You probably already caught it on Dan's blog, but if not the first 40 seconds are worth repeating:

"Can I ask you to please recall a time when you really loved something...a movie, an album, a song or a book and you recommended it whole heartedly to someone you really also really liked and you anticipate the reaction and you waited for it and it came back and the person hated it...so by way of introduction, that is the exact same state in which I spend every working day for the last six years.  I teach high school math.  I sell a product to a market that doesn't want it, but is forced by law to buy it.  It is just a losing proposition."  - Dan Meyer
 Check out the TEDxNYED video for the rest of the twelve minute talk on math education.



Maybe there's a reason why teaching secondary math is considered a shortage area in Iowa? (pdf)