Ian Underwood

On lists of ‘21st century skills’ that we’d like kids to be learning, adaptability is usually near the top. We don’t know what the future will bring, except change.  So students need to be prepared to deal with how the world will be, rather than how it used to be. But how can public schools … Read more

I recently attended a school board meeting where I heard a teaching principal say something that made me sit up and take notice. She was talking about how, if a kid can’t read at grade level yet, what you need to do is ‘meet them where they are’.  For example, if there’s a ‘science’ lesson … Read more

In an episode of the sitcom Friends, a female character summed up what a lot of people think about the proper role of men in contributing to decisions regarding abortion when she said:   No uterus, no opinion. Without getting into whether that’s a reasonable position to take, once you take it there’s another position you’re … Read more

When you hear about politicians setting up some kind of scheme for redistributing wealth, you should realize that the program they put in place probably won’t be the program we end up with. As Will Rogers noted, the difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time the legislature meets. When … Read more

In the classic shell game, the operator places a pea under a shell, and shuffles it around with two other shells.  Afterwards, the player tries to guess which shell is hiding the pea. What the player doesn’t know is that by the time the shuffling is over, the pea isn’t under any of the shells. … Read more

I doubt that he intended it this way, but President* Biden’s recent executive order regarding gender orientation in sports will turn out to be a good thing in the long run.  Why do I say that? Consider a couple of ways that this might play out. In the first scenario, parents finally realize that there … Read more

The following is an excerpt from a recent lecture by Albert J. Nock at the University of Virginia, on the subject of education in America: Exponents of the new order have had their way unhindered, and have been able to command an almost inconceivable amount of money and enthusiasm in support of their plans and … Read more

In 1918, doctors did things a lot differently.  For example, they thought that bloodletting could cure any number of conditions, including epilepsy.  In 2018, medicine costs a lot more, but it does a lot more. In 1918, schools did things… pretty much the same way they’re doing them now.  In 2018, schooling costs a lot … Read more

Towns in New Hampshire pay about $15,000 on average to send a kid to school for one year. If he takes 7 courses, that’s more than $2,000 per course.  If only half of that goes for instruction, that’s $1,000 for a course in, say, American History.  If you’ve got 20 kids in a class, that’s … Read more

For people who feel that the recent presidential election suffered from irregularities serious enough to have changed the outcome, perhaps the most frustrating aspect of how it’s playing out is the way courts have refused to allow any evidence to be presented at trial allowing  people who are happy with the outcome to blithely proclaim … Read more

The recent report ‘New Hampshire Department of Education Long-Term Comprehensive Modeling Analysis of Education Freedom Accounts’ is supposed to show how Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) can save taxpayers a bunch of money. But while reading it, I was reminded of a puzzle that we were often asked about at Ask Dr. Math, which is pictured … Read more