Anyone walking past my classroom of late might have come to the conclusion that I was fomenting a revolution, hearing me inciting my students to
Bring down the power!
The Head can sleep easy in his bed – I am not encouraging the students to rise up, burn their books and storm the staff room. I am merely teaching the rules of logarithms, and the power rule in particular. You will, of course, be familiar with the rule:
log xn = n log x
but students need to be taught this, so I constantly find myself telling them to “bring down the power.”
When I do, I do like to think of myself as some sort of latter day Lenin, inspiring my students to throw off the shackles of ignorance, to rise up and seize the power that a knowledge of mathematics will bring them!!!