The method is called “whole language learning,” and literally the core method involves dropping skills-based learning in favour of learning through exposure. The kids have very literally been taught in a way that actively avoids developing their learning skills.

…instead of policy/curriculum driven. I sympathize with this educator, but for decades now the US has been teaching kids how to read and parse new concepts in a way that de-legitimizes that kind of learning. Kids these days simply can’t fucking read, and it’s mostly not their fault.

Like I don’t want to be all “kids today”, not least because l’m an elder millennial and I think this trend was already in full goddamn swing when I was a kid, but yeah: this expectation of coddling is bad and I think in fact it’s potentially deeply corrosive to one’s personality

“Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.” ― Frank Herbert, Dune

Watched Twin Peaks S1E1 for the first time in a couple years yesterday. it’s actually insane how powerful that episode specifically is. found myself trying not to cry like four separate times within the first 30 or 40 minutes. Incredibly powerful. Feels like blunt force trauma

An open letter, to readers, about Charity and Sylvia. I am very pained to feel the need to write this. #queerhistory #pride

THE VATICAN IS CALLING IT A SCHISM I REPEAT HOUSTON, WE HAVE A SCHISM

Wngmi

Kentucky Route Zero

Every genre is science fiction if you analyse its underlying epistemology closely enough

Six women, lab-designed to serve billionaires in a luxury fallout shelter, rebel against their programming after the end times arrive... We're thrilled to share an excerpt from The Felicity Complex, a satirical dystopian novel from Metal From Heaven author @sapphomancer.bsky.social!

So, in Alberta, you have to show a confirmation of female sex in order to register your daughter for youth sports. Nothing required for boys. It has been associated with a decrease in registration for girls participating in sports. No change in boys. edmontonjournal.com/news/local-n...

The trans sports ban are almost completely an invention of the media, conservative and mainstream. it has been years of lies, of shoddy fact checking on just completely false conservative claims, years of phony concern trolling.

The Supreme Court today addressed one of the most pressing threats to the nation today: banning this high school sophomore from playing school sports with her friends 🫡🫠🙃

YOU'RE TELLING ME ARKANE IS MAKING A BLADE GAME AND THERE'S LITERALLY ANY QUESTION ABOUT WHETHER IT SHOULD BE FINISHED OR NOT???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

One wonders if Brett Kavanaugh was protecting Debbie Ramirez’ right to access education free from sex discrimination when he allegedly took his dick out and shoved it in her face at a party at Yale.

it is almost laughably american that the rise of ai has been like disastrous for tangible conditions in many lives and communities but most critique of ai is more about the moral value of toil than any of that. john calvin thou art never far from our hearts, gone though ye may be

in case anyone is wondering how seriously i take this technology and where it's heading (<10 years in my estimate) bambamramfan.github.io/ai-compass/

(While I'm choosing violence, btw: I think it would be extraordinarily healthy for the Hugos if we handed out some No Awards more often, for quality reasons. Dilution matters!)

My short version of endorsing this is "people understand the concept of being part of a team; teams are fine as the named recipients of an award."

you know i'm starting to think we might need a bigger court on the simple non-partisan premise that there's too much to read, and judges (like anyone else) can be pulled into narrow epistemic pools by what they do and don't read imagine a SC with assigned seats for research expertise

it’s so weird that we’re not all on the same page about minding our business and being normal about sex and gender. it’s so easy to just fucking chill out. just not my business, babe. no problem!!!!

god the "originalist" wing of the SC is such a clown show, so transparently revisionist when it suits them and insistently originalist otherwise

Sale Time! It's HOT but the bargains are even HOTTER store.steampowered.com/developer/Sa... 🔥 IMMORTALITY - $11.99 📹 TELLING LIES - $4.99 ☕ HER STORY - $4.99 And you are obliged to 💫Wishlist our upcoming projects PROJECT C and PROJECT D whilst you're at it! #SteamSale #SteamSummerSale #Cheap #Art

Just finished reading Frankl's The Dual State. One of things that stuck out to me is how even though the courts were like 'yeah, the Nazis can basically do whatever they want', they really did take pains to frame their rulings around arcane legal justifications and academic sounding explanations.

i no longer give the text of SC decisions my full attention, but after skimming: wow thomas and alito are BIG MAD in the comments

So far Chicago is a lot like Toronto: they got an Ontario St, a Lakeshore boulevard and white people in athleisure wear bringing dogs into coffee shops

I feel like the great and sometimes unbearable tension I live with as an American is the same tension that I live with as a human being and someone who believes in some form of divine universal justice, which is that I despise what we choose to be and I also refuse to give up on what we might become

We're thrilled to present the shortlist for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction:

HAPPY PRIDE! FUCK ICE! FIX YOUR HEARTS OR DIE!

