Hello, world!

Hello, world!

This is a blog about class, race, gender, and all the other social issues that affect my work as a math teacher in a low-income public high school in Rhode Island. It's an awesome job. 

My name's Seth Kolker, and I grew up in Arlington, Virginia - a diverse suburb of Washington, DC. I studied a bunch of philosophy and anthropology at Yale and then came to Rhode Island to teach. This year, I'll have all ninth graders: three sections of Algebra I, plus one Geometry class for a group that worked ahead last year. All of them will be subjected to my experiments with Formative and Explain Everything. When I'm not teaching math, I'll be running my course on How to Change the World, learning to dance salsa, and finding a balance between mastering recipes in my kitchen and eating at every Colombian restaurant in the state (there are many). Hope you enjoy!

And the blog's name? I run an economic simulation all year in my math classes, thanks to mykidsbank.org. Students get online bank accounts where they can deposit Kolker Kash, earn salaries, pay bills, collect interest, get into credit card debt, play a lottery they'll never win, and have some fun with finances. Most students know how to spell my name solely because of these bills, which my roommates are sick of finding scattered around the apartment. I figured it was as good a name as any for a blog.