It's National Sprinkle Day! So, of course, Joel and Misty first discuss how they use sprinkles, different names for sprinkles, and some other interesting facts about them. How will you celebrate?
Then they have the final part of their conversation about productive struggle in math class with Kevin Dykema, the President of NCTM. If you missed parts one and two, then rewind back to June 25 to start from the beginning.
To connect with Kevin:
X: @ kdykema
Instagram: dykemamath
LinkedIn: kevin-dykema
Then, Joel and Misty google some higher level math jokes. Maybe you can explain some of them to us?
Send Joel and Misty a message!
The More Math for More People Podcast is produced by CPM Educational Program.
Learn more at CPM.org
X: @cpmmath
Facebook: CPMEducationalProgram
Email: cpmpodcast@cpm.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
You are listening to the More Math for More People
podcast.
An outreach of CPM educationalprograms Boom.
An outreach of CPM EducationalProgram.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Boom, July 23rd 2024.
What is our national day, Joel?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
It is.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
National Sprinkle Day .
Sprinkle Day, sprinkle Day.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Sprinkle Day.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Sprinkle Day.
Okay, I'm trying to wonder whatthe context of this is.
Do you mean like rain sprinkle?
Do you mean like sprinkles youput on?
Like to call it sprinkle isinteresting to me, not sprinkles
day.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, sprinkle Day, we're celebrating non perioles.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
The candy sprinkle.
Oh yeah, I never had to knowhow to say that word either.
I think it's non-perioles.
Non-perioles.
I see that word all the timeand I'm always like what does
that actually mean?
Is that what those things arecalled?
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Why are they non something I don't know, but why
are they not?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
something.
They's what those things arecalled.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Why are they non-something?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I know, but why are they not something they're?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
decorative.
What are perils, then?
Yeah, what are perils?
These are the non-peril.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
They're a decorative confectionary of tiny balls made
of sugar and starch.
It's such a weird thing to callthem that they're not something
else, but it doesn't make anysense to me.
We used to call those jimmies.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Jimmies?
Did you ever call them jimmiesthe sprinkles?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, yeah, I moved around a lot when I was a kid,
right, and when we moved toMassachusetts and we went to
this restaurant it was calledFriendly's, I think was the
restaurant, and they haddelicious ice cream like sundaes
and banana splits and thingslike that ice cream like sundaes
and banana splits and thingslike that and they asked us if
we wanted jimmies on them.
I've never heard that before,and I remember we were like what
(02:08):
are those?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
And there were the chocolate sprinkles.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Oh, specific chocolate.
Well, they were chocolate.
I think that's the only.
They really only refer to thechocolate ones, as I remember as
jimmies, but I was 10, so Imight have forgotten.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Fair enough.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
But yeah, we learned that they were called jimmies
and that's the only other placethat I ever remember them being
called jimmies.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I see here in the 1930s jimmies in America Jimmies
are used as a cake toppingthere you go.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Interesting.
So and at Friendly's inMassachusetts in the 1980s.
No 1970s.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
So they're called Hegel's Leg in the Netherlands.
What?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Hegel's Leg.
It sounds like a Dutch word.
You probably have to say itHegel's Leg.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And they're Jimmy's in Boston and Philadelphia and
they're Mews and Stroge's inBelgium, which means mouse
droppings.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh, delicious.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Like some mouse droppings or some musenstrojies.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
So Jimmy's is a.
So I wonder if our coworker wholives in Philadelphia area
calls them Jimmy's also.
Well, we have to to have tofind out.
Maybe she'll send us a messageand let us know.
Yeah, I hope so, but anyway,but we don't know why they're
called non-pareils.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
No, we don't know that yet, but I do want to say
do you think you can give yourdog sprinkles?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
No, you should not give your dog sprinkles as long
as they don't contain chocolate.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
So don't give them jimmies.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yes, of course you could give them the sprinkles.
Well, why would?
Speaker 1 (03:53):
you give your dog sprinkles.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
I don't.
I think that's not.
I think in general.
Still, I'm not going toadvocate to people that they
should give their dog sprinkles.
I could say it's probably notunsafe to do so, but I'm going
to say I would still have somehesitation to give my dog
sprinkles.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I wouldn't give Wendell sprinkles.
There's no way.
Are sprinkles made of bugs?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
What.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Are sprinkles made of bugs?
Why would they?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
be made of bugs.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
No.
Well sprinkles have a coatingof shelliac, which is something
extracted from insects.
So, yes, sprinkles have acoating.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Well, okay, that's like saying it's ice cream made
of seaweed.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
It's nothing like that.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
It has the agar stuff in it.
It's exactly like that.
Oh my gosh, exactly like that.
Okay, so we don't know whythey're called non-pearls.
They're made with bugs.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
And sometimes called jimmies, but only if they're
chocolate and you could put themon a sugar cookie.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Oh, absolutely From last episode.
Callback from two weeks agoyeah, you could totally put them
on a sugar cookie.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Okay, I have another question, though.
Does it include all thedifferent kinds, like the
rainbow sprinkles, the littleones that are metallic?
Yes, all the different kinds,like the rainbow sprinkles, the
little ones that are metallic,spheres, like all of those all
kinds of sprinkles.
What about the ones that arelike the green sugar or the red?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
sugar?
Yes, and in fact this day isall about learning the different
variations of sprinkles so youcan try them out.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yes, Sometimes they're like little shapes, like
almost like hard candy.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I don't know about the shapes, I just know about
the little sprinkles there'sones that are like that are like
little flowers.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I don't know, and they're like they're like almost
like Necco candy or something.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So maybe that's Necco candy.
There's all different kinds.
No, no, no, no no, no, no bigsprinkles.
I bet that counts, then I onlyever use sprinkles.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
I feel like when we were making cookies at.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Christmas Fairy bread .
Do you ever make fairy breadwhat?
You take a piece of bread, youput some butter on it and then
you sprinkles.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Ooh.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
No, I don't want to eat.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
It's the closest of what you'll get to what they're
actually intended for.
Actually Is what it says.
That's what sprinkles wereintended for is to put on your
buttered bread they wereintended to put on.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Bread Says who.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Says my source.
Okay, well, that's interesting.
Maybe that's why they're callednonpareils or whatever
Something to do with, just don'tdo it.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Alright, we're leaving you with so many
research questions.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
I don't know guys.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Okay, so it's it's National Sprinkle Day.
I still think it's calledNational Sprinkles Day, but it's
fine.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
We don't get to choose those things.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
No Well.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I could just call it in my own head that way, anyway.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
So go have some sprinkles, get some, however you
want, all right.
All right, so today on thepodcast, we have part three of
(07:05):
our conversation with Kevin Dyke, who is the president of NCTM.
If you missed parts one andpart two, you should really go
back to the June 25th podcastand start from the beginning.
We split it into three partsfor you.
(07:26):
It was a nice conversation andyou're going to want to hear how
we led up to this part wherewe've talked a little bit about
planning, we've talked a littlebit about preparing and we move
into how do we help studentsmaintain their perseverance and
be okay with making mistakes andsome of that's modeling.
So it's a great conversation.
If you haven't heard the firstparts, go back to the beginning.
(07:48):
Otherwise, here you go, partthree of our conversation with
Kevin Dykema.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
One of the things that I constantly try to do and
I'll emphasize the word try todo some days it works better
than others.
When the students have amisconception, when they make an
error or whatever, I often tryto figure out what's the problem
they were really doing and sooften if I can tell the student
oh, you did a great job, buthere's the problem you were
solving, we're solving thisproblem.
(08:15):
And when they can see whatproblem.
