Recursive Sarcasm

Students often ask me "Do you tell the same stories/jokes to all your classes?"  Not only do I not always tell the same ones (although some classes get the same story inflicted upon them several times if it is on my mind a lot that particular year), but sometimes I will go years without telling a particular story until I am reminded of it.

Here's a classic Riddicism that was in heavy rotation during the early years, but not sure if I have even told it to recent classes:

The many levels of sarcasm:

regular sarcarsm: you mean the opposite of what you say

double sarcasm: you actually mean what you say with an implied opposite meaning being acknowledged

triple sarcasm: you mean the opposite of what you say but you are aware that the listener would hope for the double

the elusive quadruple:  you mean it but with all those layers above implicit in the profound understanding of the history you have with the listener

The quadruple is tough unless you already have a history with the listener, here's an example I made up to elucidate all the layers:

I wear my Boba Fett T-shirt to a family event and my brother says "Wow - nice shirt."

Simple sarcasm:  He thinks the shirt is inappropriate for the event

Double sarcasm:  He sounds sarcastic but he actually thinks I'm pulling it off!

Triple sarcasm:  He knows that I think some people will find it inappropriate but he also knows that I secretly think i'm pulling it off, but he's telling me "nope - you are not as cool as you think you are"

Quadruple sarcasm:  All of the triple is hanging there in the air between us, but he is surprised himself by the fact, in the end, everyone is digging how cool I am in my Boba Fett T-shirt!


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This entry inspired by the fact that I recently came across an old photo of a former student (MG) who is now in the education business herself.  She has reached out sporadically through the years much to my pleasure.  One of the most recent emails (2017) was a request to give examples of my old many-layers-of-sarcasm bit.  I searched the blog and found no entry on it, so here it is!

Calling all WHS alumni who are/were STEM Majors

Posting shortly in the March WHSPO newsletter, but I thought the FB push-out of the blog entries might net some additional candidates for our short ( 5 mins ?) survey:
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Calling all recent WHS grads:  Are you currently majoring in science or engineering? Did you recently graduate with a science or engineering degree? The WHS science department would love to reach out and hear about your university experiences as part of its continual program review.  Please forward to any neighbors/friends that might fit these criteria as well.  

Point of contact: Kenneth_rideout@wayland.k12.ma.us 

link to survey: https://goo.gl/forms/xaRJhFGqN9wabJIu2

Falling for Physics Over and Over and Over Again

I love physics.

Sometime I wake up in the middle of the night and think about falling. I imagine my act of falling through three different lenses:

(1) Newton's Lens
The mass of every atom in the planet reaches out and pulls the mass of the falling object towards it.  You sum up the net effect of all these microscopic tugs and you fall straight down.  All the other atoms in the room are trying too, but they just can't compete with the number of atoms in the planet itself.

(2) Field's Lens
The mass of the planet is creating a field whose strength is communicated at the speed of light outwards into space, tagging every location with a vector value.  I exist at one location in this space and my mass responds to the vector field value here and I fall a bit where I find another value for the field and I fall a bit more....Newton cries out from the grave "Aha - so that is how the action-at-a-distance thing works!"

(3)Einstein's Lens
The mass-energy of the planet has brought space-time into existence.  This space-time is why and how meters and seconds have meaning.  As I try to obey the law of inertia and remain unchanged as I travel through time, my inertia carries me downward because the space-time is different down there closer to the planet.  Because the intervals of time itself are longer down there, there is less change in my state if I follow the intervals of increasingly longer time and I continue to "fall" through that inertial path until I hit the ground. Newton frowns and says "you lost me when you made space-time a consequence rather than an a priori." Einsteins shakes his head gently and responds "I didn't want to, but the equivalence principle made me do it."

I could tinker with these mental models all day and still not have them quite right.  So cool!

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Inspired by the line of ASAP science's Science Love Song, "Take away gravity, I'd still fall for you" which I show to my students every year on Valentine's Day.

Admonishing Students (former, current, and future)

Mr. Rideout steps onto soapbox pompously and clears his throat in a self-aggrandizing manner.

"About this time last year, my brother called me to tell me we were both going to run a 5K in March. Now, he's eight years younger and in excellent shape whereas I haven't run any distance longer than to the nearest bathroom in over 15 years.  In my prodigious wisdom, I knew that there was no way I could run that distance without some preparation on my part.  Watching other people run, thinking about running, fretting about running, and planning to run were not going to cut it.  Guess what - I had to start running myself and I had to do it several times over several weeks in advance of the big day.

So, please, stop passively taking notes, phoning in the homework, allowing your partner to do all the work/thinking during the lab, not actively constructing your own mental schema of what we are doing in class, and generally procrastinating your engagement with the material until the night before the test.  Bad, bad, bad." (shakes head dramatically)

Mr. Rideout ends speech with dramatic finger pointing at his audience in general (sensitively making sure not to single out any particular students out as he recently attended a workshop titled "Being Nice, A Primer for Those Who Never Knew").


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I'm always thinking about this issue, but it is on my mind today because of a paper on the best methods to study and learn material which I recently summarized for my students and the fact that my bro and I committed to run the same race this year again.

Easy to say, but like many things in life, harder to carry through.  Start now! (finger pointed squarely at myself now)

Prom 2019

Class President CM had the idea to get juniors to do Promposals for teachers chaperones.
The Hive got me good with this one.
How could I say no?

(Hint: momentum to moment of inertia to work to kinetic energy)

Isabelle on Life

Recently, someone asked Isabelle what one lives for if not for heaven.

 
Inspired by her own response, she made this graphic.

On the Wrong Side

"On the Wrong Side, Every Time"
written for and performed at tonight's WHS Amnesty Coffeehouse

Embarrassed by men
Embarrassed by white people
Embarrassed by Americans
Embarrassed by people.

All this embodied in our President
  Cloaked in toxic masculinity
  Enabled by whiteness
  Empowered by short-sightedness

My vote denied,
Every piece of me is on the wrong side

Maybe the reign of Man is over
Maybe the reign of America is over
But, for every DJT there is an AOC...

My kids, my beautiful, mixed race, grandchildren of immigrants three times over kids!
They are American too
and they can flip my wrong side
over to a brighter side.

If this white male wants a great future (never seen before)
rather than
the tired old one brought back again,
Maybe there is hope after all.