benjamin dickman

@benjamindickman

Math Educator 🪄♾️ Brookline to Nanjing to NYC to DC Amherst College BA Fulbright Program x2 (🇨🇳+🇵🇭) Teachers College, Columbia University PhD past BU Wheelock (postdoc, Math Edu) cocreated original word game: #FiddleBrix

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benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jul 14

& here it is from Jerry Becker's Listserv:

Screenshot of "Sad News" from the Jerry Becker Listserv. The body of the emails reads as follows:

It is with deep sadness that we announce that Henry O. Pollak, an outstanding mathematician and mathematics educator, passed away on July 8, 2026. Pollak earned his Ph.D. from Harvard and, beginning in 1951, worked at Bell Laboratories, where he later became director of the Mathematics and Statistics Research Center. He is credited with a number of important mathematical results.

He actively contributed to the reform and enrichment of the school mathematics curriculum and was one of the leaders of the School Mathematics Study Group (SMSG). He was also involved in many other important educational projects. He played a particularly significant role in introducing modeling and applications into school teaching. Nearly 60 years ago (in 1967), Pollak delivered an important presentation at a conference organized by Hans Freudenthal and entitled "How to teach mathematics so as to be useful." This topic remained of interest to him throughout his life—he was the originator of many ideas and a consultant on numerous projects dedicated to modeling. He passed on his passion for this area of mathematics education to numerous students, including through his teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he taught for several decades.

Pollak served as President of the Mathematical Association of America, as a member of the Executive Committee of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, and as chairman of the International Congress on Mathematics Education in Berkeley. He received many honors, including the NCTM Lifetime Achievement Award.

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jul 13

rip to the great Henry Pollak 🕊️ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_O...

Email notification from the Program in Mathematics at Teachers College, Columbia University. The body of the email in this screenshot reads:

The Program in Mathematics is greatly saddened to inform you that, on July 8th, Henry Pollak, a distinguished mathematician and mathematics educator, a long-time member of our faculty, passed away.

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jun 28

happy perfect day! [6 28] & to those who celebrate: happy tau day! [6 . 28 ... ] #iTeachMath ♾️ #MathSky 🧮 please enjoy also this photo from the 2026 Math in the Mountains for Teachers program, #MiTM4T

photo of antlered deer crossing midstream with trees then mountains in the background; from the Tetons in Wyoming

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jun 18

Signal boosting a lil survey to help an undergraduate with some research on K12 math teaching methods. You could win a $25 gift certificate and that ain't nothin'! 📢 #iTeachMath ♾️

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jun 15

btw the screenshot above is from the linked site; my phone game is currently as below! 2537656 total 131071 max tile cc #iTeachMath ♾️ #MathSky 🧮

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jun 15

813804 score, highest tile 32768

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jun 14

Standing w paddleboard 🏓🛹 Holding a paddle American Gothic style Location is Cold Spring (NY) for EOY celebration Now retired from K12, more about next position at a different time! (And I certainly didn't go into the Hudson... Just vogueing)

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· May 11

attempted freehand: www.desmos.com/calculator/k... screenshot below:

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· May 11

image form

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· May 9

same Fri #2solve

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Apr 28

Central Park #SidewalkMath on a Tuesday in late April:

Photo of sidewalk math. One of the problems says: How many ways can you make 10 using only the addition of whole numbers? What if order matters? What if order doesn't matter?

There are also a few sequences written down, including:
2, 3, 10, 12, 13, 20, ?

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Apr 20

in writing a problem set for Precalculus students, I included the following question (see image below) spoiler: www.desmos.com/calculator/l... note about spoiler: there is too much nested to plug in large numbers cc. #iTeachMath ♾️ #MathSky 🧮

a figure from the paper that indicates how you can nest x, y, and 1 with the eml function to get a familiar binary operation

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Apr 16

I just saw him, left work and walked by. He was speaking about unions being good:

Photo of Mamdani speaking under pink flowering tree

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Apr 5

most recent selfie: Saturday at Beijing Capital Int'l Airport after a domestic flight from Nanjing, China; flew from BCIA directly back to NYC (JFK) and the 12h time change hasn't broken my spirit. Yet!

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Mar 19

screenshot of some interactions that may be deleted (or not... mod actions can sometimes seem whimsical); I've copied & pasted the text directly into the ALT: ill-formatted as I'm on the go!

Screenshot of text with comments. Pasting directly:

3

The last time people in Iran could decide for themselves whether their government was good or not was in 1979. –
Emil Jeřábek
Commented43 mins ago
5

@EmilJeřábek I am an educated young Iranian woman, and I certainly know the history of Iran better than you. Fifty years ago, a government was established, and the entire Western world imposed the harshest sanctions against it. Yet it has survived until today. Why? Because the people decided that it should remain. Popular support is something that maybe you don`t know about, and your information is likely only from western media. –
Leyli Jafari
Commented34 mins ago
1

Why do my comments vanish? –
JF Meier
Commented32 mins ago
9

I don’t doubt that you know the history. But you are obviously a supporter of this criminal regime, and present only a one-sided propaganda version of all the facts. I personally know enough Iranians to know that the popular support for the regime is much smaller than you try to paint it. –
Emil Jeřábek
Commented29 mins ago

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Feb 28

Big sky with a thin strip of land and some body of water, possibly the Susquehanna River. There are many clouds dispersed discretely but densely.