Imagine that someday your witty post offends a thin-skinned fascist who wants to use his authority to ruin your life. Now imagine that he has easy access to everything you personally have ever posted, bought, liked, or read on the internet, with no anonymity or incognito mode available.

ALSO THIS, which is so well-put. (And I swear this is the last thing I'll say about the word discourse.) To me is it not really the 'I don't know this word' that bugs me, it's the ask. You do not get to ORDER UP what an artist provides! You get what you get! When did this change?!!??

This passage stood out to me, and I see it everywhere in real life.

buy more voidmerch, it’s excellent merch that represents bluesky well

I'm overthinking this now because the lack of curiosity and reasoning as well as the level of entitlement demonstrated by literally asking an author to take it down a notch is really something... But. People can't freakin read. That's where we're at, and it's not entirely their fault.

it cannot be said enough about obergefell that national gay marriage came out of nowhere, shocked the political establishment, and relied far more on “it’s the right thing to do” than judicial precedent the roe decision absolutely means they overturn obergefell under the same principle

I think the people pushing back against this with things like “gay marriage” and “the ACA” are not entirely wrong, but are also missing something subtler, which is that these things have been accomplished without much understanding from Dems that they would need to be defended from truly evil people

“Charlotte what do you want for your birthday?” oh, that’s easy. the dismantling of the fossil fuels industry and for its purveyors and beneficiaries to be tried and convicted for crimes against nature. also, ice cream sounds nice

Forbidden Solitaire ($12.79) - horror devs Night Signal collab with solitaire wunderkinds Grey Alien Games to make... horror solitaire. you've happened upon a copy of the controversial 90s game Forbidden Solitaire, and you have SO much to learn about it. store.steampowered.com/app/3414580/...

btw

i will add on to this: colleges are being crushed between the pressures of LLMs and the fading efficacy of K-12 education (literacy, cumulative NCLB effects, etc) more students are coming to college unable to meet its expectations and are incentivized to turn to LLMs (to everyone’s detriment)

It's out now! Me and @rubyrockatansky.bsky.social present volume one of 𝕿𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖘𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝖁𝖔𝖑𝖙𝖆𝖌𝖊: 𝔄 ℭ𝔬𝔪𝔭𝔦𝔩𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔗𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔰 𝔐𝔢𝔱𝔞𝔩 𝔇𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔤𝔢! transientvoltage.bandcamp.com/album/transi...

Final day!! P.S. Please preorder and tell your Magnus Archives or at least your weirdest friends to preorder, this is my first ever tie-in novvle and am I nervous that I did a terrible job? Yes. Am I concerned about becoming a subject of The Eye? Also yes.

ok this one got me

New blog post: a long one going over my approach to running story breaking sessions with video game writing teams. azhdarchid.com/how-to-run-a...

that's awesome. i wish my grandmother was like that. actually i wish she actually WAS a revolver. a big ol' gun with eyes that floated on top like Clippy. grandma gun we'd call her. grandma gun can you make us pb&js w/the crusts cut off? "no shut the fuck up or i'll shoot your face off," she'd say

o'brien's role on ds9 is to a) be the grumpiest and most 90s cis man (with unmanaged trauma and anger issues) and b) be tortured repeatedly by the writers, far more than any other character in the series how much one connects with o'brien is measured by how strongly one relates to these two themes

We made a game in which god is a teenage girl with generational trauma. - Relive her memories - Uncover a 1,000 year-old lie - Atone for the sin that will change the society of her clones forever 1000xRESIST is 40% off for the Steam Summer Sale! s.team/a/1675830/

This discussion is based on two faulty premises: that "visibility" is a distinct phenomenon from advancement of rights, and that increased visibility of gays and lesbians didn't trigger cultural and legal backlash. (The headline is misleading: they're specifically talking about trans visibility.)

I forgot to mention they are also at their highest discount: 70% off for Citizen Sleeper 50% off for Citizen Sleeper 2 Enjoy!