I am a high school math teacher in Brooklyn, New York. I started teaching in 2007. I enjoy getting students excited about math by being math’s loudest and most passionate cheerleader. Here’s my visual resume. Also, if you want to know what I’m like, see the insides of my fridge, my wallet, my computer, and my bookshelves.
If you want to contact me:
Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere 
Did you happen to hear the “radicals in the basement” joke from Doug Destasio? (South Puget Sound Community College, Olympia, Washington State?)
No, I learned it from my HS calculus teacher Roger Keil. Corny math jokes were his thing. I wish I had that capability. I’m just not quick enough.
About your title (I love your title by the way): you are talking about the type of function that can, say, be obtained by a limit of carefully chosen cosine functions, right? One can choose them so that the sum is uniformly continuous but that the sum of the derivatives is NOT.
:-)
Hello!
As a cheerleader of math you are going to love hearing about MangaHigh.com
Check out some of these links and please let me know what you think of the site. It would also be great if you could share MangaHigh.com with your community. Please email me and I can send you a image if helpful.
Cheers,
Ila
Free Math Games. No registration required.
Save Our Dumb Planet – Algebra Game
Flower Power Number Games!
Pyramid Panic Geometry Games!
Bidmas Blaster Number Games!
Ice Ice Maybe Algebra Games!
Online Math Games!
Dear Mr. Shah:
I enjoy reading your blog, and was wondering if you would like to do a link exchange. My book blog’s url is educationanddeconstruction.com. Every week, I make a nonfiction book recommendation in the topic areas of education, history, technology, biography and/or humor. I have already put up your link. Please reply if you would like to do a link exchange. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Sally Friedman
Hi there samjshah!
So this is going back in time a bit but I figured I should reach out to you as you I continue to get traffic to my site as a result of your post on binders from back in Jan (I think). I know your critique of The Organized Binder was not stellar, which I completely understand as the description on the site rushed and anemic at best…the plight of a full-time teacher and reluctant classroom consultant! It would be fun to explain the system to you sometime and show you the impact it is having in classrooms (including math) around the country. If you are interested shoot me an email.
Cheers,
Mitch
Hi! I don’t think I said much/anything about it except that it looked complicated, but if well implemented, that it could be really powerful for the kids. [https://samjshah.com/2010/01/15/binder-checks/#comment-1835]
All I was saying is there’s a learning curve for kids with any new system.
But I’d love to hear more about your system/philosophy/implementation. I’ll email you once I get a moment to breathe!
What are the odds that you’re going to NCTM?
Odds are 0, sadly. BOO!!! Sigh.
could be worse. they could be negative, i guess, in which case you’d land in the middle of the atlantic. which is rough this time of year.
Hey Sameer, check this site dvBYdt.com which is presenting phy, chem and maths concepts in comical style with comic strips and comic series.
Hi,
I came across your blog by googling “hyperbolic paraboloid”. I am studying architectural history at UCSB and I am writing an honor’s thesis on the unique saddle roof architecture of Walter White. Judging from your blog, you seem very passionate about math and calculus in particular. I have a limited background in math (completed calc w/ analytic geometry and intro to diff equations) and I am having a hard time writing and conveying how hyperbolic paraboloids work. I was wondering if you would be willing to help me articulate their structures?
Thank you,
-Evan
evanthomas1@gmail.com
I can try. What specifically do you understand, and what specifically are you seeking to understand?
Hi Sam! I can’t find your email address but I have been searching high and low to find a Geometry teacher to fill a cool online job supporting new teachers for Teach for America-I’m looking to you because maintaining your blog is essentially the same as doing this job. The person has to write posts about teaching geometry and teaching in general and answer questions as well as find and share resources with new teachers. And spark discussion and make things interesting. You do all that on your blog-and I see you read tons of other blogs and might have a great idea for someone who could do that for Geometry. The job is 10 hours a week flexible hours and location. I did it this year for Calculus and Precalculus and loved it.
If you are curious my email is cameron.byerley@gmail.com and my blog is mathlovergrowsup.teachfor.us.
Best,
Cameron
PS. Any Geometry teachers can email me to find out more!
Good Day Sam,
love what your site. Would you be interested to do a link exchange? I am a singaporean maths teacher btw, I can be reached at whitecorp at hotmail dot com for further discussion. Thanks and god bless.
Hey Sam,
I know you teach Math rather than science, and you probably don’t have tons of spare time to read random books, but I was wondering if you were interested in reviewing a copy of my book on science myths still commonly taught in schools.
You can send me a message on twitter if you would like a review copy.
Sample chapters can be found at http://misconceptions.science-book.net
Hi Sameer,
Awesome blog! I am a graduate student in mathematics at UCSD and my roommate and I built an app for the iPhone that helps introduce binary numbers by way of a cute magic trick. We were hoping that you might be interested to share it with some of your colleagues, students and possibly readers. I’ve tried it out on college students and gotten some great responses. I also posted an entry about introducing it as part of a math lesson on my blog at bluetrapezoid.wordpress.com.
The app itself is available on the iTunes App Store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/birthday-genie-math-trick/id516139520?mt=8.
If you would like a free promo code just email me and I’d be happy to send you one.
Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Best,
Daniel
Hi Sam, I’m looking to feature a math teacher on my new-ish blog about good teachers — would love to interview you. Here’s a sample interview: http://wp.me/p1ylqw-47
Thanks for reading and hope to hear from you!
