Words of Wisdom-*+
On Poetry Month

Here, where we reach the sphere of mathematics, we are among processes which seem to some the most inhuman of all human activities and the most remote from poetry. Yet it is here that the artist has the fullest scope of his[/her] imagination.

Havelock Ellis,The Dance Of Life (1923)


The truth is, that those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.

Herbert Spencer, Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical (1861)

        Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
        Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
        And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
        To ponder on themselves the while they stare
        At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
        In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
        Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
        From dusty bondage into luminous air.
        O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
        When first the shaft into his vision shone
        Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
        Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
        Who, though once only and then but far away,
        Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

      Edna St. Vincent Millay, Collected Poems 1930)

Words of Wisdom

I think students should be able to use their brains.
(#1 tool for math)

They should be able to use pencil and paper.
(#2 tool for math)

They should be able to use books.
(#3 tool for math)

They should be able to use calculating tools such as slide rule, calculator, laptop, Cray ymp-C90.
(#4 tool for math)

WITHOUT TOOL #1, TOOLS #2 - 4 ARE USELESS!

- Edward Bertsch (eab@msc.edu)

In Other Words:

WITHOUT INSIGHT,
METHOD IS LARGELY USELESS!

From: Discrete Mathematics for Computer Scientists
by Mott, Kandel & Baker

Date sent: 15-FEB-1997 10:29:45
I was given a copy of the following, with the source listed as "anonymnous." Can anyone tell me who originally wrote this? I think it is too good to leave it forever as Anon! Thanks.

THE RULES FOR BEING HUMAN

    1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

    2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time, informal school called Life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

Disclaimer

    3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works."

    4. A lesson is repeated until it is learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. Then you can go on to the next lesson.

    5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

    6. "There" is no better than "here." When your "there" has become a "here," you will simply obtain another "there" that again looks better than "here."

    7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

    8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need; what you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

    9. The answers lie inside you. The answers to life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

SOME TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

The following are exerpted from the newsletter of the Workshop Mathematics Project at Dickinson College:

    Allow students to discover. We encourage you to resist the temptation to tell students too much. Rather, let them do the work to discover ideas and conduct analyses for themselves.

    Promote collaborative learning among students. We suggest that you have students work together on activities in pairs or groups of three, although we do recommend that students be required to werite their responses ... individually.

    Encourage students' guessing and development of intuition. We believe that much can be gained by asking students to think and make predictions about issues and data before analyzing them in detail.

    Lecture when appropriate... In many circumstances ... a "mini-lecture" is appropriate and important. As a general rule, though, we advocate lecturing on an idea only after students have begun to grapple with it first themselves.

    Stress good writing. We regard writing-to-learn as an important aspect of ... courses. Many activities call for students to write interpretations and explanations of their findings, and we insist that students relate these to the context at hand.

    Implore students to read well. Students can do themselves a great service by taking their time and reading carefully.

Return to ED 350 Index, to Peder's home page or to the St. Olaf College home page.

Disclaimer