about it. I said was taking notes about the class and blogging about it. There were probably six or eight students in the classroom at the time, and they all looked up. There were a few more questions about me and who I was and about my blog’s address. I told them about this blog and a couple immediately typed the URL into their laptops. That’s why there was a spike in readership at about 4 today.

When I said I was taking notes about the class in general, and after I let them know about this blog, several of them piped up and said I should write a book about the experience. As soon as I said that I’m thinking about it, several said, “I wanna be in it.” I smiled to myself and thought, “Are you sure?” But I also smiled because, even at 18 years old, still, they instinctively seemed to feel that if my story were in a book, it was real. The Internet doesn’t really count. Ink on paper.

First experience feeling lost in symbols

Today’s other insight was what it felt like to be clueless.

One of the reasons I am starting this little math odyssey is to put myself into situations where I “don’t have a clue” and see what happens. That happened today, already.

John was at the board, going as slowly and deliberately as he could. He was carefully explaining and demonstrating manipulating functions algebraically and how to use the “point slope form” to solve problems. He was speaking perfect English and writing letters and numbers on the board that I could identify, and I might as well have been in a classroom in Korea. Not exactly. I could grasp phrases and once the problems were simplified into a “solve for x” format, I was back with the program. But what puzzled me, was that this was supposed to be (still) the easy review part of the course. We’re barely on chapter 2 of a 14 chapter book that we are supposed to get through.

Most of my classmates seemed comfortable. After all, I learned, they had this material last year as high school seniors. I knew should be able to follow this stuff and I was afraid I was missing something obvious.

That thought brought me back to 4th grade band. I did well on the music aptitude tests. I could differentiate pitch and mimic back rhythms from memory. I was assigned a beautiful coronet and could make sounds. I quickly learned a couple of scales in one octave. But I missed an important point of information. It never occurred to me and no one ever told me that note placement on the staff related to pitch, not just finger placement on the keys. When the notes, by name, repeated on the next octave, I just didn’t get the concept that the sound needed to be higher in pitch as it worked its way up the staff. It wasn’t just another set of buttons to push to get a C or F. I didn’t put that concept together until years after I quit band.

I’m hoping these linear function things that we’re learning about now don’t have something “obvious” going on that I’m totally missing. If I find out, I’ll tell you.

First appointment with the (my?) publisher

My telephone appointment with the publisher’s senior acquisitions editor is tomorrow at noon. I had hoped to spend a good part of today preparing, but didn’t for even a minute. I thought about it on my bike ride home and feel good. The best case scenario could be great. Any worst case scenario, not good, but not too bad either.

Not bad scenario: I have a good visit on the phone with a nice lady and we have a short brainstorming session that is stimulating but she or I or both of us realize we really don’t have a project.

Bad case scenario: We like the idea, I commit, we sign contracts, and I can’t get it done. I’d hate that.

Other bad case scenario: I write “The Minimal Math Book for Journalists,” and it is bad. It either doesn’t get published or get’s published and no one like it or buys it.

Best case scenario: I write a useful and cleverly illustrated “Minimal Math Book for Journalists” and it becomes a standard tool for students and working journalists all over the world for years to come, sort of like “Elements of Style” but about numbers. Nice daydream.

I’ll let you know how the phone call went in my next post.

The Book, the Quiz

The book

I arrived at my office, parked my bike to the left of my desk, cranked up the computer, and clicked on my email. What a nice surprise. The first message I noticed in the subject line was "math guide for journalists." The senior acquisitions editor wrote me back. Here's her note:

"Jay,

Thanks for the response with all of your feedback on the books already out there. Let's go ahead and talk this week about the book idea and see if it makes sense to pursue it. I'll plan to call you on Thursday at 3pm EST. Does that work?

Best, ------ "

Well, why not?

I wrote her back (making 100% sure I spelled her name correctly):

"Thursday at 3 p.m your time, noon my time will be great. I look forward to visiting with you. Meantime, let's have fun watching congress this week.

Jay "

I'll report back.


-----------------------------------
The Quiz

Interesting insight again.

In my last post I wrote about precision. I went into this very easy quiz knowing that I knew the elementary material Prof. John would put up on the board for us. I also figured that I would make a stupid mistake just by being careles but I should try not to.

During my 11 o'clock features class I lectured my own students about how important it was to be careful, to go slow enough, to re-read copy. I told myself I'd be careful on my first quiz, go slow enough, and re-read my answers.