They were really solving for somany they're like oh, now I know
what I need to do to actuallysolve the problem that we're
doing in class.
Very rarely are studentscompletely and totally clueless,
but I think so often we think,oh, they either know how to do
it or they don't know how to doit, and there's so many shades
of gray in between there.
And so often students may be90% of the way with something
(08:38):
understanding, but yet they'regetting the problems
consistently wrong with that.
It's figuring out that lastlittle bit.
What's that?
That's usually a relativelysmall little thing that we just
need to tweak a little bit andall of a sudden they start to
feel confident and theyrecognize that, and I do try as
much as I can to help them.
See.
All right, if the problem wasthis, your solution strategy,
(08:59):
your solution would have beenperfect, but unfortunately you
don't get to pick your ownproblem.
Here's the problem we'reactually working on in class
today, or working on at thispoint in time.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, and so often there I see that they're afraid
to say what they think becauseso many times they've just been
met with that's wrong, right,that's not.
And they're still at an agewhere it's very hard to
differentiate Right, because oftheir brain development.
I was wrong versus, I am wrong,right.
So there's.
It could be really hard, ifthey've met that a lot of times,
(09:33):
then to continue to say, well,here's what I was thinking when
it's not received with oh,that's interesting thinking
right, let's attach this otherideas to it as well.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
And I think sometimes our reaction as educators when
we make a mistake.
If I'm telling my students Ivalue your mistakes, I think
it's great.
But then I make a mistake inclass, I'm like, oh you guys, I
can't believe I did that, howembarrassing.
I wish I wouldn't have donethat class.
And like, oh you guys, I can'tbelieve I did that, how
embarrassing, I wish.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I wouldn't have done that?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
What message is that really sending?
Or those teachers that say, oh,I purposely made that mistake
to see if you were payingattention, baloney, you are not.
Just own up to that.
If we want our students torecognize that it's through
their mistakes that we can learn, they need to see us as the
educators, as the adults in theroom.
They need just see that we canmake a mistake as well and that
life continues on and that it'sokay that we made that mistake.
(10:21):
At that point in time, wefigure out what we did wrong and
we keep on keeping on.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah, I love how we're celebrating mistakes.
Obviously is what we're talkingabout, but then I like how you
phrase it as oh, I'm going tofind out the problem that you're
solving.
So, likewise, as an adult, Iwas trying to solve this other
problem.
Yeah, very much so.
That's a great way to thinkabout it.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah, yeah.
Or sometimes I again workingwith teachers like a teacher, I
have dyslexia and sometimes Iwrite the things wrong on the
board.
You need to be paying attentionto what I'm writing on the
board.
Did I do this right?
Did I do that step right?
And acknowledging that, yeah,it's just part of my learning
and the way I operate, andparticularly on the board.
It's hard and it gets kidspaying attention and then
(11:07):
they're like, oh wait, that'ssupposed to be an X squared.
He's like okay, and fixes itright, but it's engaging them in
the learning.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah, I had this weird phenomenon sometimes of
saying the answer is 42.
And as I'm writing on the board, I write 89 or some other
random number that I have noidea where it came from.
And the class all laughs and Ijust look and say I have no idea
where that came from.
I told you the correct stuff ofwhat I wrote down, for whatever
reason is there.
But how do I react in thatmoment If I make a big deal out
(11:45):
of it, say, I'm so embarrassed,we're just telling the kids
making mistakes isn't good,persevering isn't necessary at
that point in time if I need tomake sure that my actions are
modeling what I'm, what I'msaying to the students.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Absolutely one of the things that I find it great
that you've been working withstudents with exceptionalities,
and you had that NCTM conferencethat you've put together, and
so often those are the studentsthat are least likely to be
supported in struggle, and so Iwanted to hear your thoughts of.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
On both ends.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Very much, so we push kids on both ends toward here's
the procedure.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, very much so.
We push kids on both endstoward here's the procedure.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
We're thinking about students who are receiving
specialized learning servicesthrough IEPs.
For so many of them it's justrote memorization.
And when I look at how manystudents have IEPs in middle
school and high school, theirobjective is to be able to
multiply one-digit numbers orwhatever the case Boring.
(12:39):
Let's allow them to think andmaybe it's through that thinking
and we provide them the toolsto do some of those calculations
.
I am not saying that I don'twant students to have their
facts memorized.
I would love for them to havetheir facts memorized, but the
reality is so did my teacher.
My teacher would have loved forall of us to have our facts
memorized.
I did, but some of the studentswho struggled did not have it.
(13:02):
But we've historically done inmathematics we've denied access
to high quality, interestingmath that we don't give our
students any opportunities to towant to continue doing math
because we just keep beatingthem over the head with the same
thing year after year afteryear and increasingly students
whether they have a disability,whether they don't have a
disability are like forget youwhen you think about students
(13:25):
who are currently excelling.
Sometimes students who arecurrently excelling really have
very little critical thinkingskills.
They just memorize theprocedures.
Well, I was a great rulememorizer, but it wasn't until I
started teaching that I startedto see some of those
connections.
And I'm sure my students myfirst few years of teaching
(13:46):
thought I was absolutely crazy,because in the middle of class
they'd be like, oh, now I get it.
And they would say don't youknow how to do the problem?
I'd say yes, but there's adifference between knowing how
and then knowing why.
I'd say yes, but there's adifference between knowing how
and then knowing why.
And this was, I mean.
I was a student in thepre-technology days.
Graphic calculators were juststarting to be a thing in my
high school as I was gettingready to be a senior.
(14:08):
And now we know there's so muchmore technology available to
our students than if that was myexperience.
My students' experience betterlook different than my
experience, however, many yearsago, because we live in an
ever-increasing technology worldand we live in a society where
some of those calculations somany of us were just taught to
be human calculators in somerespects.
(14:29):
And our students don't need tobe human calculators.
They have tools at theirdisposal.
Let's get them to think whenyou think about a professional
mathematician.
They're not sitting arounddoing worksheet after worksheet
after worksheet, they'reactually thinking, making sense,
trying to push the boundariesof what's already known.
But yet in K-12, so muchmathematics is really just
(14:51):
worksheet after worksheet afterworksheet and there's this
disconnect between whatmathematics is and what
mathematics should be.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah, and and that's, that's a.
There's a such a conflict withthat, right, because, yes,
practice is a thing our brainsneed.
We do need to do things torepeat information, to make
those the you know, to myelinatethe, the neural pathways, right
, and.
But if that's all we're doing,that's not very interesting and
(15:22):
it doesn't last over time.
So how to balance that, how tobalance enough practice right To
get the familiar with thoseideas, with the conceptual
understanding as well, right, sothat students are able to make
all those connections that youand I and Joel can make because
we've been learning math for along time, we've got a lot of
(15:43):
different things in there andhow to help students who are
still at this very non-expertspace to make those, to begin to
make those connections.
It's such a big, it's aconflict and it's a challenge.
It's such a big, it's aconflict and it's a challenge,
right at the same time.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Very much so, and the amount of purposeful practice
that student A needs may lookdifferent than the amount of
purposeful practice that studentB needs and may be different
than student C.
We tend to give everybody thesame thing, and it's figuring
out.
How do you make those, thosecritical adaptations to support
(16:21):
every single student and yet notnot overdo it with students,
but not underdo it with students.
It's a challenge.
I think that's one of thebeautiful things about teaching
mathematics.
That's why I love to to teachmathematics, because what works
for student a doesn't work forstudent b, and it's figuring,
figuring out what is going towork for you.
