Welcome!

Welcome to the blog of Zaq Roberts, Associate Head of School at The Berkeley School in Berkeley, CA. I blog about a wide variety of topics, from classroom moments I witness, to administrative events and conversations, to the educational blogs, videos, and books I am reading and watching, and how they are influencing my thinking. I hope this eclectic approach will give you insight into the many ways that I am engaging in advancing the school and strengthening our program, and I welcome your thoughts and comments!

This blog takes its name from a quotation by Archimedes that reads "Give me a lever long enough, and I can move the world." The TBS mission speaks directly to the need to engage a changing world, while many of the experiences in our program focus on the development of students' agency and authority. TBS is the lever by which we all - administration, faculty, students, and parents - can together move the world to be more humane, compassionate, and responsive. To borrow an important Montessori phrase, it is our way to remake the world.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Math club

From Sima Misra, about today's math club:

We welcomed two third graders to math club today, Hannah and Talia, who tried out the Wheel Shop problem, stretching their algebraic thinking and number fluency, and played Oddball, another version of Poison/Nim.  Many of the 4th and 5th grade students enjoyed working on the different Sudoku puzzles, and I shared a strategy of keeping track of which numbers are possible in any given square using dots.  Finally, we all puzzled over one of the several "Liars & Truth Tellers" problems. This is a great one to talk about at the dinner table:  

There is an island in the middle of the ocean where there are two kinds of people: the liars and the truth-tellers.  The liars always lie. The truth-tellers always answer the truth.  You come to a fork in the road and need to know which way to turn to the village. Someone is at the intersection and can answer one yes or no question. You do not know if she is a truth teller or a liar. What should you ask her to learn which way to go?
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