The material was easy and everyone was going through the problems fairly quickly. So was I. I even told myself, "OK, go over everything before you turn the paper in." Did I? Of course not.

John went over the answers immediately. When he was half way through question 5, I'm pretty sure three or four of my classmates turned around when I said, "dang!." As part of a problem, nested inside a bunch of brackets and parenthesis you were supposed to multiply 2 x 3 and then square the answer (36, by the way). Racing through the test I saw the two and the 3 and my mind went "five." I squared 5 to get 25 and that messed up the rest of the problem. O.K., a lesson learned yet again.

Just today, I handed a paper back to a student who wrote "window seal" instead of "window sill." After my quiz experience, I know I probably shouldn't have drawn a picture of a baby seal balancing a ball on his nose in the margin by his very innocent and embarrassing error.

Can you Learn Precision?

I'm studying for my first quiz. It will be tomorrow at 4 p.m.

The material is easy, stuff I could do in junior high school and certainly 9th grade. What's missing on my part though is precision.

I preach to students about finding just the right word or just the right light or framing for a photograph. But the fact is (I think) that there isn't any just right word or just right structure or just right light or just right framing or just right point of view. It's what you pick, and if it works, it works.

The numbers have to be right. One tiny mistake and the whole thing's wrong and gets wronger by the minute. And I'm making lots of tiny mistakes. It's being just like earlier in the month when I was doing those addition problems when I could add the same list of numbers three times and get three different answers. When I became very, very careful and slowed down a lot, I'd more often get it right.

This seems to be a whole different way of thinking or at least proceeding going on here.

I wonder, can you be imaginative and deliberate and careful and precise all at the same time? It has always seemed to me that deliberate and careful and precise usually kill imaginative, creative, and resourceful.

One of the reasons I decided to pursue math was to give myself the chance to explore new ways of thinking, new ways of approaching problems and solving them, and to learn how other people approach the world. Well, I'm getting my first taste already. I'm not frustrated, just curious. Can you learn to be careful enough to be accurate? What are the costs of being that careful? Is it simply laziness or is being precise its own skill and you can acquire? And if you can acquire that skill it probably doesn't happen by typing words into a computer.

I'm off to work on solving an equation that I've already done twice. The quiz should be fine.

I'm In -- And My Book Might Have Life

Our Second Session

I guess it was delusions of grandeur, or more likely, just delusion that kicked in during the first five minutes of Wednesday's class.

About eight or nine students were in class when I got there and more trickled in. Students started trying to make sense of our previous class. Some quotes from the students:

"I shoulda brought a pillow."
"I feel bad. We were mean."
"What's his name?"
"Maybe we should all leave at five instead of six."

At 4 o'clock, the beginning of class, John Lapeyre, our professor, wasn't there.

I was writing notes about the students when it kicked in. Me thinking: "O.K., a room full of freshmen and sophomores. A whiteboard, this time with markers on the tray. A textbook. No teacher. We have our first quiz on Monday. I bet I could teach the class. It would be cool to go from beginning math student to teaching math in a classroom at a major university within a week."

My mental checklist included how I would involve the students, what I would cover in how much time, how I would introduce myself, when to bring students up to the board, and I began wondering whether or not I should bill Pima College for the two hours. Then Prof. Lapeyre walked in. Dang! Or maybe, Whew! And class started.

The Minimal Math Book for Journalists

The book may not be dead.

Yesterday, during one of the thousand times I checked my email inbox, I noticed the subject line: "math guide for journalists." That got my attention. I clicked and saw this note. (By the way, I thought it would be smart for me not to share the writer's name or her company. If I get to talk with her, I'll ask if I can.) Anyway, here's what she wrote:

Dear Jay (if I may?),

Hi there, greetings from DC. I hope this message finds you well. My name is xxxxxx and I’m the chief acquisitions editor with the college division of xxx Press. Your colleague, David Cuillier, mentioned that you’re interested in writing a brief math guide for journalists. David and I are working together on his book, and he was very nice to let me know about your plans. It sounds like a great project and one I’d be very interested in hearing more about. Have you already drafted a proposal that you’re willing to share? Or would it be useful to you if we spoke on the phone before you started committing ideas to paper? I’d be happy to give you a call—just let me know a convenient time to reach you.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,
xxxxxxxx


So, is that cool, or what?

