So my name is still Jimmy Pai, and I am still a secondary mathematics teacher in the Ottawa area in Ontario, Canada. I still find the concept of a blog interesting, although I haven't returned to write about it in more detail. While this blog was intended for recording my thoughts on mathematics, mathematics education, and philosophy, it ended up bring primarily about mathematics education. I think that is okay though.
Below are my thoughts when I first started the blog on the three topics. At the same time, though, I recall that I recognized that these weren't completely separate things. In many ways, the three are interconnected - at least for me.
Mathematics
There was a time in my life when I was running away
from the stereotypes associated with mathematics and the stereotype that places
mathematics within my persona simply because of my ethnicity. *read here about an elaboration of sorts.* That time is no more – or so I’d like to
think – I’ve come to appreciate mathematics in ways that I always knew I
appreciate it. In the blog, there will
likely be posts that look at interesting mathematical issues or problems I come
across.
Mathematics Education
Appreciating and
talking about mathematics is not the same topic as mathematics education. Following examples like Dan Meyer, this way
of keeping track of ideas and establishing an professional online community is extremely
interesting to me. This blog is going to
spell my initial effort in reaching out to that community! (hopefully they’ll take me in!)
Philosophy
I enjoy thinking –
this is what sparks my interest in mathematics and mathematics education. But I also enjoy thinking about thinking…
Opinions and thoughts are interesting to me, and I will likely explore some
ideas that may not be ones I firmly believe in.
Dear Jimmy,
ReplyDeleteAs a proponent of math education in the United States, we need your help to promote our nationwide math competition by blogging or posting about it on your blog!
As you probably already know, despite the fact that the US spends the most money on education per capita, our students are ranked 25th globally for math proficiency. The MATHCOUNTS Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to improving that statistic. MATHCOUNTS’ third annual “ Math Video Challenge” is a math competition for 6th to 8th graders that encourages student innovation as they create and star in their own math videos, thus exciting them to pursue higher education in math.
As the webmaster of this awesome blog, we are asking you to help support this effort by mentioning us in your next blog or forum post or promoting our logo with a link to the site. So far this contest has gathered over 500 submissions and millions of views on the videos. Our goal this year is this year is to do even better. With your help, we are confident we will reach this goal.
For more information on MATHCOUNTS or the Math Video Challenge, visit our webpages at mathcounts.org and videochallenge.mathcounts.org/math-camera-action.
Respectfully,
Jake Byrnes