Required Reading (Especially for the NJDOE)

Cathy O'Neil's new book Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy is a must read for anyone living in our digital age; she's uniquely qualified to write this book, as she's an academic mathematician who earned her Ph.D from Harvard, worked for a hedge fund on Wall Street, analyzed big data for marketing start-ups and then became a political activist because she realized that a number of dangerous discriminatory algorithms are opaque, affect enormous numbers of people, and do unseen damage . . . she nicknames these WMDs . . . Weapons of Math Destruction, and she explains how these black box formulas evaluate creditworthiness, college rankings, our employability, our Facebook and Twitter feeds, and-- most significant to me-- teacher evaluations . . . and she spends a good portion of the book on just how irrational, absurd, and insanely unsound the models are that assess teacher performance-- the formulas might work if teachers taught ten thousand kids at a time, but for a class of 30 students, measuring how a kid did on a standardized test from one year to the next is essentially random (all the teachers know this, of course, even those of us who do not possess a math Phd. from Harvard, but it's nice to hear an expert explain the logic of why this is so) but apparently the NJDOE hasn't figured this out, and at the start of this school year, they increased the weight of standardized test scores in the evaluation model from 10% to 30% . . . so now, if a teacher works in a tested grade-- such as my wife-- one third of a teacher's numerical assessment is random . . . even if she teaches math and and can point out the many problems with the algorithm (a sociologist would cite Campbell's Law, of course, and also present a valid argument for why this change is absolutely inane) and I can't explain (without long strings of profanity) how incensed this makes me-- how utterly stupid the people at the NJDOE must all be, to enact this increase-- but I'm hoping that this book indicates a sea change in how we view these algorithms and formulas, and that people will learn enough math to understand how screwed up this is . . . and if the NJDOE changes the algorithm and writes a personal apology to me, confessing that they were totally ignorant of all math and logic, then I'm willing to forgive them, because even Bill Gates got it wrong with his charter school funding, he ignored the Law of Large Numbers and came to the conclusion that small schools were better than large schools, when the fact of the matter is that small schools have more statistical variance than large schools, because they have less students in them . . . so more of them will be better and more of them will be worse . . . but, of course, people may learn the truth and still not do anything about it-- we know that a later start time will improve test scores in high school, but the bus schedule prohibits this, and so kids show up at 7 AM, in a building without AC, ready to learn AP Physics . . . everyone knows this is not the best way to teach kids, but no one does anything about it, instead we purchase new software platforms so we can upload all the spurious data and crunch the numbers-- and there may be enough people in the NJDOE and other administrative capacities who love this idea so much, the idea that we're generating loads of numbers from standardized tests and evaluation algorithms, and they don't care that all the numbers are bullshit, because it's fun to have loads of "evidence" to evaluate and all this data perpetuates the idea that we need to pay people to look at it . . . anyway, I could go on and on, but read the book, it's revelatory . . . and if you don't feel like reading it, you can listen to her discussing it on Slate Money.

The Allusion of the Year!

My children celebrated Rosh Hashanah by inviting a bunch of kids (mainly Gentiles) over to play a two day marathon of "Star Wars Dungeons & Dragons," an exponentially nerdy D&D milieu that my son Alex created; Alex is also the dungeon-master and this drives his younger brother Ian crazy, and so-- as usual-- Ian  was simultaneously causing trouble both in the gameworld and the real world: Ian claimed that Alex was discriminating against him, but Alex countered that Ian was "blowing random stuff up" and "pouring random liquids on people" in the game, and Ian also poured actual real juice on his friend Tibby's character sheet and also pushed his actual brother down the actual basement stairs; after a time-out, Ian returned to the game and immediately went rogue attacked the Death Star, alone, and then attempted to kill the Emperor, without any help from the other players, and he got himself killed for his moronic bravado . . . and so I was recounting this silliness at work and my buddy Mike said: "Nice . . . he pulled a Leeroy Jenkins" and though it's a bit premature, his reference was so apropos that I've decided to award him with the coveted SOD Allusion of the Year Award.