I immediately emailed her back saying I'd like to talk with her. Why not? In what was probably a self-sabotaging move, I also included the thoughts I shared here last week about how good those two other books were and that what I had in mind probably wasn't really needed. Bad marketing on my part.

At the same time, Dave tells me that from the publisher's point of view, it would be good for them to have their own math for journalists book on their list.

I hope she and I get to talk and see where it goes, if anywhere. Plus, she seems like a nice person. I do think it would be useful to have a fun and funny and hopefully easy book for journalists who don't do numbers. I wonder whether "The Dumbed Down Math Book for Journalists," is too close to a copyright violation of the "For Dummies" series.

She hasn't called yet. Dang.

Jumping In

So I opened the little red Swiss army knife on my key chain (fourth in a series -- the others confiscated by homeland security at various airports to protect America) and gently pricked a hole in the plastic that was protecting the book packet (and me). I decided to commit.

The 750 page book felt like it weighed 50 lbs. There was a solutions manual, a cd with videos about math that I haven't opened, a password to get internet access to what I imagine is more instruction. Professor Lapeyre intends to blow off everything except for what's in the book. Fine by me.

As I glanced through the book, it didn't look as overwhelmingly scary as I thought it might. Still, there were plenty of words that got my attention: "functions" always gets me.

"Elimination Using Matrices" made me think of a scary laxative. "

"Radical Expressions." O.K., here's one from the olden days: "Make love, not war."

"Complex Radical Expressions." Marxist theory?

"Synthetic Division." OK, lycra in this pile.

You know how your mind makes up new words toward the end of the game in scrabble? My math book -- just the table of contents -- was already doing that to me.

Section 10.3 read, "Conic Sections: Hyperbolas."

I saw: "Comic Sections: Hyperbole."

Focus, Jay, focus.


Blog Readers

Justin Adler, a former student, has a fun blog called "Where's Paul McPherson?" Right now, Justin is writing about his adventures during a semester abroad in Argentina. He sent some of his readers my way and two of them clicked on and left comments. I think they are readers numbers three and four. Hi guys!

Anthony is working on his MBA and needs to learn about what a derivative is in economics.

Seth who is a UA engineering major wrote, "If your fear of numbers is in any way comparable to my fear for words, I wish you luck! If it helps, I always viewed the desks as a comforting reminder of how many have been in the same position I am sitting in at the moment, and went on to graduate. Tear open that shrink wrap."

Good thoughts Seth. I've never thought of desks that way. Nice insight. You know, you might be a writer even if you don't think so right now.

Gems from John

"If it doesn't work, you draw a line through it and start the next thing."

On taking shortcuts while solving problems: "It's like rock climbing. You can cut corners, but eventually you pay the price."

Still in Shrinkwrap - My First Class Session

My books are still in their shrink wrap.

My first class met today and I met my new teacher and saw my fellow students. Here's how it went.

I found Engineering 303 just north of Old Main on the University of Arizona Campus. As I approached the building from my office, it occurred to me that my dad might have taken classes in that building during the middle 1930s. When I entered the room, it further seemed as if he could have been in not only that classroom, but in the very desk.

The room had a whiteboard rather than a black chalkboard. It had an American flag mounted just over a copy of the U.S. Constitution. My desk seemed as if were bought on special from a high end thrift shop or a low end antique store. It was one of those desks with only half a surface. I've never figured out why they did that. It was wood and it must have lost its finish back in the 1950s when the rest of the world was moving to Formica surfaces. It wiggled nicely -- about two inches left to right and about one inch front to back, with squeaks.

As I entered the classroom (me - late 50s, white shirt, beard) Inoticed how the students looked at me and quickly announced that I was not the professor, just one of them. The "them" were (was?) a room full of 20 year olds, all 30 of whom seemed they'd rather be anywhere else. I imagine there are some bright enough kids in the class, but they did not look like Arizona's "world class" University's most shining stars. On the other hand, I was in there with them, all of us hoping to get through a class that we all should have mastered during out sophomore years in high school.

Four p.m. and the teacher hadn't showed up. What to do? At about five after four I decided to call the Pima College Math Department and ask, "What's up?" I asked a young man who was playing on his MacBook to try to find that phone number for me. He couldn't. I called April at the Journalism Dept. office. She gave it to me instantly. I called but after several minutes on the phone, a tall, youngish (early 30s?) man in a blue tee-shirt, blue shorts, and black low-top tennis shoes walked in. 4:10 p.m. This was obviously not the retired physics professor from Montana who I had expected.

