Will Richardson

Speaker, consultant, writer, learner, parent

  • About
    • About Will
    • Contact Will
    • BIG Questions Institute
  • Blog
  • Speaking
  • Coaching
  • News
  • Books

Real Work by My Smart Daughter

February 17, 2008 By Will Richardson

So Tess made the local paper this week, in large part to Ms. March, one of her teachers who hit upon a cool project when she started wondering what the division symbol was called. Turns out, after contacting MIT and Princeton, that there was no known name it. Perfect opportunity for a contest, which Tess entered and happily won. “Discula” is what she came up with based on the various roots which mean “division” and “mark.” (Yes, I know, it’s already a snail too.)

It makes me very happy on a number of levels, not the least of which is that the school voted Tess’s definition the best. (And that she gets her picture in the paper.) But I love that Tess is seeing her teacher be inquisitive and creative and ask her students to think and act in real ways for real purposes. I can assure you that coming up with a name and a definition for the division symbol that the teacher had been referring to as a “thingy” was not in the curriculum.

I also love that Ms. March called and asked if we could write a Wikipedia entry with the word. I told her that unfortunately, unless MIT or Princeton or someone out there gave their official, traditional, seal of approval, odds are the entry wouldn’t stand. But just that fact that we’re talking Wikipedia here is a step in the right direction.

Way to go Tessie…and Ms. March.

(Read the whole article if you like.)

Technorati Tags: learning, education, discula

Filed Under: On My Mind

Comments

  1. Linda Nitsche says

    February 17, 2008 at 10:10 pm

    Congratulations Tess! Way too cool! Reminds me of the book “Frindle” by Andrew Clements. Have your read it? Anyone has the power to coin a word, but only a few understand the power and skill to turn it into a worldwide used word! See, Will, there are hopeful signs that the education world is picking up the ball and learning to run with it!

  2. AllanahK says

    February 18, 2008 at 2:18 am

    Well done Tess- I don’t know of anyone who has ever invented a new word before. I know I make up a few when I get my tongue twisted in a knot though. You make me completely flabbergasted.

  3. phill says

    February 18, 2008 at 9:52 am

    This is so neat! I’m going to use this idea with my students as a creative writing assignment. Have you ever played Balderdash (The Dictionary Game)? Students invent definitions for a word – kind of the opposite of what Tess did. I’d love to see the list of the other ideas the kids came up with. Thanks for the idea.

  4. Brian Mull says

    February 18, 2008 at 10:03 am

    Well, hopefully, the quest doesn’t end here. Ms. March should contact MIT and Princeton again and ask what’s involved in getting a new math term adopted. Maybe it’s too much or maybe it’s not, but someone out there is doing it, right?

  5. David says

    February 18, 2008 at 10:03 am

    A great project assignment leads to a great project produced. Congratulations!

    If “discula” won’t hold up in Wikipedia, perhaps you can submit it to Websters instead?

  6. Brian Mull says

    February 18, 2008 at 10:05 am

    Well, I think that for a dictionary, the word has to be well-used in society. I don’t think you can just submit it.

    • David says

      February 18, 2008 at 6:39 pm

      You can submit to Webster’s “open” dictionary – http://www3.merriam-webster.com/opendictionary/

  7. john e brandt says

    February 18, 2008 at 5:31 pm

    So, Tess, how is “discula” pronounced? Which syllable has the accent? Or do we need to check with Hermione Granger? I’m sure The Today Show will be calling soon!

  8. Gary S. Stager says

    February 19, 2008 at 4:55 am

    1) Congrats to Tess

    2) Congrats to you for putting her photo online

    3) Isn’t being in the newspaper so much better than in a blog?

    4) Why do you speak with such derision about the experts who earned their places at such places at MIT or Princeton? Is that really the message you wish to impart to your child?

    Tess did something cute. Does that make her the intellectual equal of adult experts?

    5) Tess can publish her own web page. If her work is indeed notable, it will be contribute to knowledge.

  9. Will Richardson says

    February 19, 2008 at 8:43 am

    Gary:

    1. Thanks
    2. Thanks
    3. Depends which blog ;0)
    4. WHAT? Derision? The way you read that is really troubling. There is no derision there. How do you read derision? The word does need some sort of approval by some body. And to suggest that I wouldn’t want my child to aspire to MIT or Princeton is just some oversensitive editor coming into play on your part. And that last question is, I hope, a joke.
    5. Thanks

    • phill says

      February 19, 2008 at 8:55 am

      Way to answer that one! It made me sick when I read it, and Tess is not my daughter.

  10. Steven Barber says

    February 19, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    Will,

    CONGRATULATIONS! There is no GREATER FEELING than that of a deservedly PROUD PARENT! I lament the fact that you won’t be a presenter at MACUL this year in Grand Rapids, Michigan…you always have GREAT STUFF to share! I hope you are able to fit Detroit into your schedule next year! Take care & “enjoy the moment” because when we “blink” our own children grow up exceedingly fast!

    I only wish we had more administrators & teachers like that of your daughter who really understood that having kids “construct meaning” versus simply “repeat rote facts on standardized tests” is the key to our future both as a nation & world! I will continue to try “within the system” to work to that end…

    Bravo, Bravo Tess! Congrats again to the dad too!

  11. Hannah says

    February 19, 2008 at 12:33 pm

    That is pretty awesome, but I must note – the division sign does have a name, as I learned clicking around on wikipedia – the ‘obelus.’