Fantasy Coach of the Year

I finally got a win this week in my fantasy football league, and I attribute this victory to the bulk email I recently sent to all the players on my team:

"Congratulations . . . you have the privilege to be playing for the South Side Locusts fantasy football team this season, and if you perform well enough statistically and I designate you the team MVP, then you'll be rewarded with ten percent of my winnings . . . somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty dollars . . . which I know is a rather small percentage of your actual NFL salary, but still, every little bit helps, especially because you're  probably not going to play competitive football for very long, due to concussions and injuries, and, realistically speaking, it's not as if playing for the South Side Locusts and playing for your NFL franchise are mutually exclusive: padding your stats can certainly help when contract time rolls around, and so when you're debating whether to run out of bounds or go for that extra yard, just remember, there might be fifty dollars in it for you . . . but don't act like an idiot either, because if you get injured, you're really going to let both of your teams down."

I Need to Find Cooler Friends Part 2

In the English Office, my friend Terry was lamenting the state of being married with children, and he said, "I used to get it all the time," and we were excited to hear a vivid description of it . . . we all hoped it was something very salacious, but then he finished his sentence . . . "you know, silent time home alone without the kids."

I Need to Find Cooler Friends

My friend Kevin-- the one who's obsessed with Hamilton-- plays in a Strat-O-Matic hockey league.

The Test 63: Singing the Dogs

This week on The Test, Cunningham presents a quiz on canines, I give a tutorial on how to euthanize a groundhog, and Stacey sings the dogs . . . a weird, wonderful, occasionally informative episode with an ending that is not to be missed . . . if you're into animals that can talk.

Two Kinds of Compliments

There are two kinds of people, and there are two kinds of compliments . . . and I'm dismissing backhanded compliments and sarcastic compliments and fake compliments you give to your kids after they've performed in an elementary school play . . . I'm talking about actual, sincere compliments:

1) it's certainly nice to receive the first kind of compliment, but what designates it as a category one compliment is that it is in a domain with which you have experience and practice, and so it's more expected-- when I compliment my wife on a great meal, she appreciates the positive feedback, but she's a good cook, so it's no surprise . . .

2) the second kind of compliment is more exciting, because it's for something that you're not known for . . . something that you don't have experience with . . . such as: wow, you really euthanised that groundhog perfectly . . . and you can congratulate me now, because while I certainly did NOT euthanize that groundhog perfectly, I did receive a category two compliment this week . . . the bell rang, signalling the end of Creative Writing class, and moments later there was a commotion in the hall in front of my room, and I heard "Fight! Fight!" so I went to investigate, and one girl had another girl by the hair, and she had pulled the victim's hair in front of her face, and she was swinging her back and forth, and the girl with the masses of curly black hair in front of her face-- one of my students-- was going to get tossed into a locker . . . by her hair . . . but I was able to get in between the two combatants and grab the arm puller by the wrists and extricate her hands from the other girl's hair, and once I had accomplished that task-- it's not easy to get someone to let go of a pile of hair-- they took a few more swats at each other, but I was able to keep them apart and none of the blows landed-- and while this was happening, another teacher blew the whistle we were provided last year for such altercations-- and the security guards hustled over and escorted the ladies to the office . . . the next day the head security guard complimented me on a job well-done, the principal and the security team had watched the video, and he said I did a textbook job of breaking up the fight: I kept calm, I didn't use too much force, I didn't throw anyone around, and I kept them from hurting each other . . . and I felt better about this compliment than I would if someone told me I had taught a good lesson about Shakespeare, and so if you really want to make someone feel good, tell them they did a great job at something they don't do every day, such as: wow, you inflated all of your tires in the allotted three minutes, without having to pay an extra 75 cents . . . I bet Usain Bolt couldn't do that!

Schoolhouse Hip-hop = $$$$$$$

I should immediately point out that I am a seriously biased reviewer: I loathe Broadway musicals . . . I don't even like things that satirize Broadway musicals (such as Avenue Q and Spamalot) because the music still sounds like a Broadway musical, even if the lyrics are funny . . . but lately my good friend and colleague Kevin has been obsessed with the show Hamilton, and it seems everyone else on earth has either seen Hamilton or wants to see Hamilton, and all these folks are willing to pay an inordinate amount of money to do this . . . so I decided I would give it a shot and listen to the soundtrack (that's all I could muster, I would never pay money and make plans nine months in the future for musical theater) and I was sorely disappointed; I thought that the music in Hamilton was going to shatter the chains that constrict and restrain the music of a typical Broadway musical . . . I thought it was going to have a real urban, edgy, hip-hop feel to it, but it's actually just a better-produced version of Schoolhouse Rock, didactic and preachy, with plenty of actual Broadway cheese and a tame, enunciated version of rap and R&B music that sounds like a mix between DJ Jazzy Jeff and Oklahoma . . . and it's hard not to laugh at moments that are supposed to be dramatic and powerful-- delivered in a full hip-hop style-- that end up just being silly and anecdotal . . . my favorite is in "Non-Stop":