How can I help you engage inthis notion of productive
struggles that you're makingsense of the mathematics and
(16:43):
you're seeing those differentconnections, rather than just
having to try to memorize a setof procedures that we know for
many students they just don'tsee a purpose for.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, purpose for yeah.
And before you're talking aboutieps and changing what what's
in an iep to help a student havea goal of thinking.
And then I wanted fun activity.
That would be everybody maketheir own individualized plan
and how can you think and youcan reflect yourself and the
teacher could respond to that.
That would be fun activity yeahit would be,
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I remember when I taught middle school also, and I
always felt like that was oneof my goals, many goals but one
of my many goals was to helpstudents figure out how they
learn right, like having alittle binder with the dividers
and that may not be the way theorganization that works for you,
and you may struggle to figureout an organization that works.
(17:39):
So how can we give you someoptions and some things to try?
But some part of it was likeokay, what kind of ways of
taking notes works for you?
What kinds of ways?
And so it's giving them lots ofdifferent options and having
them think about did this workfor me?
Well, I don't know, why did itnot work for me?
I don't know.
So how can they get into thatmetacognitive activity around
(18:00):
their own thinking?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Very much so.
And middle schoolers, whatworks for student A doesn't work
for student B.
With the organization.
And the same thing is true foradults I'm sure for other ages
as well that you have thatstudent who has an incredibly
messy binder, an incrediblymessy locker, and yet they know
where every last little piece ofpaper is and they can find
everything there.
And for those who are highlyorganized, it drives them
(18:24):
absolutely crazy.
And sitting at parent-teacherconferences it becomes evident
sometimes that the parents areso frustrated with the child
because the child looks likeit's a disaster zone with their
binder.
But that kid can just pull andfind anything fairly quickly.
But that's not how the parentswant them to be organized.
And it's a beautiful thing inteaching middle schoolers.
(18:45):
They're quirky.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, so we're going to wrap up here, and I think,
joel, you have a request, don'tyou?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
I do.
One of our new segments for ourfourth season of this podcast
is we're requesting if anybodyhas math jokes.
So I'm asking you do you have amath joke that you'd like to
share?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
with the audience, A favorite go-to.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, nothing tremendously great other than
the best.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
It could be your favorite and I'll be great to be
clear.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yeah, well, it's not all.
That.
It's what I may think has somehumor.
My two daughters, who are now24 and 22, don't find quite as
humorous.
But what do you do if you'recold?
You can go stand in the corner,because it's 90 degrees.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
I like it, thank you.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
But now I want to go back and listen to all of your
podcasts so I can get a wholebunch of math jokes.
Yes, it'll be great to expandmy repertoire.
My daughters will love it whenI start texting them all these
different math jokes.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Fantastic.
I think that pretty much all ofthem are pretty punny.
I don't think we've come acrossvery many math jokes that
aren't puns, so far, so fun.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Thanks for joining us .
Thank you so much.
Oh, you're very welcome.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Thanks so much for coming on the podcast and
spending this time with us.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Thanks for all you're doing to help promote math
education and thanks to all ofour listeners today of thinking
about what can you do to helpmath make sense for our students
.
And to move past the proceduresand get them engaging in seeing
those different connections.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
And good luck with your keynote at the CCMC.
We hope it goes well.
Joel will report on it later.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I will.
I'll come say hello, soundsgreat.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
All right Sounds great.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Thank you.
Thank you, kelly, thank youOkay.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
so we've started this new segment on the podcast with
math jokes.
We have, and we've gotten a fewmath jokes submitted so far.
They're all like one-liners,right.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
They're just like what's this?
And kind of punny too.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And an answer yeah, and there were a kind of punny
too.
And an answer yeah, and therewere a lot of puns yeah.
So we were curious if we couldfind I wanted to find a math
joke that was a story right Likea long story math joke.
And so we Googled story mathjokes, yeah, and we found a
couple of Reddit pages, and sowe're going to share some of the
math jokes that are there.
(21:18):
Okay, so what do you got, joel?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I was on the what's your favorite math joke.
That requires at least someamount of higher education in
math.
Okay, so let's try.
Should we just try one?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Sure Go for it.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
So you keyed it up with a big story.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
However, we'll just see, well, that's what I Googled
.
That doesn't mean that's whatwe found, let's just try this
one.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Okay, how do you make ?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
a computer program that decides if a number over 10
to the 50th power is a prime ornot with 99% accuracy.
I have no idea, just say not aprime every time I don't get it.
I don't get it either okay okay, oh, I get it.
No, I get it now because 99 ofthe numbers that big must not be
primes, see there you go.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Oh see, it made sense I'm glad I got that one.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Okay, okay, okay.
Okay, I've got one.
That's like a story.
So a mathematician walks into abar accompanied by a dog and a
cow.
The bartender says hey, no,animals are allowed in here.
The mathematician replies theseare very special animals.
How so?
The mathematician says they'renot theorists.
The bartender raises hiseyebrows and says I've met a
(22:38):
number of not theorists who Ithought were animals, but never
an animal.
That was a not theorist.
Well, I'll prove it to you.
Ask them anything you like.
So the bartender asks the dogName a not invariant Arf, barks
the dog.
The bartender scowls and turnsto the cow asking "'Name a
(23:01):
topological invariant'.
"'moo' says the cow.
At this point the bartenderturns to the mathematician and
says very funny, with that hethrows the three out of the bar,
outside sitting on the curb.
The dog turns to themathematician and asks do you
think I should have said theJones polynomial instead?
I don't know anything aboutknot theory, so I do understand
(23:28):
why and how that's supposed tobe funny.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
But I don't really.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Because Mew and yeah, I do see the person who
submitted that joke has told itmany times with great success.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
So that's something to keep in mind.
It's been upvoted on.
Up voted on reddit, so what arelittle eigensheep called
eigensheep I don't lambda again.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I get it because I don't really know what I can
know, but I know, like thesymbol, lambda, right, like
that's got to be like no, I getthat, I get that.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I don't want to know what it has to do with eyeing a
sheep.
All right, this one says.
Noah's ark settles on dry land.
All the animals disembark andNoah goes back inside patting
himself on the back.
Inside he sees two snakeshanging back.
Noah looks at them and says theLord said go forth and multiply
, beat it.
The snakes look at him and onesays we can't multiply, we're
(24:29):
adders, adders.
Huh, says Noah annoyed.
He goes off into a nearbyforest.
Noah chops down a tree andproceeds to make a beautiful
table from the split logs.
He's after dragging the tableall the way back to the ark and
cursing himself for havingwandered so far away.
He stands before the snakeswith much fanfare and says there
(24:50):
, even adders can multiply witha log table.
Wah.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Oh boy, we need our sound effects.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I know we're going to have to put the sound effects
in here, that's for sure.
I don't know what a.
Do you know what a vuvuzela is?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
No, I don't know what a Vuvuzela is.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Choke doesn't help.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
What do you call a group of symmetry preserving
transformations of the MiddleEast?
Oh, my goodness, lawrence ofArabia.
Lawrence, I think we have toknow what a Lawrence means.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Oh, it's not spelled like l-o-r-e-n-t-z.
Well, it's a group of symmetrypreserving transformations is
what I would think, apparently.
Apparently, a respectedmathematician goes to announce
an exciting new result at aconference.
The room crowded with peopleinterested in all the hubba.
(25:51):
He introduces the main idea andthen moves into giving a sketch
of the proof to the audience.
Fifteen minutes pass, thentwenty, thirty, forty, fifty all
with the audience listeningclosely.
Finally, he wraps up hispresentation and begins taking
questions.
A junior researcher in theaudience hesitates for a moment,
then raises his hand.
Excuse me, sir.