    • Will Richardson says

      February 19, 2008 at 12:51 pm

      Hi Hannah…the obelus is the name for the division sign with the dot above and below the line. This is the division symbol that separates the numbers as indicated on Tess’s sign above.

  12. Brian Mull says

    February 19, 2008 at 12:45 pm

    The one that is being discussed is )      

  13. JoAnn says

    February 19, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    I always thought it was a “gozinta” as defined by Jethro in “The Beverly Hillbillies”

  14. Stevie Kline says

    February 19, 2008 at 2:52 pm

    Congratulations Tess!!!
    At the end of this month I am conducting a workshop for Math educators on the use of Web 2.0 tools. I am certainly going to show them your dad’s post about you and your “new word”. Hope your contest will help them think of other excitng projects for their own students.
    Thanks to both of you for sharing the excitment with the rest of us.

  15. Mr. C. says

    February 19, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Way to go Tess!! I was a classroom teacher for 10+ years (now an administrator) and I always encouraged my students to think “out of the box”. I’m sure Ms. March gave you an A+ for this 😉 I am currently at a Career Technical Center and we are all about having students think and act in real ways for real purposes.

  16. Gary S. Stager says

    February 19, 2008 at 11:26 pm

    According to Dr. Stephen Wolfram, one of the world’s most accomplished mathematicians, the symbol in question does have a name. It’s called the “division symbol” or the “division bracket.”

    (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LongDivisionSymbol.html)

    It may also be worth noting that the symbol is really a smooshing together of a parenthesis and the “vinculum” used to denote division, as in fractions.

    (http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=968564)

  17. Al says

    February 20, 2008 at 9:50 am

    Ok Gary…
    Thanks so much for double checking the work of the young “intellectual equal of adult experts”! (as far as I am concerned, she is…because she used an actual process to develop an idea, researched it, and then saw it through to fruition)

    Division Bracket, division symbol,that’s just so cumbersome. I, personally, think the new term is a wonderful example of the evolution of our contemporary language and I plan on incorporating “discula” into my own vocabulary.
    By the way Gary, could you also give us a little bit more background into the etymology of the word “smooshing”?
    Thanks!
    ;^ )

  18. kim says

    February 20, 2008 at 9:52 pm

    I find it so refreshing when teachers appear to their students as humans, and life long learners… Nice work, Tess and Good job, Ms. March- for setting out to answer a question and for a teacher to be searching with the students for an answer!

  19. Marti says

    February 22, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    Gary – A lesson for our students on the creative editing and choosing of information from our sources. You could have included the line from everything2.com that states, “This symbol has no actual name, although it is used in math textbooks throughout the US, and possibly all over the world.”

    Or the entire line from Wolfram’s Math World, “The symbol separating the dividend from the divisor in a long division that is drawn as a right parenthesis (or sometimes a straight vertical bar) with an attached vinculum extending to the right seems to have no established name of its own. It can therefore simply be termed the “long division symbol,” or sometimes the division bracket.” Emphasis added by me.

    Not to carry on the issue, but it is a pet peeve of mine when people creatively edit their sources to prove their points.

  20. Marti says

    February 22, 2008 at 1:03 pm

    Oh yeah….and way to go Tess and your creative teacher!!!!

  21. Carolyn Foote says

    February 22, 2008 at 2:59 pm

    Tess,

    Congratulations!! And to Ms. March as well for encouraging her students to be that inquisitive (and to take the bull by the horns!)

    Following our students down the path of inquiry is a great way to model the real learning that continues long after “school.”

    Thanks, Will, for sharing!

  22. Ellen Mc says

    February 27, 2008 at 11:27 pm

    Hi Will!
    Congrats to Tess! I think it was a great assignment and it made me think about something that I thought when I first met you last year when you came to Trinity School. How scary it must be to be your child’s teacher! In what ways do you help your children’s teachers? Is it hard not to judge them too much? I’m just curious because I respect your work so much, I wonder if I would buckle under the pressure of having you as a parent in my class…

    Congrats again to Tess,
    Ellen

  23. Todd says

    February 29, 2008 at 5:02 pm

    That’s amazing. I can’t believe there’s no name for it. What about +, -, and X? I’m sure my fourth graders will be intrigued by that.

  24. John Heyl says

    February 29, 2008 at 5:09 pm

    So what will we tell her will be there for her. Certainly no details, I imagine. Some “universal themes” may actually remain, for instance–KPAX’s quip that Earth produce is commendable on a universal scale, or the idea that anything we assemble or syntesize has probably been used before, even if for something else.
    I admire Tess’s sense of self–“I can come up with a good name for that everyday thing that even big time math folks haven’t named.”
    But where does this naming sit in the blogged-up, multitasker, 26hrs/day in the life world. Will she lay in a hammock and read a Nancy Drew? Will there still be water flowing in the stream at the Grandparents’ refuge in the country?
    Our connections will remain and expand, and I’ll help keep them ready to make them, I hope, in whatever mode.

    Congrats again to Tess and to you, for this chance to chat.

    Yrs,

    John Heyl

  25. Gary S. Stager says

    February 29, 2008 at 5:48 pm

    There IS a name for it. It’s called the division sign or division symbol.

Recent Posts

  • “Never”
  • My 2023 “Tech Cleanse” Has Begun
  • Five Themes for Educators in 2023
  • Schools in a Time of Chaos
  • Has This Crisis Really Changed Schools?

Search My Blog

Archived Posts

Copyright © 2023 Will Richardson · All Rights Reserved

Follow me on Twitter @willrich45