"the plan was to write a total of twenty-five essays, the work divided by three men . . . in the end they wrote eighty-five essays, in the span of six months . . . John Jay got sick after writing five, James Madison wrote twenty-nine, Hamilton wrote the other fifty-one!"

and I fully admit this negative review might be fueled by jealousy, because Lin-Manuel Miranda actually got his historical rap-musical written and produced, while my masterpiece "Bring Da Sense," a hip-hop biopic about Thomas "Bring Da" Paine and his controversial pamphlet is still unfinished (and Method Man doesn't seem all that interested in playing the role of Paine, which is a major sticking point).

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Get Stung in the Testicles

Sports can often be a weird exercise in futility: you practice and practice but never get to use your skills in the perfect situation (unlike learning how to knit or draw or play a musical instrument, where practice usually rewards you with a linear increase in skill and enjoyment) but once in a great while, the sporting gods shine their light on a lucky soul . . . and right now the light is shining on my son Ian . . . he plays on the middle school soccer team that I coach, and the team is comprised of 6-8th graders and this means there is a HUGE difference in sizes and development among the players-- Ian is on the small size for a sixth grader (78 pounds) and so when he's next to a large 8th grader, he looks like a midget-- the jersey goes down past his knees-- but he was the only sixth grader in attendance at last Friday's home game (I made him come to cheer on his team) and it was a close one, we were playing better soccer but the the other team (South Amboy) had a free kick specialist who bent it like Beckham used to bend it: he scored two forty-five yard curling spinless rocket shots and they also had a six foot tall Asian kid playing goalie who wasn't that coordinated but swatted down everything we shot at him; it was tied 2-2 in the second half and we just couldn't finish, so I threw Ian a bone and put him up top-- I figured it couldn't hurt and I could give him a few minutes of time as a reward for showing up (the rest of his sixth grade friends were playing Nerf war) and within moments, he got to use every soccer skill I've ever taught him, all in one play-- he ran through a ball forty yards out-- I'm a huge proponent of opening your hips and running through the goddamned ball, instead of stabbing at it-- and then he kept it glued to his body, juggling it on his chest, thighs and feet, then he sealed off a giant defender, faked a shot with his strong foot (he's lefty) and then cut it to his right and shot to the far post with his weak foot . . . it was, as my friend Roman described it, a David and Goliath moment . . . unforgettable and awesome . . . and, as if this wasn't enough, on Wednesday we had an away game against Woodrow Wilson, a middle school three times our size, and once again, we were playing much better soccer but the field was awful, the bumpiest I've seen, and we gave up a handball PK and an ugly counterattack goal and were down 2-1 in the second half . . . so I threw Ian in again, for luck, and two minutes later he snuck over to the far post and one of 8th graders zipped a ball across the box, from the left to right, and Ian-- a lefty-- took it off one bounce from ten yards out and slotted it in with his right foot . . . most kids will take a whack at that ball with their strong foot, and often whiff or knock it over the goal, but Ian kept his composure, used the proper foot, and scored another critical weak foot goal . . . this fired us up and our star player drilled one in from the eighteen moments later and that was enough to do it-- we won 3-2 . . . so good stuff for Ian: two huge goals in twelve minutes of play . . . I'm interested in what he'll do in the game this afternoon, as he insists he's going to score again . . . but I've got another son on the team: Alex-- he's a seventh grader and he's a skilled player as well, but despite skillfully juggling with me for an hour on Saturday, he didn't play very well in his game on Sunday-- not for lack of practice, but probably because when we were at a BBQ on Saturday night, he was attacked by a swarm of yellowjackets and got stung eight times (including two stings on his testicles) and so you'd think the sporting gods would reward him for enduring the stings and still showing up to play on Sunday, maybe give him an easy goal, but instead he was recompensed with a cleat to the ankle in the early minutes of the game, and then-- once he limped back out there-- an elbow to the face, so he was a gimpy bee-stung trainwreck, and while he toughed it out and didn't ask to sit, he didn't play particularly well . . . so you never know how it's going to go out there-- one moment you're the hero, the next you're the goat, and it doesn't always correspond with how hard you practice.

