ProvocaTeach

Math teacher behind ProvocaTeach – a spicy little blog about making education better. I believe in play, openness, flexibility, care, & sufferance.

Read my work at https://provocateach.art

Public Key

npub1w9dfnpqdg0uc2smwjyvl7yc8pr2r5jmmjxkvjqygxlsj6kdzdpuqrd5yk4

NIP-05 Address

noahg@provocateach.art

NIP-57 Address

prtenoahg@getalby.com

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs8zk5essx587v9gdhfzx0lzvrs34p6fdaertxfqzyr0cfdtx3xs7q0vphvl

Author Public Key

npub1w9dfnpqdg0uc2smwjyvl7yc8pr2r5jmmjxkvjqygxlsj6kdzdpuqrd5yk4

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Last Notes

2024-02-10 19:19:16

The fact that Apple is disabling progressive web apps on iOS is an attack on competition and freedom in the app development space. I hope the EU hands their ass to them.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/08/apple_web_apps_eu/

2023-07-29 22:50:21

I thought I'd heard every reason math teachers are evil and math education is broken, but I guess I was wrong.
According to one Reddit math major, we are harming students by teaching that y = x^2 is a function.
It's not a function, he says, because it's not written with an f(x). 🤦‍♂️

2023-07-24 21:38:23

Twitter is now my X 💔

2023-07-14 21:19:29

Republicans are proposing an 80% cut to Title I.
Title I gives federal money to schools based on the number of low-income students. The program has been around since 1965.
This is wrong, especially coming from a party that claims to be sticking up for parental rights. What about low-income parents? Do their kids not deserve a high-quality education?
Call your representatives and tell them to oppose this bill.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/2023/7/14/23795314/republicans-education-budget-cut-title-i-low-income-schools-covid-aid-critical-race-theory

2023-07-14 10:14:44

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Hey, I've been meaning to get back to blogging! 😅 But then I started teaching full time, re-coded the website from scratch last summer, only migrated 2 of my posts, started trying to lose weight, began applying to grad school...
I'm gonna get back to it!

2023-07-12 03:48:08

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Look, buddy, if all you want to talk about is tech and cryptocurrency, you're probably happy right now.
I, personally, would like there to be some lawyers, teachers, professors, politicians, writers, economists, world travellers, chefs, comedians, parents, athletes, accountants, chemists, physicists, salespeople, marketers, truckers, and boomers on here.
I feel like we're missing a lot of folks....

2023-07-11 21:09:58

Anyone else worried that Meta is going to take over everything?
Most people want an easy-to-use site where they can expect reasonable content moderation by default (perhaps with an opt-out). And Nostr, for all its truly important innovations in privacy and decentralization and freedom of speech, is *not* easy to use and does *not* give people reasonable content moderation by default.
I know @npub180c…h6w6 had a plan for allowing relays to set their own content moderation standards. However, as currently implemented, this gives users very little agency. Most comparison sites don't give you an easy way to see relay content policies; I've seen little evidence that content is *ever* moderated; and most clients encourage users to connect to 8-9 relays anyway, so your feed is still likely to get flooded with unmoderated sludge.
For example, suppose relay 1 is cool with criticism of religion, but relay 2 isn't. Where am I supposed to see that, as a user? There are no community guidelines available to read.
Nostr is already a little more hardcore thanks to the public and private keys. Now, I think public-key cryptography is the future of authentication whether we like it or not. So I'm cool with Nostr taking a stand on it. However, we have to keep track of how many barriers normies face signing up.
We need to get the normies on board if we want to beat Threads.

2023-07-11 20:16:10

Code-based #cryptography: the perfect summer reading material.
Using the Fiat-Shamir protocol, this can be turned into a post-quantum digital signature algorithm, suitable for blockchain and other applications.
https://nostr.build/i/fcc8efae8141532de6dfa54fd57622a00f8a43f2877726456e45761766b3d494.jpg

2023-07-06 22:30:23

Let’s not pretend everything was hunky-dory before the affirmative action decision, people
https://hechingerreport.org/column-colleges-decry-supreme-court-decision-on-affirmative-action-but-most-have-terrible-track-records-on-diversity/

2023-07-04 12:20:41

Happy Mother's Day to the Constitution! 🎆

2023-07-03 20:02:48

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😉
https://nostr.build/i/7b7a0d91ce1294cc433a701105f4bd20fe3fceb5639bbca941bb4b0d46c523dd.jpg

2023-07-03 19:43:57

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Have you considered sponsoring content creators as a form of outreach? Or making deals with them to bring their audiences over to Nostr?

2023-07-02 12:41:52

Thank goodness for all the new Nostr users. I was worried this thing would be all Bitcoin all the time for eternity 😭

2023-07-02 05:13:21

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It's kinda like Bitcoin, but it's not on the actual Bitcoin blockchain.
The public key and a "digital signature" are sent over the wire with every note, like, repost, etc. (collectively called "events") you make on Nostr. The events are stored on the relay servers.
(OK, if that's enough for you, you can stop reading here. To learn more about the signature, read on.)
The signature is made with your private key and the message. Anyone who has the public key and signature can, through some math calculations, verify that they match. That's how the network knows it's you.
If I wanted to impersonate you, I would need to craft a digital signature that matches your public key. This is *nearly impossible to do* without the private key; I would need to basically try random signatures over and over again for years.
For more info, there's a great Computerphile video.
https://youtu.be/s22eJ1eVLTU

2023-07-02 04:34:44

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Kind of. You can get something called NIP-05 verification.
https://nostr.how/en/guides/get-verified
You may notice I have noahg@provocateach.art under my profile. I verified that I am affiliated with the domain provocateach.art by putting a special file on that website. That file says, "Hey, this public key refers to noahg." Since no one else (ideally) has access to that website, they know it's me.
If you don't want to set up your own website, nostrplebs and Iris and some others offer NIP-05 verification for free. So you'd get something like yuta@iris.to

2023-07-02 04:24:26

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Your public key / private key pair is what distinguishes your profile.
There is a display name that can be whatever you want.
Some clients (such as Iris) also allow you to register a separate username.

