Should a Mother's Milk Be Shared With Anyone Besides Her Baby?

What do a rescued dog named Lily, two chefs in Zurich and New York City, Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, John Steinbeck, and I have in common? We all have a story to tell about breast milk!  Go to Breast Milk to find the stories.

From the Diary of a Mad Math Teacher

Okay - not really "mad" - although sometimes it sure feels like it.  And other times it feels great.

I teach math at a magnet high school.  It's a great school, with great kids, and a great faculty.  What could be better, right?  Well, if you're a teacher you know that it doesn't get much better than that.  But you also know that there are some days that you want to wring somebody's neck.  Some days it can be anybody - specificity doesn't matter.  And other days it may be a particular student, parent, co-worker, administrator, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Some days, maybe it's even your own neck that could use a good wringing!

I thought it might be fun (granted, in a perverse sort of way) and therapeutic to keep a log of those special days - "special" at both ends of the spectrum - to share, to reflect on , just to use as a place to unload.  So this is my first entry.  And I'll just say that I had a frustrating conference with a student and his parents at the end of the day on Friday. Now, you have to get the picture here.  The student cheated on a take-home test.  I don't mean sharing answers with friends, or using notes and books - I expected all of that and really had no problem with it.  But apparently the little darlings found the answer key to the test online - and this kid copied the answers almost word for word!  So you'd imagine the conference was about that, right?  Wrong!  The parents were horrified that their son would be accused of cheating - with "no proof."  When I read his answers and the key's answers out loud to them there was no comment, and on we went as if those few moments had not transpired.  Incredible!!!! So what do they want?  They want me to know how discouraged he is, and how he has lost hope of getting good grades because of the 23 that he got on the test that I gave in class after the take home debacle. And they want that 23 to be expunged.  he'll keep the 92 on the take-home test, thank you very much.  Oh, there's more gory details, but really the whole thing is insignificant - at least in my life.  So we rage for a day or so inside, dust ourselves off, and head back to the trenches - right?

Hello - I'm Frank!

I was born in Brooklyn, NY and moved to long Island when I was 12.  My dad was a builder and I was a very large 12 year old.  Dad stuck a hammer in my hand and although I never use it anymore, symbolically, it is still there.

By the late '70s I was a small contractor in Suffolk County on Long Island.  On Thanksgiving Day 1979, I had a rather severe house fire.  Of course, I repaired the house myself.  But instead of moving back in, my family and I chose to move to Florida.  On February 1^st 1980 we left New York, bag and baggage, for my brother’s house in Boynton Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida.

I immediately went back to the only thing I knew - construction. 

In 1983 I was introduced to Haydon Cameron. Haydon was a distributor for the original Cambridge Diet which, at the time, was a lucrative network marketing business.  I needed to lose a few pounds…. I lost 75 pounds in a very short time.  I was hooked on the product and on the concept of network marketing. Unfortunately, Cambridge filed chapter 11 bankruptcy a year or so later, leaving all of us “Cambridge Counselors “ without a business.  Haydon went his way and I mine, but we remained close friends. 

I, of course, went back to the only thing I knew - construction.

Fast forward to August, 2009. Haydon again has brought me back to the world of network marketing. This time, there is no chance of a chapter 11 for this company, The Trump Network, is owned by Donald Trump. 

How To Be Good at Mathematics

Most people think that either you're good at mathematics or you're not.....period....end of story. But this is such a defeatist attitude, to say the least. And worse than that, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. 
There are several key elements necessary to be good at mathematics, and these are available to anyone who wants to know how to be good at mathematics.

(why is it so) Hard to Say Goodbye (to our jeans?)

Some years ago, I wrote an article was inspired by a feature article in the Living section of The Palm Beach Post. It was around the time that the movie "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" had been released. I noticed a call for stories about favorite blue jeans - it especially caught my eye because it began with the lines from Cat Stevens song, "Oh Very Young".   In this song there is an analogy made between blue jeans and young dreams - how neither last forever, and how mending both along the way make it even harder to let go when the time comes. These lyrics had always resonated with me. I still think that this analogy truly captures the joy of treasuring something, be it large or small, and the pain of losing it.  My story  flowed out of me. It was among those chosen by The Post to be printed in the subsequent feature.  

My Mother's Poetry

I was visiting with my mother recently and the subject of writing came up.  She went into her closet and came out with some papers.  They were things she had written when she had taken a creative writing course about 14 or so years ago.  She was about 75 years old then, now she is 90.

I never knew that she had an interest in writing.  It seems that we don’t stop and think of our parents and what creative outlets they might yearn for. She has resisted becoming acquainted with the computer and all that it offers, so I told her that I would post her poem and her short story.  She seemed so pleased with the idea.  You can read some of her work here.  

My Philosophy of Teaching

“Do not worry about your difficulties with mathematics; I can assure you that mine are greater still.” ~ Albert Einstein  


“Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the explorers often get lost.” ~ W.S. Anglin


My philosophy of teaching is inspired by these quotes.