About a month ago, I was at my 30 year high school reunion. Yesterday I was at the class of 2009's 5 year one. Stuy 2004 also had their 10 year reunion last night. It's always nice to be invited to reunions - I know it's largely dependent on who's on the organizing committee but it's nice to be remembered. Last time I wrote about Stuy reunions I noted how similar they all are.

I'm getting ready for my AP classes this morning. We're building a word search generator and we're at the point where we need to read a list of words from a file First, I'd better make sure I can do it. We're using the java scanner, mostly because it's easy. First cut: public class wl { public static void main(String[] args) { Scanner sc = new Scanner(new File("words")); while (sc.

I've said it many times: Never use a tool you couldn't write yourself. That is - make sure you understand what's going on under the hood. In AP we've been playing with ArrayLists. The problem for today? Create an ArrayList with consecutive integers and then write a routine that will randomize the ArrayList. For example, you might start with this ArrayList: 0,1,2,3,4,5 and end up with 3,5,1,4,2,0 First cut, the students grabbed a random element from the ArrayList, removed it, and added it to the end of a new list.

That's how I introduce myself whenever I attend a former student's wedding. It leads to all sorts of confusion. Even better was the time I was at the wedding of two former students. I had just dropped around 65 pounds and was wearing my hair differently. I sat at a table filled with former students that didn't recognize me – they had no reason to expect me, out of context and all.

How many times do we teach something and leave the kids thinking: "what's the point of this?" "When will I use this?" or even just the plain old fashioned "that's weird." It's pretty cool when a lesson starts out that way but you get to the payoff by the end of the class. Today we started exploring some advanced python. We started by showing that you can assign functions to variables or pass them as parameters: def inc(x): return x+1 def dec(x): return x-1 f = inc print f(5) flist = [inc,dec] print flist[1](5) We then looked at closures in python: def makeAdder(n): def inner(x): return x+n return inner add3 = makeAdder(3) add5 = makeAdder(5) print add3(10) print add5(10) The idea that we can make a function that builds and returns a function.

We'll get back to CS content soon, but for now: Last Tuesday was Election day - no students in the school - a day devoted to professional development. Traditionally, math team coaches from around the city descend on Stuy for a day full of lectures, discussion, and general catching up. I've never actually attended these meetings. In the past, they were for math team coaches only and this year, I was actually allowed to do something with the CS teachers.

Earlier today I saw a friend's Facebook post questioning the sanity of common core math. He had an issue with the way his daughter was being forced to work out problems. A few of us chimed in with our low op pinion on Common Core, others said they thought it was a good idea. I think the fact that my buddy was questioning it is a major strike against CC.

October 31, 2014. Twenty years after my first Stuy Halloween. Little did I know that a goof of an idea would turn into a twenty year tradition. This year, I had a chance to team up with Natan in his senior year. Last time we had a Zamansky family duo for Halloween it was Batya cameoing in our Austin Powers - Dr. Evil sketch. This time it was me and Natan center stage.

In a few hours Devorah and I will be off to our thirty year high school reunion. It's going to be a boat ride - reminiscent of those excursion day trips to Bear Mountain that Stuy had back in the day. Having taught CS at Stuy for the last twenty plus years, I've also been invited to my share of reunions as a teacher. Sometimes the current crop ask me about the reunions and how they compare to mine.

If I'm doing my job right, by the time my kids graduate they can learn on their own. It's like when two years ago, before starting her summer internship, Batya listed all the tools and technologies she had to work with. When I pointed out that she hadn't ever used any of them before and asked how she was going to deal with it, she replied "I'll figure it out.