Yes, I have a counterexample to.
(26:13):
I haven't got any sense of iteither.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Well, that's it.
That's the punchline.
No, that's good so if he has acounterexample to one.
He just has a differentline.
No, that's good so if he has acounter example to one.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
He just has a different proofs.
Yeah, that seems silly.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Interesting.
What is yellow, normed andcomplete.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yellow, normed and complete.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
A bonach space.
No idea, no idea.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
No idea.
Okay, this one I understand.
Okay, an engineer and acomputer scientist are asked to
help out in the classroom.
The professor placed an emptybucket on top of the table at
the front of the room.
He then asked the engineerremove the bucket from the room.
The engineer circles the table,analyzes it from every angle,
(27:13):
then picks up the bucket andwalks out of the room with it.
Very good, says the professor.
He brings the bucket back in,fills it to the room with water
and this time he places itunderneath the table.
He then asks the computerscientist take the bucket out of
the room.
The computer scientist circlesthe table, analyzes it from
every angle, then picks thebucket up, dumps the water water
all over the floor and placesit on top of the table.
The professor is aghast and hisshoes are soaked.
But you have not removed thebucket from the room, the
(27:36):
professor complains.
The computer scientist, with asmug look, exclaims Ah, but I
have reduced the problem to onealready solved.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Ah, good one.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I thought so too.
Okay.
This one, I think high schoolteachers can get too Okay let's
do it.
What do you get when you crossa mosquito with a mountain
climber?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Mosquito with a mountain climber.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I want to say malaria , but I'm not sure.
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Nothing.
You can't cross a vector with ascalar.
That's a good one, sure, oh,okay.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Nothing.
You can't cross a vector with ascalar.
What?
That's a good one.
A sphere and a torus walk intoa bar.
When it comes time to pay thetab, the torus is out of cash.
The sphere says Sorry, man, Ican't cover you.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Okay, this one's a good one too.
So these two explorers areexploring in a hot air balloon
and they get lost over thedesert.
They see someone walkingbeneath them and looking for
help.
They release the ballast andshout at her when are we?
She thinks, and just beforethey get out of earshot, answers
You're in a hot air balloon.
The first explorer tells thesecond one she must be a
(28:48):
mathematician.
Why, says the second balloonist?
One, because she thought beforeshe answered.
And two, her answer was 100%accurate.
And three, it was totallyuseless.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
What do you think of mathematicians?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
So the mathematician says ah, I see, you guys must be
physicists.
Yes, indeed, we are.
How do you know it?
Well, for three reasons you gotinto an experiment without
knowing exactly what you weredoing.
Two, when you got into trouble,you asked a mathematician for
help.
And three, and now that youfind out that I can't help you,
you're probably going to blameme for your failure.
(29:23):
There's a lot of mathematicianversus others.
I was going to say let's pointthe fingers at everybody else
kind of thing, well, it is truethat mathematicians and
engineers and career scientistslike people who are really into
those fields of thinking thereis there's some very distinctive
(29:45):
difference in how they approachthis it's true.
All right, you got one more forus, Joel.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
You got a good one.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, they keep getting worse and worse.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Well, yeah, because we're going down the Reddit
thread.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I know.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Oh my gosh, Okay.
An infinite number ofmathematicians walk into a bar.
The first mathematician ordersa beer.
The second orders half a beer.
The first mathematician ordersa beer, the second orders half a
beer.
I don't serve half beer.
The bartender replies Excuse me.
Asks mathematician number twowhat kind of bar serves half
beers?
The bartender remarks that'sridiculous.
Oh, come on.
(30:22):
Says mathematician number one.
Do you know how hard it is tocollect an infinite number of us
?
Just play along.
There are very strict laws onhow I can serve drinks.
I couldn't serve you a halfbeer, even if I wanted to, but
that's not a problem.
Mathematician number threechimes in At the end of the joke
you serve us a whole number ofbeers.
You see, when you take the sumof a continuously halving
(30:44):
function, I know how limits work, and there she acts, the
bartender having function.
I know how limits work, andthere she acts, the bartender.
All right then.
I didn't want to assume abartender would be familiar with
such advanced mathematics.
Are you kidding me?
The bartender replies you learnlimits in like ninth grade.
What kind of mathematicianthinks limits are advanced
mathematics?
He's on to us.
Mathematician number onescreeches Simultaneously, every
(31:06):
mathematician opens their mouthand out pours a cloud of
multicolored mosquitoes.
What Each mathematician isbellowing insects of a different
shade.
The mosquitoes form into asingular polychromatic swarm
Fools.
It moves in unison.
I will infect every being onthis pathetic planet with
malaria.
The bartender stands fearlessagainst the technicolor horde,
(31:29):
but wait, he interrupts.
Thinking fast.
If you do that, politicianswill use the catastrophe as an
excuse to implement free healthcare.
Think of how much that willhurt the taxpayers.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I don't know where this is going.
The mosquitoes fall silent fora brief moment.
My God, you're right.
We didn't think about theeconomy Very well.
We will not attack thisdimension For the taxpayers, and
with that they vanish.
Nearby Barfly stumbles over tothe bartender.
How did you know that wouldwork?
It's simple.
The bartender says I saw thevectors formed a gradient and
therefore must be conservative.
(32:00):
Wah, this is the comment on a.
This started out as a normalmath joke, slid sideways into
metahumor, took a sharp turninto cosmic horror and then
somehow brought it all back intoa dumb math punchline.
I'm in awe.
Okay, and with that.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Wait, I got one more.
I got one more.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Okay, you got one more.
Okay, one more.
Last math joke.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
The Great Engineering , mathematics and Physics
Convention was in town, so therewere a lot of mathematicians,
physicists and engineers stayingat the local hotel.
During the night a fire brokeout on all three floors, and on
the bottom floor an engineer wasthe first to wake up when the
alarm went off.
They ran out into the hallway,saw the fire, saw the fire hose
(32:53):
and quickly calculated the exactamount of water to use to put
out the fire so as to not causeany unnecessary damage to the
building.
The next person to wake up wasthe physicist.
They saw the fire and the firehose and quickly calculated the
optimal trajectory for the water, so they don't have to get too
close.
Then the mathematician wakes up.
(33:13):
They see the fire and the firehose and declare aha, a solution
exists and they go back to bed.
This, of course, wakes up themathematician's roommate, who is
another mathematician.
What's going on?
They say oh, it's just a fire,but don't worry, there's a hose.
(33:37):
Don't get me wrong.
I take great satisfaction inknowing the problem can be
easily solved, but this is areal-world situation and we have
to take practical action orwe'll die.
So they run out into the halland grab the fire hose, wake up
the physicist and hand them thehose, thus reducing it to a
previously solved problem.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
All right, I hope you enjoyed our math jokes.
I thought they were somewhatridiculous.
We'll play some sound effectsfor you now.
Remember that you can send usyour math joke anytime by just
(34:24):
recording your name, where youare and your favorite math joke
and send it to us at cpmpodcast,at cpmorg.
Thanks so much.
So that is all we have time foron this episode of the More
Math for More People podcast.
(34:45):
If you are interested inconnecting with us on social
media, find our links in thepodcast description, and the
music for the podcast wascreated by Julius H and can be
found on pixabaycom.
So thank you very much, Julius.
Join us in two weeks for thenext episode of More Math for
More People.
What day will that be, Joel?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
The August 6th, national Root Beer Float Day,
and I love a good root beerfloat and root beer float by the
numbers.
Did you know?
In 1876, that was the year thatroot beer was invented.
Number 16.
That's the number of roots andherbs that root beer was made of
.