Pronouncement of Dave

Though I'm using an extremely small sample size and only anecdotal evidence, I am officially declaring that the Fitbit Craze is now over . . . the folks in my department are still walking and jogging and doing zumba, but their digital step-counters have ceased to operate and they are not replacing them . . . I think they have come to the collective realization that taking a walk still "counts" as exercise, even if a little device doesn't count the number of steps and post this information on a bar graph.

This Should Be an Olympic Event

Usain Bolt might be fast enough to inflate all four of his car tires to the recommended PSI in one three minute session, but I always fall a few seconds short and have to pony up another 75 cents in order to finish filling the final wheel.

Yesterday Was NOT Groundhog Day

I have a short window of time (30 minutes) between the end of the school day and soccer practice, and my house is right next to the middle school soccer field, so I have just enough time to go inside, change into my coaching gear, and do one or two other random things: sometimes I take the dog for a short walk, sometimes I eat a snack, sometimes I play the guitar or read, sometimes I unload the dishwasher or start the wash, sometimes I make iced coffee, sometimes I read Gheorghe:The Blog, and sometimes-- and this is a new one from yesterday and I hope it doesn't become a mainstay of my after-school-before-practice-schedule-- sometimes I let the dog out into the backyard, grab a bag of potato chips from the cabinet, and while I am opening the bag of chips, I hear fantastical growling and snarling in the yard, so I run out onto the back porch and see that the dog has a large groundhog by the scruff of the neck, shaking it to death, so I grab a wiffle ball bat, sprint down the porch steps, yell at the dog to drop the critter, and swing the bat menacingly (I'm not sure if I was swinging the bat at the dog or at the groundhog, it just seemed like the thing to do) and Sirius obeyed and let go of the groundhog, which fell on the grass and lay there, prone but breathing heavily, eyes open . . . so I led Sirius onto the back porch, brushed the groundhog hair off his legs, told him he was a good boy, and put him inside; then I went back out to deal with the dying animal in my yard-- knowing full well that my kids would be home in a few minutes and I needed to get down to the soccer field ASAP . . . and that's when I realized I should have let my dog finish the job and then made him drop the creature because now I had to finish the job, and I didn't grow up on a farm but I also didn't have time to contemplate much about the deed, and so I went inside, emptied out a cardboard box (Popchips . . . a humiliating casket, but what could I do?) and then went back out to the yard to tend to the groundhog . . . I had hoped that he might have miraculously recuperated and shuffled off, but he was still lying in the same spot, neck and back broken, but alive, so I whacked him over the head with a metal shovel, used the same instrument to load him into his cardboard casket, taped it shut, and drove the box to the park and tossed it in a dumpster . . . minutes later my kids arrived home, I told them an expurgated version of the story, and we went on our merry way to soccer practice.

Awkward Dave Learns Why Dreams are Stupid and Mean Nothing

I had an incredibly "realistic" dream last night that I ran for governor (absurd) and actually won the election (ridiculous) and then, when I went over to the statehouse to start my term, I learned that the salary was abysmally low (which is patently untrue, New Jersey governors are paid the fourth highest salary in the country-- 175,000 dollars) and so I told them that I couldn't afford to do it; it was embarrassing and awkward-- and everyone was really pissed off at me for wasting their time-- and, as a compromise, they made me do the job for a month while they found someone else, and that really annoyed me because I had to drive to Trenton every day, which ruined my summer vacation (also silly, as the next gubernatorial election in New Jersey will take place on November 7th).

The Test 62: History and Futility

This week on The Test, I challenge the ladies with a rather grim thought experiment (thanks to Chuck Klosterman) and while they perform admirably, it might all be for nought . . . so check it out, keep score . . . or don't, because we are all merely grains of sand in the hourglass of time, drifting down down down, towards the neck, and the inevitable drop into the abyss (unless some greater power flips the hourglass over, and we all get another crack at it).
 

