Reps

I want to use the summation ∑ in my title partly because that symbol has always frightened me but also using it might let me show off my first mathematical pun.

I wonder what the focus group will think about:

In ∑: The Minimal Math Book for Journalists

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Dave Robbins, one of my students in Border Beat sent me some of his favorite quotes about math. I'll post some of them here over the next few posts. You may have already heard some, but they are all fun. And as with most quotations, verification is hard to come by.

"Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical." Yogi Berra.

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Today, I went with my class that produces Border Beat for training. We were all learning about a video editing program called Final Cut Pro. Afterward, as I walked toward my algebra class with a couple of my own students we talked about the session.

The consensus was that the best way to learn new software was to bang your head against the wall and keep struggling until you got it. That way it would stick. We all seemed to agree listening to a lecture was nice, but almost nothing sticks.

At class today, some things stuck and other things didn't. Even though I thought I understood everything on today's quiz, I messed up something on four out of five of the questions. My excuse was that I rushed because I didn't want to again be the last person done. So I got about half of the answers half right.

After class I was talking to John the prof about how I am realizing how much time it should take to get a feel for the different things we were learning and how watching him solve a problem on the board is nice, and often illuminating, but it seems like you have to do a type of problem over and over and over just to absorb it.

John seemed to agree and said he never got much out of math or physics lectures. But, he asked me, Wasn't it the same thing for writing? I said I didn't think so because in writing there might be a hundred right answers about how to tell a given story. John responded saying he remembered Stephen King saying something about having to write for eight hours a day for years and then maybe you'll have a shot at being a good writer.

This was King's actual quote:

"Read and write four to six hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can't expect to become a good writer."

It's from a short essay called "Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully - in Ten Minutes." This version was reprinted in Sylvia K. Burack, ed. The Writer's Handbook. Boston, MA: Writer, Inc., 1988: 3-9. I found this on what looks like a blog entry by someone named J. Dowell.

John got me thinking. Perhaps he had a point. I had been telling my feature writing students over and over again that they don't have a clue about how much work it takes to write well. Maybe I've been telling them the truth. My math professor thinks so and he is in some pretty good company.

I plan to share the essay with my class on Wednesday.

In the meantime, I need to really think about how much work it will (should) be to write The Minimal Math Book for Journalists.