Weekly blog from October 22nd

Robin showed us some stats from the history of the census and from the selective service. The point was that what appeared as one set of data actually told a different story than one might assume at first glance. Technology, in the case Fathom, illustrated "the story". This was all within the framework of "telling a story" with numbers to make a subject interesting. There was also a comment (this week's I think though I may be wrong) about how if a picture can tell a thousand words, what is the power of technology to illustrate a lesson. I really liked the idea of "telling a story", I think it can bring attention to a subject. I also thought about the different ways to relate a story: words, pictures, technology. I was also thinking about the history of relating abstract ideas. If you go back really far the most abstract ideas were not science or math but history. The teachings were mostly oral. So how do you utilize "story telling" to teach a non narrative subject like math or science? If you can figure this out you are doing well because the best oral tradition is hard to beat. I think of the best story tellers: you really remember what they said, you remember the story. Imagine the 10,000 hours rule back in preliterate times 3,4,5 thousand years ago. The stories and the tellers must have been really good. They probably had all the literary devices including plot twist. Wait, plot twist, isn't that the literary technique Robin was using in her "stories", and Malcolm Gladwell too? So to be a great teacher you have to learn to use technology to tell good stories, how do you learn to tell good stories to adolescents?
I want to learn to tell stories that adolescents think are interesting stories, I want to learn how to use words pictures and technology to make them irresistible. I want a set of stories for algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, statistics and number theory.
Here is a story that has not been well told and yet probably could. Kepler figures his second law: A line joining a planet and the sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time. An orbit is an elipse, so how do you figure the areas of sweep? Calculus, which was developed 50 years later?!? So Kepler wasn't integrating his areas right? No. There is the story: try to figure Mars's orbit, based on Tycho Brahe's numbers without calculus. Now doesn't it turn into a page turner if Mr. Newton or Mr Liebnetz add their two cents worth, doesn't it illustrate both concepts better?