Postcards from the Dead

My friend and colleague Stacey has to sort out a morbid holiday dilemma . . . she made a family-photo Christmas card last year, printed a stack of them, but she but neglected to mail them out, and now she wants to use those cards this year-- why waste them?-- but the photo on the cards includes her deceased dog, Norman . . . and so we were trying to figure out if it's weird and creepy to send out a Christmas card with a dead dog on it . . . and besides, she has a new dog (Walter . . . she likes old man names) and it would be rather rude to cut Walter out of the picture . . . and while we never came to a concrete decision on the proper thing to do, the discussion reminded Stacey of the grim death announcement postcard that has resided on the English Office bulletin board for many years . . . no one remembers who delivered the card to the office and no one knows the person the card "fondly remembers" . . . he might have been a student at the school or perhaps he was a substitute teacher or an aid, his identity has always been a mystery, but for reasons of superstition, no teacher would throw the card away; I had long forgotten about this item, but when Stacey pointed it out, I took it down and tore it to shreds, right in front of her face, just to freak her out, and it worked like a charm-- she shrieked and then yelled, "He's going to haunt the shit out of you!" and so I did my usual taunting of the gods and spirits, demanding that they strike me dead with lightning or stop my heart, but neither thing happened, and so it seems that I am immune to spectral power of all apparitions and phantasmagoria.

Are These Pants Blue or Black?

They should write the color of the clothing on the tag.

I Might Be From Pungudutivu

J. D. Salinger waits until chapter five to reveal that Holden Caulfield's brother Allie died of leukemia-- and this is an excellent characterization strategy-- after reading the opening pages of the novel, you form one opinion about Holden . . . that he's rather whiny and annoying, disaffected and disenchanted, and then you have to totally revise your opinion when you are presented with this new and rather grim piece of information . . . they say that first impressions are everything, but that's not necessarily true, especially if a later piece of information that you learn about someone is particularly relevant; for example: you probably think this blog is a puddle of drivel and you only read it so you can register your disgust with my insipid ramblings, BUT if I divulged that I was not actually Dave, but a ninety-four year old Sri Lankan woman named Ajani who lives in a mudbrick house on the island of Pungudutivu and who loves to post discursive sentences as a pretentious balding American pseudo-intellectual, then this blog would take on an entirely new tenor . . . unfortunately, that's not true . . .  but it does raise an interesting question: what game-changing piece of information would you withhold until the middle pages of your autobiography?

Let's Do the Time Suck Again

When I first enter my classroom in the morning, the amount of time I spend opening difficult to access windows-- actual glass windows that I need to open to let cooler air into my room, which are set up in six columns of three, so that I have to stand on top of the window ledge in order to open the top set-- and then the time it takes to set up the many fans, and then the time I spend opening various virtual windows on my computer, so that I can log in to all the various platforms we use (if we use Google classroom then why did we switch out email to Microsoft Outlook?) is a tedious, inefficient time suck, as I could be grading papers, preparing my lessons, organizing my materials, and writing this blog (which is also a tragic tragic time suck . . . but unlike opening windows, real and virtual, I actually enjoy wasting my time on this . . . or, as is the case this morning, seven minutes of my school contract time . . . please don't rat me out).

R.I.P. Greasetruck Studios . . .

It looks like the desktop computer and digital audio converter in my makeshift music studio have finally bitten the dust . . . I've resuscitated them many times from the brink of disaster, but I think this is it . . . new drivers and updates have done nothing-- luckily, I pumped out one last podcast before everything exploded in a burst of feedback-- and while I'm a little sad, that it ended with a power surge and some kind of short circuit that busted my Steinberg UR22,  I've had this computer for a long long time (and I put it together myself) and I'm excited to finally update my hardware, but now the question is: do I spend the $$$ on a Mac?