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Feb 9

bonus from #MathsToday: precalculus test on arithmetic and geometric sequences, docs.google.com/document/d/1... screenshots of the three problems are below for the link-averse #iTeachMath ♾️ ps. All materials posted on here are free use! Just lmk if you improve them 🫡

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Feb 9

in #MathsToday: finishing up a problem set based on "Moving Things Around" from the AMS: bookstore.ams.org/sstp-5/ the problem set is contained in the 4 screenshots below; you can also find it linked here! docs.google.com/document/d/1... sample problem: shuffle cards to convert 1/14 into ternary

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Feb 8

same energy, 2014 aug 20

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Feb 4

If you haven't already, I would email Dr. Lin: cylin at siu • edu To say you want to join all Jerry Becker listservs related to math education. This is often where I see relevant announcements (including manuscript calls!). Below is a screenshot from just now querying `Jerry Becker` in my gmail:

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Feb 1

Fri selfie 🤳🏻 taken by my lil homie Crochet bucket hat a staple! 🪣 On the left is CiCi of PWYM cocreator fame: playwithyourmath.com

Three people (CiCi, me, Michelle) wearing winter gear including hates and standing in front the 86th street Q subway station

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Feb 1

Is "cancellation" possible for the Choose function? For example, is this true? Choose(ap,bp) = Choose(a,b) lol no, not in general But! mod p where p is prime? Yes! Also true mod p^2 Amazingly, it still seems true mod p^3 (need p>5) Experiment!: www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Mod%... #iTeachMath ♾️

Choose(ap,bp) - Choose(a,b) = 0 mod p^3 for a=10, b=3, p=7

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jan 31

wow I have a hard copy! real paper! real scholarship! images of the book, TOC, first page of my chapter, and first page of the conclusion are below. my own writeup can still be found through the parent tweet^ + here is a direct link: www.researchgate.net/publication/... — #iTeachMath ♾️ #MathSky 🧮

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jan 27

One featured case in this piece concerns a question I independently posed (and saw answered!) on MSE in May 2019: math.stackexchange.com/q/3225821/37... From the NYT: > Then came a V-shaped knife, which in total produced almost four times as many regions: 2, 7, 16, 29… See also the image below:

Image of the first four cases of the V cutter being used on a circle

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jan 25

some shapes to #noticewonder amid the current winter storm top: table and chair, all snow bottom: add some freezing rain how would you name the shapes you see? photo credit: me & my patio furniture!

Two photographs from a snowy patio. The top one and bottom one show the difference between all snow and the subsequent freezing rain in changing the shape of snow stop a table and a small chair.

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jan 24

image description: first two screenshots are Problem Solving & Problem Posing (PS&PP) test; it includes a 15x15 times table. the second two screenshots are of the Precalculus midterm. full text can be found in the preceding tweet's aforelinked items! #MathsToday 🤝 #iTeachMath 🤝 #iTeachPrecalc 🧮

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jan 18

PS: yes, I do mean that a and b are integers PPS: they're named after August Lösch, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_... shout out to my boy AL for being a protestant anti-n@zi during WWII:

screenshot of Lösch's wikipage; the text reads:

Lösch was a member of the "Confessing Church" (Bekennende Kirche), a Protestant group that spoke out openly against Adolf Hitler and was led by Martin Niemöller.[2] He refused to emigrate and went into hiding to continue his anti-Nazi work, primarily in Kiel. Due to the deprivations of this illegal existence, he died, just days after World War II had ended, from scarlet fever in Ratzeburg.

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jan 12

screenshots if you're allergic to links #iTeachMath 🤝 #MathsToday precalc: trigonometry nonroutine problem solving: arithmetic

screenshot from the practice exam for Problem Solving & Posing, Problems 1 and 2

screenshot from the practice exam for Problem Solving & Posing, Problems 3 and 4

screenshots of the precalculus problems, 1, 2, and 3

screenshots of the precalculus problems, 4, 5, and 6

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jan 12

watching the #GoldenGlobes🏆 and wow cc #iTeachMath ♾️ Common Core still the perennial betting favorite ... Didn't catch the actual outcome!

GOLDEN GLOBES screenshot edited to make the award category
UNORIGINAL CRITIQUE - MATHEMATICS EDUCATION

The nominees and their respective Polymarket probabilities are
Common Core - Ruining Everything (87%)
SAT's When?! - Meritocracy is Dead (6%)
AI to Do Work, AI to Grade Work (4%)

benjamin dickman@benjamindickman· Jan 8

New Bank Street Occasional Paper Series Call for Papers!: www.bankstreet.edu/research-pub... “Education for Democratic Participation Across Places, Cultures, and Peoples” Guest Editors: José Vilson @thejosevilson.com, Amy Stuart Wells, and Xinyu Pan Submissions Due: June 1, 2026 cc #EduSky ✍🏻