2023-07-02 03:59:48

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How dare you mention that name here 🥶

2023-06-30 23:15:56

Imagine if we started calling this thing Cosa Nostr

2023-06-30 01:47:18

This is a highly impactful decision, and I have mixed feelings about it.
In a just world, we wouldn’t need affirmative action. It was always a stopgap measure intended to correct for huge racial inequalities earlier in the pipeline – in academic opportunity, wealth, and housing.
To me, affirmative action always sent the message that we were OK with these inequalities. After all, adding a few points during the admissions process is much easier than making sure every student is equally prepared to succeed in college.
Now, affirmative action is gone – but structural inequalities in the K-12 system remain. Hopefully, we can refocus our efforts from the symptom to the cause.
Every student deserves equal access to a free, effective, and powerful education that prepares them for college or whatever else they wish to accomplish. That goal is far more important than any admissions policy.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-affirmative-action-programs-in-college-admissions/
(P.S. There is also a campus diversity argument to consider. However, California’s ban on affirmative action seems not to have impacted the racial makeup of its public colleges much, even after 27 years.)

2023-06-28 23:45:53

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Or, open a laptop

2023-06-27 07:26:57

Hey look, Republicans officially want to take away same-sex marriage.
They're not even trying to hide it.
https://nostr.build/i/0a357e9c6c8dbf5e9da9e8551356b18e619b006101718dd885b74603513c9627.jpg

2023-06-27 03:06:16

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😮‍💨 To think I believed I was dealing with someone mildly intelligent

2023-06-27 03:01:55

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Tempting, but that would be completely different from how every other planet in the Solar System works.
Also, here: https://youtu.be/o_W280R_Jt8

2023-06-27 02:55:52

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Well, everything around you is coming with you, so it doesn’t feel like it’s moving. But you can tell the Earth is spinning because the Sun goes bye-bye in the night-time 🌞

2023-06-26 20:06:57

Julia is a great first programming language for people interested in STEM https://julialang.org/

2023-06-22 21:23:56

The more I teach math, the more I realize that *understanding* a concept is only the start of learning. True mastery is forged in the fires of *practice*.
Think about the area of a rectangle. I could teach you that area is just the number of 1×1 (“unit”) squares in a shape. Then we could look at a few shapes made of unit squares, and count their area together.
Sounds simple, right?
Well, no. Counting unit squares won’t work on a 1024×768 rectangle. That’s where teachers step in. We help you figure out that, in small rectangles (3×5, 2×4, etc.) you can find area more quickly by multiplying the length and width. Eventually, you realize this applies to all rectangles, and you write down a formula: area = length × width.
Now that you know the formula, you’ve learned it, right?
Well, no. Once you receive the problems, unexpected difficulties arise. Maybe you forgot what 9×9 is. Maybe some problems ask for “perimeter”; do you multiply length × width for that as well? Maybe one of the rectangles has a side length that’s a fraction, or a decimal, or a variable. All of this needs to be addressed before we can say you’ve truly mastered area.
Teachers must provide plenty of chances for practice and feedback. Unfortunately, in the Common Core era, practice often gets short shrift in favor of conceptual exploration. I still have 10th graders who find area by hand-counting the squares in a rectangle. And I just wonder, “Why didn’t you receive the practice you needed?” 😣

2023-06-22 03:53:24

Instructional coaches are the unsung heroes of education. They help terrified new teachers find their footing and stick around.

2023-06-21 20:43:41

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Thanks for the link.

2023-06-21 09:51:48

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I agree that choice and competition are good things. Have you looked into the school choice movement? This is why I support school choice in the form of charter and private schools, as well as education tax credits and open enrollment. It allows low-income families to shop among schools.
A free-market paid school system, however, sounds like a recipe for inequality.
As a teacher, part of my job is to know what’s going on in my students’ home life. This can vary widely.
Some parents pay for school supplies; others send their kids with backpacks that have broken zippers and no pencils.
Some parents check their students’ grades regularly and email when there’s a drop; others don’t give a crap whether their child succeeds.
Heck, some of our students are homeless. We keep deodorant around to make sure they have some. I couldn’t imagine those kids paying tuition.
Truth is, kids are often born into disadvantages that are not their fault. A free education is often their only ticket to a marginally better life.

2023-06-20 20:28:37

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So usually the problem you are describing is phrased as: how do schools attract and retain talented teachers?
The biggest factors seem to be: salary, support from administration, mentoring/induction programs, class sizes, and teacher autonomy. Source: https://t2m.io/XnpvUarY
It may seem like this costs money, but in fact, losing teachers is *more* expensive than providing these supports.

2023-06-20 20:01:32

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To the liberty-loving mind, it’s tempting to think this… but no.
Private and charter schools pay teachers less and, after adjusting for student demographics, produce slightly worse outcomes than public schools. There’s a great study on this, detailed in a book called The Public School Advantage by Christopher and Sarah Lubienski: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo16956223.html
Salary, while important, is a smaller factor in teacher retention than admin support. A bad admin will drive you out faster than a bad paycheck. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ898889

2023-06-20 09:41:10

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This is a good idea. However, many schools are already on summer break.