Give Us This Nada Our Daily Nada

I recognize the absurdity of a blog about nothing commenting on a TV show about nothing, but Seinfeld is actually about everything (and so is this sentence) and it took a book about nothing to make me realize how complicated and deep my feelings are about a show about nothing; Seinfeldia, by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, sports the subtitle "How A Show About Nothing Changed Everything" and this is accurate . . . the book is not some deconstructive analysis of Seinfeld's philosophy, neuroticism and anxious characterization . . . it's more of a history of change, both during the course of the show and during the course of the zeitgeist during the show's run, more of an an explanation of just how difficult it is to write, cast, and maintain a dynamic television show and maintain quality and consistency, week to week, year to year, and even day to day; Armstrong refers to the great moments in the show's history but doesn't overly describe these moments, so the writing is fast and fresh and informative (but probably only totally comprehensible to a true Seinfeld fan) and while the book is a comprehensive history of the show and the alternate universe it created (and the interaction of the Seinfeld universe with the actual universe) it also encourages plenty of nostalgia for people who watched the show when it aired . . . this is a tribute to the last time that network TV was cool, to the last time that there was a true cultural touchstone that everyone shared in a timely fashion (the show aired on Thursday night, and everyone at work dissected the episode Friday morning) and this deeply fond nostalgia about the show has motivated me, in true Seinfeldian fashion, to NOT watch any reruns . . . this is the one great sitcom I've completely withheld from my kids-- we've done The Office and Parks and Rec and some 30 Rock and lots of Community-- but I don't want them to see Seinfeld until they are ready to appreciate it . . . and this book makes me want this to happen soon; anyway, one of the interesting things Seinfeldia explores in detail is that almost all of the plotlines in the show were inspired by real-life anecdotes-- at first they used things that happened to Larry David, and then, when they ran out of Larry David anecdotes, they used things that happened to the ever-revolving crew of writers . . . Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld basically mined the writers for these real incidents and then sent them packing) and so, in this spirit, I'd like to share two Seinfeldian moments that happened to me that were provoked by the show, both of them spongeworthy:

1) I won't mention any names in this story because I'm rather embarrassed by my behavior (a common Seinfeldian theme) but the setting was a high school cafeteria-- I had "cafeteria duty," which means you need to loosely monitor the students while they eat lunch-- and there was a "close talker" in my section-- she was a Spanish teacher and when we conversed, I often had to literally back away from her to preserve my personal space (I do enjoy my personal space . . . in fact, I'm a bit claustrophobic) and this was so pronounced that she would often drive me around and around the lunch table that we stood next to . . . I would slowly back up as she got closer and closer to my face, and the other teachers in our section were English teachers-- friends of mine-- and they enjoyed watching this to no end, as the woman only did this to me, and the two English teachers were Seinfeld fans, of course (as was the close talker!) and so one day, after several months of close talking, I told my friends to find an obscure vantage point where they could observe me talking with the close talker because I was going to make history and stand my ground and we could all see what happened, and so I did it-- despite my claustrophobia-- I stood my ground . . . though I wanted to laugh-- and the two of them witnessed this from the corner of the cafeteria . . . I didn't back up, I stood solidly and she got closer and closer until she was less than an inch from my face, talking away, so close that I could see the specks of saliva on her lips . . . I didn't know what she was saying and I wanted to laugh, and I stole a glance at my friends and they were laughing and then I suddenly felt very guilty and regretful for doing the experiment, because the close talker was a super-nice lady and we were in real life, not a sitcom . . . but still, it was profoundly awesome to see just how close she got to my face, and I'm glad I had two witnesses that bore testament to this insanity;

2) the second Seinfeldian moment will only make sense to fans of a certain age-- Catherine and I often taped the show on VHS, because I went to Doll's Place on Thursday nights, and so on a hungover Saturday morning, we tried to watch "The Betrayal," which is also known as "the backwards episode" and I didn't rewind far enough and we started watching and it seemed like we were at the end, but it was the beginning, and I kept rewinding and fast-forwarding in spurts, not realizing that the chronology of the episode was backwards, taking note of the size of Kramer's lollipop, watching a scene, then attempting to get us in the right place . . . and, in a perfectly Seinfeldian technological twist, we ended up watching the episode in some semblance of the correct linear order, with many stops and starts, before we realized that the entire story was told in reverse . . . so then we re-watched it "properly," noting the irony and absurdity, of course, but not knowing that the Seinfeldian brand pre-9/11 irony and absurdity was on its way out, to be replaced by something darker, and the hypersensitive, super-silly tone of the '90's was about to end, and people my age (46) would yearn for this feeling for the rest of their lives (Beavis and Butthead).