3%, that's the percentage thatroot beer makes up in America's
(35:30):
soft drink market.
1960, the year when a keyingredient in root beer, the
saffron root, was banned by theFDA.
And number one, the ranking ofA&W as the leading root beer
brand in America.
I do like that a little bit, soI might have some argument
there, or some local brews, ofcourse.
(35:51):
I'm excited to talk aboutnational root beer.
Thank you.
You are listening to the More Math for More People
podcast.
An outreach of CPM educationalprograms Boom.
An outreach of CPM EducationalProgram.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Boom, July 23rd 2024.
What is our national day, Joel?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
It is.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
National Sprinkle Day .
Sprinkle Day, sprinkle Day.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Sprinkle Day.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Sprinkle Day.
Okay, I'm trying to wonder whatthe context of this is.
Do you mean like rain sprinkle?
Do you mean like sprinkles youput on?
Like to call it sprinkle isinteresting to me, not sprinkles
day.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, sprinkle Day, we're celebrating non perioles.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
The candy sprinkle.
Oh yeah, I never had to knowhow to say that word either.
I think it's non-perioles.
Non-perioles.
I see that word all the timeand I'm always like what does
that actually mean?
Is that what those things arecalled?
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Why are they non something I don't know, but why
are they not?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
something.
They's what those things arecalled.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Why are they non-something?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I know, but why are they not something they're?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
decorative.
What are perils, then?
Yeah, what are perils?
These are the non-peril.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
They're a decorative confectionary of tiny balls made
of sugar and starch.
It's such a weird thing to callthem that they're not something
else, but it doesn't make anysense to me.
We used to call those jimmies.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Jimmies?
Did you ever call them jimmiesthe sprinkles?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, yeah, I moved around a lot when I was a kid,
right, and when we moved toMassachusetts and we went to
this restaurant it was calledFriendly's, I think was the
restaurant, and they haddelicious ice cream like sundaes
and banana splits and thingslike that ice cream like sundaes
and banana splits and thingslike that and they asked us if
we wanted jimmies on them.
I've never heard that before,and I remember we were like what
(02:08):
are those?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
And there were the chocolate sprinkles.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Oh, specific chocolate.
Well, they were chocolate.
I think that's the only.
They really only refer to thechocolate ones, as I remember as
jimmies, but I was 10, so Imight have forgotten.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Fair enough.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
But yeah, we learned that they were called jimmies
and that's the only other placethat I ever remember them being
called jimmies.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I see here in the 1930s jimmies in America Jimmies
are used as a cake toppingthere you go.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Interesting.
So and at Friendly's inMassachusetts in the 1980s.
No 1970s.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
So they're called Hegel's Leg in the Netherlands.
What?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Hegel's Leg.
It sounds like a Dutch word.
You probably have to say itHegel's Leg.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And they're Jimmy's in Boston and Philadelphia and
they're Mews and Stroge's inBelgium, which means mouse
droppings.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh, delicious.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Like some mouse droppings or some musenstrojies.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
So Jimmy's is a.
So I wonder if our coworker wholives in Philadelphia area
calls them Jimmy's also.
Well, we have to to have tofind out.
Maybe she'll send us a messageand let us know.
Yeah, I hope so, but anyway,but we don't know why they're
called non-pareils.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
No, we don't know that yet, but I do want to say
do you think you can give yourdog sprinkles?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
No, you should not give your dog sprinkles as long
as they don't contain chocolate.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
So don't give them jimmies.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yes, of course you could give them the sprinkles.
Well, why would?
Speaker 1 (03:53):
you give your dog sprinkles.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
I don't.
I think that's not.
I think in general.
Still, I'm not going toadvocate to people that they
should give their dog sprinkles.
I could say it's probably notunsafe to do so, but I'm going
to say I would still have somehesitation to give my dog
sprinkles.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I wouldn't give Wendell sprinkles.
There's no way.
Are sprinkles made of bugs?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
What.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Are sprinkles made of bugs?
Why would they?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
be made of bugs.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
No.
Well sprinkles have a coatingof shelliac, which is something
extracted from insects.
So, yes, sprinkles have acoating.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Well, okay, that's like saying it's ice cream made
of seaweed.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
It's nothing like that.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
It has the agar stuff in it.
It's exactly like that.
Oh my gosh, exactly like that.
Okay, so we don't know whythey're called non-pearls.
They're made with bugs.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
And sometimes called jimmies, but only if they're
chocolate and you could put themon a sugar cookie.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Oh, absolutely From last episode.
Callback from two weeks agoyeah, you could totally put them
on a sugar cookie.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Okay, I have another question, though.
Does it include all thedifferent kinds, like the
rainbow sprinkles, the littleones that are metallic?
Yes, all the different kinds,like the rainbow sprinkles, the
little ones that are metallic,spheres, like all of those all
kinds of sprinkles.
What about the ones that arelike the green sugar or the red?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
sugar?
Yes, and in fact this day isall about learning the different
variations of sprinkles so youcan try them out.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yes, Sometimes they're like little shapes, like
almost like hard candy.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I don't know about the shapes, I just know about
the little sprinkles there'sones that are like that are like
little flowers.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I don't know, and they're like they're like almost
like Necco candy or something.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So maybe that's Necco candy.
There's all different kinds.
No, no, no, no no, no, no bigsprinkles.
I bet that counts, then I onlyever use sprinkles.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
I feel like when we were making cookies at.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Christmas Fairy bread .
Do you ever make fairy breadwhat?
You take a piece of bread, youput some butter on it and then
you sprinkles.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Ooh.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
No, I don't want to eat.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
It's the closest of what you'll get to what they're
actually intended for.
Actually Is what it says.
That's what sprinkles wereintended for is to put on your
buttered bread they wereintended to put on.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Bread Says who.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Says my source.
Okay, well, that's interesting.
Maybe that's why they're callednonpareils or whatever
Something to do with, just don'tdo it.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Alright, we're leaving you with so many
research questions.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
I don't know guys.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Okay, so it's it's National Sprinkle Day.
I still think it's calledNational Sprinkles Day, but it's
fine.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
We don't get to choose those things.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
No Well.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I could just call it in my own head that way, anyway.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
So go have some sprinkles, get some, however you
want, all right.
All right, so today on thepodcast, we have part three of
(07:05):
our conversation with Kevin Dyke, who is the president of NCTM.
If you missed parts one andpart two, you should really go
back to the June 25th podcastand start from the beginning.
We split it into three partsfor you.
(07:26):
It was a nice conversation andyou're going to want to hear how
we led up to this part wherewe've talked a little bit about
planning, we've talked a littlebit about preparing and we move
into how do we help studentsmaintain their perseverance and
be okay with making mistakes andsome of that's modeling.
So it's a great conversation.
If you haven't heard the firstparts, go back to the beginning.
(07:48):
Otherwise, here you go, partthree of our conversation with
Kevin Dykema.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
One of the things that I constantly try to do and
I'll emphasize the word try todo some days it works better
than others.
When the students have amisconception, when they make an
error or whatever, I often tryto figure out what's the problem
they were really doing and sooften if I can tell the student
oh, you did a great job, buthere's the problem you were
solving, we're solving thisproblem.
(08:15):
And when they can see whatproblem.
They were really solving for somany they're like oh, now I know
what I need to do to actuallysolve the problem that we're
doing in class.
Very rarely are studentscompletely and totally clueless,
but I think so often we think,oh, they either know how to do
it or they don't know how to doit, and there's so many shades
of gray in between there.
And so often students may be90% of the way with something
(08:38):
understanding, but yet they'regetting the problems
consistently wrong with that.
