Lake Powell 2012

A few years ago, I was talking with our good friend Logan.  I lamented that years ago, I knew tons of folks with houseboats on Lake Powell; I was passing on offers to go down because they were just too many.  Now that we had a nicer boat and would really like to go, we didn't know anybody.
He said, "You should call Darin Warren."

A few weeks later we were on Lake Powell with the Warrens.  I knew his older brother in high school, but we didn't know any of the people going on this trip.  In retrospect I realize how dicey that could have been.  I'm not what would normally be called genial or easy-going.  But it was amazing how well the five different families that went on that first trip got along so very well, including the adults!

Earlier this month we got back from our third Lake Powell trip with the Warrens.  Here's the recap:

• Jeffrey did not kneeboard - Booooo!
• Emerson totally waterskied a lot and tamed several lizards
• Ava wakeboarded and found many shells
• Elisabeth wakeboarded and waterskied and you can tell she's a teenager now (in a good way).
• Truman ate a lot of sand
• Many scorpions were spotted using UV black lights
• Some midnight wakeboarding may, or may not, have happened
• The boat ran perfectly
• The shaft seal that I replaced earlier this year is so nice; I don't think the bilge pump ran once
• The ballast on the "goofy" side was totally worth it
• The weather was perfect
• Nobody was irreparably injured
• We had a fantastic time
• We are truly blessed

It's a Republic, Not a Democracy

If you grew up consuming education in the United States, I'm sure at some point you heard some smarty pants correct another student who erroneously referred to our nation as a democracy.  The smarty pants was correct.  You don't vote for a president, rather, technically you are indicating your preference to the state you live in about how you would like your state's electoral votes to be cast.  Recently, Shannon Manning commented...

One of the more interesting interpretations of the purpose of the electoral college I've encountered, based on close reading of the text of the Constitution, is that the President is not elected to represent the people to the federal government - he is elected to represent the Union, or the collection of states that constitute the United States of America. Members of Congress are elected to represent the people to the federal government. It's part of the system of "checks and balances." Because most states select their electors by vote of the people, the voice of the people is to some extent recognized in the election of the president while still leaving it up to the states (as individual governmental entities with their own sovereignty over all powers not granted to the federal government) to elect the Chief Executive who represents the Union as a whole. However, the Constitution actually does not require states to allow the voters to select the state's electors.

 So what does this mean?  It means a lot of things... in 2012 it means that unless you live in Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, or Florida; it means that your vote doesn't affect the election of the president very much at all.  The exceptions to this would be Nebraska and Maine who use a proportional allocation of their electoral college votes.

And it also means that unless you get out your checkbook and donate your time, the only people affecting the outcome of this election will be others who are willing to donate time and money.

Create your own electoral college map!

Math Matters

One evening, when we were in high school, Sam Reisner and I went to pick up Bruce MacArthur.  I'm sure we had some wholesome activities planned.  We ran down the stairs in his basement and beheld him working on some crazy math problem; y'know the kind that takes like three sheets of paper.  Sam was mad, "Dude, you're not done with your homework?!?!"

"Oh, I'm done.  I was just messing around with a different way to solve this.  Let's go."

Unlike Bruce, I'm not one of those "math people".  But I work at it.  I passed college algebra and calculus; actually I got really good grades in those classes.  I did it by teaching it to the other students in the study group that I formed.  Through that experience I realized that most math teachers shouldn't be.  And the truth is many of them don't really want to be; they want to be mathematicians and teaching the schmucks like me pays the bills (or they want to coach full-time ;-) ).

Now I teach math to my kids and a few of the neighbor kids.  One of the consistent bits of feedback goes something like this:  "Wow Mr. Facer, you're really good at this.  The way you explain it totally makes sense.  You should be a math teacher."  I chuckle and think silently to myself, "I already am."

But seriously, why is it so common for children to have this experience where math is such a difficult discipline?  Certainly my experience growing up was that once we made the jump to algebra, to variables, to complex formulas, I was lost.  There was a small group of my peers, maybe ten or twenty percent that kept up, and the rest of us were left drowning.  I think it's because for non-math people, it needs to be explained in better detail, with more of the "why" and illustrated in multiple different ways; until you reach the example or illustration that clicks with that particular student.

When I teach math, here's what I do:

• We do NO math without scratch paper.
• We show all the steps, every time.
• I explain the concept different ways, and we work it different ways until I can tell it has registered.
• We don't move on at the right answer, we move on when we have the right answer plus comprehension.
• I check comprehension by having the student explain it back to me.

This year, one of the neighbor kids has trigonometry.  I never took trig, but I like it.  Between the text and the internet we're figuring it out.  I really like math.  It's a darn shame that it took more than thirty years for that to happen.