◼️ Tom⇒|Maths||Museums||Astronomy||Learning||Education|
Today marks one year since my redundancy from Bletchley Park. ⅓ of the workforce was in the same boat (notably, ⅔ of the Learning Team, following the general narrative of education being hit particularly hard with redundancies across the cultural sector). I was lucky in being able to walk straight into two part-time teaching roles within days of leaving, but many struggled to find work in a highly competitive sector with drastically reduced funding.
Multiplying a number by itself (e.g. $ 6 \times 6$, or $6^2 $) is relatively easy. Going back the other way - finding out what number has been squared to get a particular result (or finding the "square root", e.g. $ \sqrt{36} $) - is tougher: you need to either just know the answer or just guess it (and, of course, square it to see if you were right, and then if you're wrong have another guess, informed by the outcome of your first one).
My first assignment for my Master's course was to "look at a chosen aspect of education in one country and comment on the socio-economic, political and cultural influences on this aspect of education [using] an infographics tool to present [my] findings."
The country was a largely random choice: I didn't have a particular country in mind so I just sort of broadly read around until I landed on something that struck me as interesting. Could the aspect I chose really have been anything else?
I completed and submitted the assignment at the end of November and have just received my grade* so here it is:
As Bletchley Park's "Enigma Man*" I was often asked the question "... but what were the other side doing?" The museum doesn't cover this side of the story other than very fleetingly and in passing so it was always tricky to answer, but it is nevertheless a very pertinent - and thoroughly interesting - question.
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This post is, essentially, a review of Christian Jennings' The Third Reich is Listening. Its subtitle "Inside German Codebreaking 1939 - 1945" tells you the main focus of the book, but the story does start earlier than that, summarising work done by key characters in World War I and the inter-war years. |
I have a friend who's starting secondary school in September. Her mum sent me this:
I need your opinion on something. B████ is laughing at me because I said that choosing a new pencil case is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing about a new school year. I messaged my English dept, but she said they’re bound to agree and I needed to message a Maths teacher. Thoughts?
I responded with:
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