It's figuring out that lastlittle bit.
What's that?
That's usually a relativelysmall little thing that we just
need to tweak a little bit andall of a sudden they start to
feel confident and theyrecognize that, and I do try as
much as I can to help them.
See.
All right, if the problem wasthis, your solution strategy,
(08:59):
your solution would have beenperfect, but unfortunately you
don't get to pick your ownproblem.
Here's the problem we'reactually working on in class
today, or working on at thispoint in time.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, and so often there I see that they're afraid
to say what they think becauseso many times they've just been
met with that's wrong, right,that's not.
And they're still at an agewhere it's very hard to
differentiate Right, because oftheir brain development.
I was wrong versus, I am wrong,right.
So there's.
It could be really hard, ifthey've met that a lot of times,
(09:33):
then to continue to say, well,here's what I was thinking when
it's not received with oh,that's interesting thinking
right, let's attach this otherideas to it as well.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
And I think sometimes our reaction as educators when
we make a mistake.
If I'm telling my students Ivalue your mistakes, I think
it's great.
But then I make a mistake inclass, I'm like, oh you guys, I
can't believe I did that, howembarrassing.
I wish I wouldn't have donethat class.
And like, oh you guys, I can'tbelieve I did that, how
embarrassing, I wish.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I wouldn't have done that?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
What message is that really sending?
Or those teachers that say, oh,I purposely made that mistake
to see if you were payingattention, baloney, you are not.
Just own up to that.
If we want our students torecognize that it's through
their mistakes that we can learn, they need to see us as the
educators, as the adults in theroom.
They need just see that we canmake a mistake as well and that
life continues on and that it'sokay that we made that mistake.
(10:21):
At that point in time, wefigure out what we did wrong and
we keep on keeping on.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah, I love how we're celebrating mistakes.
Obviously is what we're talkingabout, but then I like how you
phrase it as oh, I'm going tofind out the problem that you're
solving.
So, likewise, as an adult, Iwas trying to solve this other
problem.
Yeah, very much so.
That's a great way to thinkabout it.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah, yeah.
Or sometimes I again workingwith teachers like a teacher, I
have dyslexia and sometimes Iwrite the things wrong on the
board.
You need to be paying attentionto what I'm writing on the
board.
Did I do this right?
Did I do that step right?
And acknowledging that, yeah,it's just part of my learning
and the way I operate, andparticularly on the board.
It's hard and it gets kidspaying attention and then
(11:07):
they're like, oh wait, that'ssupposed to be an X squared.
He's like okay, and fixes itright, but it's engaging them in
the learning.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah, I had this weird phenomenon sometimes of
saying the answer is 42.
And as I'm writing on the board, I write 89 or some other
random number that I have noidea where it came from.
And the class all laughs and Ijust look and say I have no idea
where that came from.
I told you the correct stuff ofwhat I wrote down, for whatever
reason is there.
But how do I react in thatmoment If I make a big deal out
(11:45):
of it, say, I'm so embarrassed,we're just telling the kids
making mistakes isn't good,persevering isn't necessary at
that point in time if I need tomake sure that my actions are
modeling what I'm, what I'msaying to the students.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Absolutely one of the things that I find it great
that you've been working withstudents with exceptionalities,
and you had that NCTM conferencethat you've put together, and
so often those are the studentsthat are least likely to be
supported in struggle, and so Iwanted to hear your thoughts of.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
On both ends.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Very much, so we push kids on both ends toward here's
the procedure.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, very much so.
We push kids on both endstoward here's the procedure.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
We're thinking about students who are receiving
specialized learning servicesthrough IEPs.
For so many of them it's justrote memorization.
And when I look at how manystudents have IEPs in middle
school and high school, theirobjective is to be able to
multiply one-digit numbers orwhatever the case Boring.
(12:39):
Let's allow them to think andmaybe it's through that thinking
and we provide them the toolsto do some of those calculations
.
I am not saying that I don'twant students to have their
facts memorized.
I would love for them to havetheir facts memorized, but the
reality is so did my teacher.
My teacher would have loved forall of us to have our facts
memorized.
I did, but some of the studentswho struggled did not have it.
(13:02):
But we've historically done inmathematics we've denied access
to high quality, interestingmath that we don't give our
students any opportunities to towant to continue doing math
because we just keep beatingthem over the head with the same
thing year after year afteryear and increasingly students
whether they have a disability,whether they don't have a
disability are like forget youwhen you think about students
(13:25):
who are currently excelling.
Sometimes students who arecurrently excelling really have
very little critical thinkingskills.
They just memorize theprocedures.
Well, I was a great rulememorizer, but it wasn't until I
started teaching that I startedto see some of those
connections.
And I'm sure my students myfirst few years of teaching
(13:46):
thought I was absolutely crazy,because in the middle of class
they'd be like, oh, now I get it.
And they would say don't youknow how to do the problem?
I'd say yes, but there's adifference between knowing how
and then knowing why.
I'd say yes, but there's adifference between knowing how
and then knowing why.
And this was, I mean.
I was a student in thepre-technology days.
Graphic calculators were juststarting to be a thing in my
high school as I was gettingready to be a senior.
(14:08):
And now we know there's so muchmore technology available to
our students than if that was myexperience.
My students' experience betterlook different than my
experience, however, many yearsago, because we live in an
ever-increasing technology worldand we live in a society where
some of those calculations somany of us were just taught to
be human calculators in somerespects.
(14:29):
And our students don't need tobe human calculators.
They have tools at theirdisposal.
Let's get them to think whenyou think about a professional
mathematician.
They're not sitting arounddoing worksheet after worksheet
after worksheet, they'reactually thinking, making sense,
trying to push the boundariesof what's already known.
But yet in K-12, so muchmathematics is really just
(14:51):
worksheet after worksheet afterworksheet and there's this
disconnect between whatmathematics is and what
mathematics should be.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah, and and that's, that's a.
There's a such a conflict withthat, right, because, yes,
practice is a thing our brainsneed.
We do need to do things torepeat information, to make
those the you know, to myelinatethe, the neural pathways, right
, and.
But if that's all we're doing,that's not very interesting and
(15:22):
it doesn't last over time.
So how to balance that, how tobalance enough practice right To
get the familiar with thoseideas, with the conceptual
understanding as well, right, sothat students are able to make
all those connections that youand I and Joel can make because
we've been learning math for along time, we've got a lot of
(15:43):
different things in there andhow to help students who are
still at this very non-expertspace to make those, to begin to
make those connections.
It's such a big, it's aconflict and it's a challenge.
It's such a big, it's aconflict and it's a challenge,
right at the same time.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Very much so, and the amount of purposeful practice
that student A needs may lookdifferent than the amount of
purposeful practice that studentB needs and may be different
than student C.
We tend to give everybody thesame thing, and it's figuring
out.
How do you make those, thosecritical adaptations to support
(16:21):
every single student and yet notnot overdo it with students,
but not underdo it with students.
It's a challenge.
I think that's one of thebeautiful things about teaching
mathematics.
That's why I love to to teachmathematics, because what works
for student a doesn't work forstudent b, and it's figuring,
figuring out what is going towork for you.
How can I help you engage inthis notion of productive
struggles that you're makingsense of the mathematics and
(16:43):
you're seeing those differentconnections, rather than just
having to try to memorize a setof procedures that we know for
many students they just don'tsee a purpose for.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, purpose for yeah.
And before you're talking aboutieps and changing what what's
in an iep to help a student havea goal of thinking.
And then I wanted fun activity.
That would be everybody maketheir own individualized plan
and how can you think and youcan reflect yourself and the
teacher could respond to that.
