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Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Wednesday Exhibitions

This was the biggest day in the brief history of Summers-Knoll Exhibitions: there were five, beginning with Lev's first, a look at his fictional polis called Syphoni and Hexadecimals in the morning. After lunch, we saw Danny on multiplication methods and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Evan on Julius Caesar and a logic problem involving gnomes and hats, and Isobel on the origin of Arabic numerals and knitting. We finished after school with Mike on French and another look at the Gnome Problem.

Lev took us through a shorthand language of mathematics that echoed Jonathan's demonstration of the binary system; like Jonathan, his lesson was strong in the lecture and really caught fire when he began consulting with his students. Danny showed us a highly algorithmic approach to two- and three-digit multiplication and had everybody scribbling away.

Evan gave us some historical background on the man himself, then put us to work reading from Caesar before giving us a brief quiz. Isobel shared the unexpected historical nuggets that Arabic numerals were Indian in origin, and that the number of angles in each original design corresponded to the digit's value. We drew these and counted angles to verify this.

Finally, Mike gave a charming lesson in French vocabulary, speaking the language and then asking who could identify words or phrases (Imogen was exempted from this exercise). Mike walked us through half a dozen brief lessons, using variations of this approach, and wrapped it up by passing around madeleines. Evie pestered him for seconds.

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