Kim's Game

When I was young, I signed up for Boy Scouts.  At that time--and possibly even now; I'm out of touch with them--a lot of the early skills taught in Boy Scouts meetings were based on the Kipling book Kim, as well as The Jungle Book.  

One of the most central activities, presented as a game, was Kim's Game.  It just struck me that many of the skills I have been trying to teach, as I taught mathematics, presupposed the skills taught in Kim's Game.

Boy Scouts are probably grinning to themselves, but I need to describe this activity to get everyone on the same page.  (A very close relative of this game is Concentration, so if you feel a sense of deja vu, that's where it's coming from.)

Before the tribes gather, the leader (or, as we called him, the Scoutmaster) lays 30 or 40 assorted objects on a table, and covers them up with a cloth.  Once everyone is present, and preliminary activities have been concluded, each participant is given a sheet of paper, and something to write with   The leader then pulls off the covering cloth, for a specific amount of time.  (The more practiced the participants are, the briefer the time interval could be.)

Once the table is covered again, the participants (frenziedly) write down as many of the articles on the table as each one can remember.

At this point, the game can proceed in different ways; each person's list can be verified, to eliminate imaginary articles, and winners announced according to who has the longest list.  Other times, it could be more about which item was most overlooked!  When the troop is divided up into subgroups, such as colors, or clans, the lists of the members of each subgroup could be consolidated (put together), which would make it a rivalry between these subgroups.  (This makes verification less tedious, at any rate.). The whole point is to improve the participants' observation.

I remember we had Kim's Game regularly.  As one who taught   Integration, a technique used in calculus, we were using a technique that depended on the student noticing that the integral contained a certain configuration.  It was more difficult for me to teach the class to  notice that the configuration was present, than to teach them what to do with it (once the configuration had been spotted).  So teaching calculus regressed into essentially teaching observation.

Olivia Newton-John

A beautiful face is a wonderful thing for anyone to have.  An amazing voice would be great, as well.  What about a glowing smile?

ONJ had all three!  I would say---at the risk of making a lot of women mad---that Olivia Newton-John had one of the most dazzling smiles I have ever seen.  Many women, including my lovely wife, have wonderful smiles.  Olivia's smile was more: it was blinding.  You would imagine she was deliriously happy, and was about to break into laughter!  And maybe she was!

She died of cancer, and she probably was diagnosed many years ago.  She was a simple person; perhaps that was---and I'm going to be killed for saying this---clear in her expression.  She could look on the bright side of life easily.

I will miss her.

Men and Women Are Equal?

When I was growing up, the equality of women was not something that was taken for granted, either by men or by women.

Make no mistake; there were plenty of enlightened men who believed in something close to this principle of equality.  Our cultural history—like most countries—was dominated by men, who were ruthless about protecting their advantages.  But over the years and centuries, the rights accorded to women were accumulated, and on one fine day in the early sixties, a Sri Lankan woman became the first elected female head of state.  (Even then, she was elected from within a political party, therefore she was not elected by the popular vote.)  Furthermore, traditionally in many Asian countries, women were the heads of households.

In the family in which I grew up, our mother was the head of the household, for many practical reasons: she earned the larger paycheck; she managed the home; she had the larger influence over the education of the children; and she had a degree of influence over my father’s occupation indirectly: he was a pastor, and he volunteered her for various responsibilities in the ‘parish’, such as the so-called women's fellowship, the Sunday-School, the flowers for church, the choir, and so on.  So my mother held not one job, but about 5.

The equality of women and men as far as talent was concerned was never in any doubt, in our family circle, and as I was growing up, in our country at large.  So it was with efficiency and capability.  Women did continue to be suppressed, ultimately, for political reasons.  Men believed that women did not have the judgement that some office required.  Some men were prejudiced against women.  Some men resented women for reasons that never emerged.  This is true of almost every society: men simply could not bring themselves to declare that women were equal to men politically; the most they could concede was that women deserved the vote.

What do I personally think?

The question of equality between the sexes is vague.  As long as women have the unique responsibility for bearing children, this fact establishes an asymmetry in the comparison of the two sexes.  All rights and privileges of government and society should be equal to the two sexes.  But the phrase ‘The sexes are equal’ simply does not make sense.

Of course, I speak as a mathematician.  It does not make sense to say that a Ford is equal to a Toyota.  In what sense? is the question that springs to the lips.  Are men and women equal in the athletic field?  In the boxing ring?  In the Olympic games?  In family planning?  In insurance premiums?  In bathrooms?  I believe that equality is not true in all these areas.  As long as women and men are more comfortable with many activities taking place in segregation, there cannot be unqualified ‘equality’.  (I’m using the word unqualified in the sense of unrestricted.)

I wish this was a forum where you readers can respond to these posts.  You can, but hardly anyone does!  Well, I'm aware of this inequality between us, so the lack of any counterarguments to my opinion will not make me assume that I have won the debate.

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