That would be fun activity yeahit would be,
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I remember when I taught middle school also, and I
always felt like that was oneof my goals, many goals but one
of my many goals was to helpstudents figure out how they
learn right, like having alittle binder with the dividers
and that may not be the way theorganization that works for you,
and you may struggle to figureout an organization that works.
(17:39):
So how can we give you someoptions and some things to try?
But some part of it was likeokay, what kind of ways of
taking notes works for you?
What kinds of ways?
And so it's giving them lots ofdifferent options and having
them think about did this workfor me?
Well, I don't know, why did itnot work for me?
I don't know.
So how can they get into thatmetacognitive activity around
(18:00):
their own thinking?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Very much so.
And middle schoolers, whatworks for student A doesn't work
for student B.
With the organization.
And the same thing is true foradults I'm sure for other ages
as well that you have thatstudent who has an incredibly
messy binder, an incrediblymessy locker, and yet they know
where every last little piece ofpaper is and they can find
everything there.
And for those who are highlyorganized, it drives them
(18:24):
absolutely crazy.
And sitting at parent-teacherconferences it becomes evident
sometimes that the parents areso frustrated with the child
because the child looks likeit's a disaster zone with their
binder.
But that kid can just pull andfind anything fairly quickly.
But that's not how the parentswant them to be organized.
And it's a beautiful thing inteaching middle schoolers.
(18:45):
They're quirky.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, so we're going to wrap up here, and I think,
joel, you have a request, don'tyou?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
I do.
One of our new segments for ourfourth season of this podcast
is we're requesting if anybodyhas math jokes.
So I'm asking you do you have amath joke that you'd like to
share?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
with the audience, A favorite go-to.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, nothing tremendously great other than
the best.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
It could be your favorite and I'll be great to be
clear.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yeah, well, it's not all.
That.
It's what I may think has somehumor.
My two daughters, who are now24 and 22, don't find quite as
humorous.
But what do you do if you'recold?
You can go stand in the corner,because it's 90 degrees.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
I like it, thank you.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
But now I want to go back and listen to all of your
podcasts so I can get a wholebunch of math jokes.
Yes, it'll be great to expandmy repertoire.
My daughters will love it whenI start texting them all these
different math jokes.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Fantastic.
I think that pretty much all ofthem are pretty punny.
I don't think we've come acrossvery many math jokes that
aren't puns, so far, so fun.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Thanks for joining us .
Thank you so much.
Oh, you're very welcome.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Thanks so much for coming on the podcast and
spending this time with us.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Thanks for all you're doing to help promote math
education and thanks to all ofour listeners today of thinking
about what can you do to helpmath make sense for our students
.
And to move past the proceduresand get them engaging in seeing
those different connections.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
And good luck with your keynote at the CCMC.
We hope it goes well.
Joel will report on it later.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I will.
I'll come say hello, soundsgreat.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
All right Sounds great.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Thank you.
Thank you, kelly, thank youOkay.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
so we've started this new segment on the podcast with
math jokes.
We have, and we've gotten a fewmath jokes submitted so far.
They're all like one-liners,right.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
They're just like what's this?
And kind of punny too.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And an answer yeah, and there were a kind of punny
too.
And an answer yeah, and therewere a lot of puns yeah.
So we were curious if we couldfind I wanted to find a math
joke that was a story right Likea long story math joke.
And so we Googled story mathjokes, yeah, and we found a
couple of Reddit pages, and sowe're going to share some of the
math jokes that are there.
(21:18):
Okay, so what do you got, joel?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I was on the what's your favorite math joke.
That requires at least someamount of higher education in
math.
Okay, so let's try.
Should we just try one?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Sure Go for it.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
So you keyed it up with a big story.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
However, we'll just see, well, that's what I Googled
.
That doesn't mean that's whatwe found, let's just try this
one.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Okay, how do you make ?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
a computer program that decides if a number over 10
to the 50th power is a prime ornot with 99% accuracy.
I have no idea, just say not aprime every time I don't get it.
I don't get it either okay okay, oh, I get it.
No, I get it now because 99 ofthe numbers that big must not be
primes, see there you go.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Oh see, it made sense I'm glad I got that one.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Okay, okay, okay.
Okay, I've got one.
That's like a story.
So a mathematician walks into abar accompanied by a dog and a
cow.
The bartender says hey, no,animals are allowed in here.
The mathematician replies theseare very special animals.
How so?
The mathematician says they'renot theorists.
The bartender raises hiseyebrows and says I've met a
(22:38):
number of not theorists who Ithought were animals, but never
an animal.
That was a not theorist.
Well, I'll prove it to you.
Ask them anything you like.
So the bartender asks the dogName a not invariant Arf, barks
the dog.
The bartender scowls and turnsto the cow asking "'Name a
(23:01):
topological invariant'.
"'moo' says the cow.
At this point the bartenderturns to the mathematician and
says very funny, with that hethrows the three out of the bar,
outside sitting on the curb.
The dog turns to themathematician and asks do you
think I should have said theJones polynomial instead?
I don't know anything aboutknot theory, so I do understand
(23:28):
why and how that's supposed tobe funny.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
But I don't really.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Because Mew and yeah, I do see the person who
submitted that joke has told itmany times with great success.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
So that's something to keep in mind.
It's been upvoted on.
Up voted on reddit, so what arelittle eigensheep called
eigensheep I don't lambda again.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I get it because I don't really know what I can
know, but I know, like thesymbol, lambda, right, like
that's got to be like no, I getthat, I get that.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I don't want to know what it has to do with eyeing a
sheep.
All right, this one says.
Noah's ark settles on dry land.
All the animals disembark andNoah goes back inside patting
himself on the back.
Inside he sees two snakeshanging back.
Noah looks at them and says theLord said go forth and multiply
, beat it.
The snakes look at him and onesays we can't multiply, we're
(24:29):
adders, adders.
Huh, says Noah annoyed.
He goes off into a nearbyforest.
Noah chops down a tree andproceeds to make a beautiful
table from the split logs.
He's after dragging the tableall the way back to the ark and
cursing himself for havingwandered so far away.
He stands before the snakeswith much fanfare and says there
(24:50):
, even adders can multiply witha log table.
Wah.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Oh boy, we need our sound effects.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I know we're going to have to put the sound effects
in here, that's for sure.
I don't know what a.
Do you know what a vuvuzela is?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
No, I don't know what a Vuvuzela is.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Choke doesn't help.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
What do you call a group of symmetry preserving
transformations of the MiddleEast?
Oh, my goodness, lawrence ofArabia.
Lawrence, I think we have toknow what a Lawrence means.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Oh, it's not spelled like l-o-r-e-n-t-z.
Well, it's a group of symmetrypreserving transformations is
what I would think, apparently.
Apparently, a respectedmathematician goes to announce
an exciting new result at aconference.
The room crowded with peopleinterested in all the hubba.
(25:51):
He introduces the main idea andthen moves into giving a sketch
of the proof to the audience.
Fifteen minutes pass, thentwenty, thirty, forty, fifty all
with the audience listeningclosely.
Finally, he wraps up hispresentation and begins taking
questions.
A junior researcher in theaudience hesitates for a moment,
then raises his hand.
Excuse me, sir.
Yes, I have a counterexample to.
(26:13):
I haven't got any sense of iteither.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Well, that's it.
That's the punchline.
No, that's good so if he has acounterexample to one.
He just has a differentline.
No, that's good so if he has acounter example to one.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
He just has a different proofs.
Yeah, that seems silly.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Interesting.
What is yellow, normed andcomplete.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yellow, normed and complete.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
A bonach space.