The teacher spent a couple of minutes getting a feel for the class. How many of the of us had textbooks? About seven. He offered to scan some of the pages and put them online until folks bought their books. One girl wanted to add the class. Another couldn't figure out which section she was in. Was it this one? The prof didn't have a class roster. He didn't yet have a syllabus. He was polite. "I wish I could help you."

There would be no homework assigned. A sigh of relief from some members of the class. There would be in-class quizzes and a couple of exams. The questions on the exams would be just like the ones used during the review section. O.K.

Turning to actual material the prof explained that the first section is about translating English expressions into numerical expressions. Cool. I'd like to know how to do that. As an aside, he also said that in physics sometimes, people purposely "obfuscate the English."

Now, for some examples. No, not yet. When the teacher reached for a marker, there weren't any. After asking the class if that was normal, he headed out in search of some in other classrooms. He came back to report that there weren't any.

Some student comments as he returned empty-handed:

"Let's call it a day."
"Let's get to know each other."
"You really don't have a roster?"
"Just assign some things in the book we don't have."

Hang tight, he'd try again to find a marker for the white board.

While he was out, three students slipped out the door.

This time, success. Black erasable marker in hand, our professor headed for the board.

He flipped to the beginning of the book and picked out a couple of confidence building review examples. Our job was to write a numerical expression based on a phrase.

The first one: "Six less than a number." O.K., that would be x=n-6.

Should I break the seal on my book's shrink wrap and commit. Not yet.

The teacher offered some advice for us as we began to solve problems: "If you don't know where to start, try something anyway. Write something down."

I've said that same thing to my own journalism students about writing stories. I've done it myself. Start writing and see what comes out. I could relate. Cool.

Next example: "Sixty-five percent of a number." I can do this. .65x.

It occurred to me that I could also do that in 7th grade.

Miss Cronin, my seventh grade math teacher popped into my mind. She was my one and only good math teacher - ever. No telling how old she was. She seemed old but she might have been 42 or 38. She was tall, thin, unmarried, and dedicated to math. She bragged about how she had been a math major rather than an education major. And I learned more in her class about numbers than in any single class before or since, through my bachelors, MBA, and Ph.D. I was a whiz with a slide rule. I learned how to manipulate log tables. I figured out how high my model rockets could go using tangents. I imagine that if I had only one or two more teachers like her during high school, right now I'd be thinking about retiring from a career as an engineer rather than having had a career in editing, writing, photography, and broadcasting. I guess, in some ways I ought to be grateful to those awful math teachers I had. But at the same time, I'm glad I had Miss Cronin. Her math magic never left. I think of her and my wonderful high school English teachers when I wonder about how one person can and does make differences they will never know about.

Our prof spoke a little bit about the most elementary aspects of set theory. I wondered what the difference was between the number 6 and the set {6}. How can an integer be a set? And why aren't they equal to each other if they are the same number? He had a good answer but added, usefully, "It's sort of like having and defining rules. Like in a game. These are the rules we are going to play by." I was O.K. with that. The idea of inventing and working with and living within the rules of a defined universe seems attractive. At least it's a different world than the one I live in and might be fun to explore. I wondered whether you get to a point in math where rather than living in a black and white world, things become a zillion shades of grey again.

We moved through a few more examples and I couldn't believe how polite the students were. They were either respectful or comatose.

After about an hour the teacher looked around and said it's felt like it's been only five minutes for him at the front of the class talking and moving around, while acknowledging that it must feel like a whole longer for us sitting there listening.

At five he gave us a moment to stretch, get water, whatever.

I overheard one girl during the break say, "As long I get a good grade."

19 students came back for the second hour.

The prof talked a little about the concept of "absolute value." I knew that stuff. Good. One girl said she understood absolute value to be simply the distance from zero on the number line. Turns out, not exactly. Shades of grey already? That was interesting.

After class, he asked those of us who were left to sign in so he could check who was there against the roster when he gets it and he promised to have a syllabus on Wednesday. I wondered whether I'd open my book packet by then and begin working problems.

I was the last student to sign in. Then, I asked him is name.

"John."

"John who?"

"John Lapeyre."

