Tag Archives: St. Albans School

One & Many

June 20, 2016 – 12:23 pm

0

This essay – these notes for an essay, this draft of an essay – is inspired by Robert Pirsig’s first book. I have made sectional divisions where they seemed to occur naturally.

Photo of paperback and hardback editions of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Posted in “ceases to be a mind”, “God is a circle …”, Collingwood, Education, Philosophy, Pirsig, Plato, Principles of Art, Psychology, Thoreau, Turkey, West Virginia | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (14)

Impressionism

June 17, 2015 – 3:10 pm

I went early to the office on Tuesday morning, June 17, 2015. On Harzemşah Sokağı in the Merkez (Center) Mahalle of Şişli, Istanbul, I paused to note a cafe decorated with the “Luncheon of the Boating Party.”

Reproduction of “Boating Party” on wall of an alcove; folded chairs below

That alcove from the street

Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Posted in Education, Istanbul, Visual Art, West Virginia | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (8)

Learning mathematics

May 14, 2013 – 11:23 am

This is mostly reminiscences about high school. I also give some opinions about how mathematics ought to be learned. The post originally formed one piece with my last article, “Limits.”

I learned calculus, and the epsilon-delta definition of limit, in Washington D.C., in my last two years at St Albans School, in a course taught by a peculiar fellow named Donald J. Brown. The first of these two years was officially called Precalculus Honors, but some time in that year, we started in on calculus proper.

Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Posted in Archimedes, Calculus, Education, Euclid, G. H. Hardy, Logic, Mathematics, Philosophy of Mathematics, Strunk and White | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (5)