No idea, no idea.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
No idea.
Okay, this one I understand.
Okay, an engineer and acomputer scientist are asked to
help out in the classroom.
The professor placed an emptybucket on top of the table at
the front of the room.
He then asked the engineerremove the bucket from the room.
The engineer circles the table,analyzes it from every angle,
(27:13):
then picks up the bucket andwalks out of the room with it.
Very good, says the professor.
He brings the bucket back in,fills it to the room with water
and this time he places itunderneath the table.
He then asks the computerscientist take the bucket out of
the room.
The computer scientist circlesthe table, analyzes it from
every angle, then picks thebucket up, dumps the water water
all over the floor and placesit on top of the table.
The professor is aghast and hisshoes are soaked.
But you have not removed thebucket from the room, the
(27:36):
professor complains.
The computer scientist, with asmug look, exclaims Ah, but I
have reduced the problem to onealready solved.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Ah, good one.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I thought so too.
Okay.
This one, I think high schoolteachers can get too Okay let's
do it.
What do you get when you crossa mosquito with a mountain
climber?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Mosquito with a mountain climber.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I want to say malaria , but I'm not sure.
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Nothing.
You can't cross a vector with ascalar.
That's a good one, sure, oh,okay.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Nothing.
You can't cross a vector with ascalar.
What?
That's a good one.
A sphere and a torus walk intoa bar.
When it comes time to pay thetab, the torus is out of cash.
The sphere says Sorry, man, Ican't cover you.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Okay, this one's a good one too.
So these two explorers areexploring in a hot air balloon
and they get lost over thedesert.
They see someone walkingbeneath them and looking for
help.
They release the ballast andshout at her when are we?
She thinks, and just beforethey get out of earshot, answers
You're in a hot air balloon.
The first explorer tells thesecond one she must be a
(28:48):
mathematician.
Why, says the second balloonist?
One, because she thought beforeshe answered.
And two, her answer was 100%accurate.
And three, it was totallyuseless.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
What do you think of mathematicians?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
So the mathematician says ah, I see, you guys must be
physicists.
Yes, indeed, we are.
How do you know it?
Well, for three reasons you gotinto an experiment without
knowing exactly what you weredoing.
Two, when you got into trouble,you asked a mathematician for
help.
And three, and now that youfind out that I can't help you,
you're probably going to blameme for your failure.
(29:23):
There's a lot of mathematicianversus others.
I was going to say let's pointthe fingers at everybody else
kind of thing, well, it is truethat mathematicians and
engineers and career scientistslike people who are really into
those fields of thinking thereis there's some very distinctive
(29:45):
difference in how they approachthis it's true.
All right, you got one more forus, Joel.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
You got a good one.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, they keep getting worse and worse.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Well, yeah, because we're going down the Reddit
thread.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I know.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Oh my gosh, Okay.
An infinite number ofmathematicians walk into a bar.
The first mathematician ordersa beer.
The second orders half a beer.
The first mathematician ordersa beer, the second orders half a
beer.
I don't serve half beer.
The bartender replies Excuse me.
Asks mathematician number twowhat kind of bar serves half
beers?
The bartender remarks that'sridiculous.
Oh, come on.
(30:22):
Says mathematician number one.
Do you know how hard it is tocollect an infinite number of us
?
Just play along.
There are very strict laws onhow I can serve drinks.
I couldn't serve you a halfbeer, even if I wanted to, but
that's not a problem.
Mathematician number threechimes in At the end of the joke
you serve us a whole number ofbeers.
You see, when you take the sumof a continuously halving
(30:44):
function, I know how limits work, and there she acts, the
bartender having function.
I know how limits work, andthere she acts, the bartender.
All right then.
I didn't want to assume abartender would be familiar with
such advanced mathematics.
Are you kidding me?
The bartender replies you learnlimits in like ninth grade.
What kind of mathematicianthinks limits are advanced
mathematics?
He's on to us.
Mathematician number onescreeches Simultaneously, every
(31:06):
mathematician opens their mouthand out pours a cloud of
multicolored mosquitoes.
What Each mathematician isbellowing insects of a different
shade.
The mosquitoes form into asingular polychromatic swarm
Fools.
It moves in unison.
I will infect every being onthis pathetic planet with
malaria.
The bartender stands fearlessagainst the technicolor horde,
(31:29):
but wait, he interrupts.
Thinking fast.
If you do that, politicianswill use the catastrophe as an
excuse to implement free healthcare.
Think of how much that willhurt the taxpayers.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I don't know where this is going.
The mosquitoes fall silent fora brief moment.
My God, you're right.
We didn't think about theeconomy Very well.
We will not attack thisdimension For the taxpayers, and
with that they vanish.
Nearby Barfly stumbles over tothe bartender.
How did you know that wouldwork?
It's simple.
The bartender says I saw thevectors formed a gradient and
therefore must be conservative.
(32:00):
Wah, this is the comment on a.
This started out as a normalmath joke, slid sideways into
metahumor, took a sharp turninto cosmic horror and then
somehow brought it all back intoa dumb math punchline.
I'm in awe.
Okay, and with that.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Wait, I got one more.
I got one more.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Okay, you got one more.
Okay, one more.
Last math joke.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
The Great Engineering , mathematics and Physics
Convention was in town, so therewere a lot of mathematicians,
physicists and engineers stayingat the local hotel.
During the night a fire brokeout on all three floors, and on
the bottom floor an engineer wasthe first to wake up when the
alarm went off.
They ran out into the hallway,saw the fire, saw the fire hose
(32:53):
and quickly calculated the exactamount of water to use to put
out the fire so as to not causeany unnecessary damage to the
building.
The next person to wake up wasthe physicist.
They saw the fire and the firehose and quickly calculated the
optimal trajectory for the water, so they don't have to get too
close.
Then the mathematician wakes up.
(33:13):
They see the fire and the firehose and declare aha, a solution
exists and they go back to bed.
This, of course, wakes up themathematician's roommate, who is
another mathematician.
What's going on?
They say oh, it's just a fire,but don't worry, there's a hose.
(33:37):
Don't get me wrong.
I take great satisfaction inknowing the problem can be
easily solved, but this is areal-world situation and we have
to take practical action orwe'll die.
So they run out into the halland grab the fire hose, wake up
the physicist and hand them thehose, thus reducing it to a
previously solved problem.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
All right, I hope you enjoyed our math jokes.
I thought they were somewhatridiculous.
We'll play some sound effectsfor you now.
Remember that you can send usyour math joke anytime by just
(34:24):
recording your name, where youare and your favorite math joke
and send it to us at cpmpodcast,at cpmorg.
Thanks so much.
So that is all we have time foron this episode of the More
Math for More People podcast.
(34:45):
If you are interested inconnecting with us on social
media, find our links in thepodcast description, and the
music for the podcast wascreated by Julius H and can be
found on pixabaycom.
So thank you very much, Julius.
Join us in two weeks for thenext episode of More Math for
More People.
What day will that be, Joel?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
The August 6th, national Root Beer Float Day,
and I love a good root beerfloat and root beer float by the
numbers.
Did you know?
In 1876, that was the year thatroot beer was invented.
Number 16.
That's the number of roots andherbs that root beer was made of
.
3%, that's the percentage thatroot beer makes up in America's
(35:30):
soft drink market.
1960, the year when a keyingredient in root beer, the
saffron root, was banned by theFDA.
And number one, the ranking ofA&W as the leading root beer
brand in America.
I do like that a little bit, soI might have some argument
there, or some local brews, ofcourse.
(35:51):
I'm excited to talk aboutnational root beer.
Thank you.
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