The individual I was expecting was Gerald J. Lapeyre, the professor emeritus from Montana State.

I asked, "So, are you related to Professor Lapeyre from Montana?"

My new prof answered, "He's my dad."

A Good Redirection (back)

My friend Tom Miller called this morning and told me he clicked into this blog.

He must have have had either a lot of time on his hands or really didn't want to get to whatever deadline was hanging over his head today. In any event, he is likely the first person other than me to have signed on. My wife hasn't. Neither has my son or any of my students.

The first thing he noticed was that my last post was about 10 days ago. What's up?

I wondered about that myself, but Tom had a theory.

Since my last post, all the books about math and journalism I ordered have arrived. I've begun reading them and they're good.

Kathleen Wickham's book, Math Tools for Journalists, covers everything I would have covered, but more. I'd use it in a second if I were teaching a semester-long one unit course. Plus, she's a good and fun writer. The only negative thing I could say about the book is that I can't imagine hardly any journalists actually working their way through its 150 pages. There is too much there and too many journalists hate math. Plus there is just too much else to read. Books that do words, not numbers.

The book I thought I wanted to write was already done by Sarah Cohen in 2001 for the IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors). Numbers in the Newsroom is just about 100 pages, is written clearly, and approaches the math journalists need to know with a "just the facts" mentality. I couldn't do better. I wish a real publisher had picked her book up.

And, I'm thoroughly enjoying reading A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper by John Allen Paulos. It is dated with plenty of references to events in the news that occurred during 1994 or so. But what a mind opening read. The book made me see (again) that there are lots of ways to process and communicate "truth." Interpreting events by using numbers is certainly a way that I hadn't been using or even thinking about until recently. And, I suppose the word "truths" plural is a more accurate way to put it.

So, back to my mathquest and the blog and (who knows?) the book. I guess I've been putting off writing here while my research or lit review stage began and started to settle in. Well, it's settled in, partly thanks to Tom.

Tom shared his opinion that my early entries got his attention -- the idea of a math illiterate testing the waters of a whole new world. But, he thought, not even being aware of these other books, that my focus on journalism was too narrow and too quick and not particularly interesting. Turns out, he's right and it's time for me, still at the very beginnings of this journey, to, in photography terms, put the wide angle lens back on, get in receptive mode, and see what happens.

I don't know whether I can stay open-focused and just learn math and wait. I am thinking in terms of "stories," not numbers. I want to bring my tape recorder to class and interview my new professor, not about how to do algebra, but about whether he can tell me even one story where math had made a difference in his life or in the lives of any of his former students or friends. Not a general professional enhancement, but a personal life changing difference. Poems have done that for people. Songs certainly. Has math?

In the meantime, the $135 package from the Pima College bookstore is still sitting on my desk, in clear view, two feet from my keyboard, still shrink-wrapped, and for three more days, within the time frame of when I could get a full refund if I choose. The title of the book is Intermediate Algebra. I keep seeing the words, "Intimidating Algebra." I am having second thoughts about my placement. Class starts Monday.

Last week I met Dan Huff to go to Saguaro Monument East to take pictures. His son Alex was home and we started talking. Alex is taking beginning algebra at Pima College this semester. I glanced at his what felt like 15 pound textbook. I didn't think I could do the work on page 75, much less solve the incomprehensible equations on page 500. And I signed up for the next level up.

I'm back writing.

The Journalist's minimal Math Book

I've found out that the easiest thing about writing a blog is putting it off.  I've taught classes, bicycled in New Mexico, read a lot of NY Times and New Yorker, but not written here.

But thinking about it has not been a problem.

I have spoken with several people about the idea of a math book for journalists. Folks think it is necessary and that is an area where most newspapers and other media are either inadequate or simply screw up.  

I just received my copy of "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper" by John Allen Paulos.  It seems like it will be a really fun read, but is not useful in terms of skills, just awareness. 

David Cullier, a colleague at the University of Arizona and who is quite active in many national organizations told me about a math for journalists book that might already have accomplished what I have in mind.  It is "Numbers in the Newsroom" by Sarah Cohen.  It was published by the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) organization.  Dave ordered a copy for me and I look forward to seeing it. 

I glanced through his copy and my initial impression was that it was right on target, but not fun. I wonder whether I could write (and have illustrated) a fun book that journalists an journalism students would actually read and use.