Hello,
I’m writing to let you know that your blog has been selected for inclusion
in our list of the Top 25 High School Teacher Blogs of 2012. You can
view the entire list at
http://www.topmastersineducation.com/top-high-school-teacher-blogs-of-2012/.
Thank you for the hard work and dedication you put into teaching. We are
pleased to have the opportunity to recognize and promote your blog through
our site.
J. Alder
Managing Editor
TopMastersInEducation.com
editor@topmastersineducation.com
Hi, Sam,
I came across your blog via David Wees, and as a fellow mathematics educator I thought you might be able to help in spreading the word about an educational TV show about math that we’re putting together. “The Number Hunter” is going to do for math education what Bill Nye The Science Guy did for science education. I’d really appreciate your help in getting the word out about the project.
I studied math education at Jacksonville University and the University of Florida. It became clear to me during my studies why we’re failing at teaching kids math. We’re teaching it all wrong! Bill Nye taught kids that science is FUN. He showed them the EXPLOSIONS first and then the kids went to school to learn WHY things exploded. Kids learn about dinosaurs and amoeba and weird ocean life to make them go “wow”. But what about math? You probably remember the dreaded worksheets. Ugh.
I’m sure you know math is much more exciting than people think. Fractal Geometry was used to create “Star Wars” backdrops, binary code was invented in Africa, The Great Pyramids and The Mona Lisa, wouldn’t exist without geometry.
Our concept is to create an exciting, web-based TV show that’s both fun and educational.
If you could consider posting about the project on your blog, I’d very much appreciate it. Also, if you’d be interested in link exchanging (either on The Number Hunter site, which is in development, or on StatisticsHowTo.com which is a well-established site with 300,000 page views a month) please shoot me an email. We’re also always looking for input and ideas from other math educators!
Thanks in advance for your help,
Stephanie
andalepublishing@gmail.com
http://www.thenumberhunter.com
http://www.statisticshowto.com
Hey Sam,
Can I get on your blogger list? I think this is how we network, and get more traffic. Sorry for making this public, but couldn’t find an email address. And I am going to twitter math camp to figure it out…I have been part of the math blogger initiative since it started, um, this summer?
Thanks, a big fan, Amy
Yay for blogging!
I haven’t updated my blogroll in a long time. But to do that, I need to clear out my reader of unread posts in google reader, clear out the blogs that don’t update in google reader, finish adding any blogs that I haven’t added in google reader, and then import the new blogroll after that. And honestly, that process is always so daunting and unpleasant that I do it once every year or two — to be honest. But I will get to it.
Hi Sam,
I’ve been following your blog for a little over a year now, and have enjoyed all your thoughts on teaching math and the resources you’ve shared! I taught high school math for six years, and now design math curriculum for Relay Graduate School of Education. The courses we are designing are meant to serve as content refreshers and instructional best practices for high school math topics. While I miss working with students everyday, it has been great to be able to spend time thinking about what math teachers need to be able to better teach content at the high school level.
Since Relay is NY based, I would love to set up a time to connect in person, to talk about your thoughts on what new math teachers could benefit from in their graduate work, if that is something you’d be up to do. I tried finding an email address to reach you at, but this was what I could find! You can reach me at knarechania@relay.edu!
Best,
Khushali Narechania
Probably already pointed out, but I always thought that the classic case of a function that was continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere was the Weierstrass function : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weierstrass_function , though I’ve read that Riemann wrote about this issue earlier, though without giving the formal proof that Weierstrass himself provided. That was my first thought when I saw the name of Sam’s blog, and having learned of this function in the late ’80s when I took calculus at a community college in NYC, I assumed it was THE standard example.
I couldn’t think of anything to title my blog, so I thought of something that blew my mind mathematically. So indeed, it was the Weierstrass function that inspired the title!
Here’s another fun example of a continuous nowhere differentiable function:
Click to access W-example.pdf
This is taken from the Dover book: https://www.amazon.com/Functional-Analysis-Dover-Books-Mathematics/dp/0486662896
Here is an animated gif of a Weierstrass function:
Sam: want to ask you some questions about creating a virtual filing cabinet on a blog. Is there a way I can get in touch with you?
Tina P.
I subscribe to your blog an wanted to send a personal thank you for your work and presence on the web. Your insights, hard work, and technical knowledge have made my school year go so much more smoothly. I am a returning teacher to the profession after a seven year absence to raise my family. Much has changed in those seven years including the evolution of the applet and online graphing calculators. I am a believer in discovery learning and I am continually plagued with the balance of covering the required material in the required time and letting students learn through the process of discovery. My new school supports the discovery process which is exciting, but leaves a second-time first year teacher challenged to maintain an appropriate work/life balance. All this to say that the work you have shared with the world has made an overwhelming transition much easier. Please keep up the excellent work and know that it does not go unnoticed.
With warm regards,
Sarah Carty
Thanks Sarah! I’ve been having a very trying few weeks, and just as I felt like I was going to sink down into the ground, you type this. Just know you’ve made a very exhausted teacher (with no work-life balance) glow.
Hi there Sam
Enjoying going through all your posts. I’ve started a new project myself called Edge Math (with math coaching for calculus and up, and more) and am trying to find a niche in the online math education world – I’ve taught for the past 10 years in HS and university in the US and abroad and am now moving online. I made a post giving some of my best tips for success in advanced math classes here:
http://www.edgemath.com/how-to-succeed-in-any-math-class/
I’d appreciate feedback and any tips about any areas that “need to be filled in” as far as resources I can provide to students and teachers online. Thanks!
Scott