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on one hand of the platforming debate is yeah, we don’t love giving fanatic demagogues and white nationalists a megaphone. on the other hand, there eventually might be a trial in the hague, so…

one of the most valuable things about students writing emails home about their progress in class (thanks @heymrsbond.com): recognizing when students are incorrectly internalizing the wrong narrative about themselves, and immediately being able to step in and say, “no, you are working hard enough.”

doing some AP test review with my Lang students & came up with a new term: boyfriend answer (n): something that might look appealing at first glance, but ultimately turns out to be wrong

when I began teaching I started to look around and think “wow, y’all are really just making things up as you go, huh?” and it turns out that’s true for literally every single organization I’ve ever interacted with as an adult.

the way in which (many, not all) universities are capitulating to politics instead of standing on the business of academic integrity, rigor, and critical thinking make me really question their value beyond just an expensive job certification. having a mission should be existential for them.

how about “the floor will eventually find the ceiling and throw it in the guillotine”

so many elected officials are still so bad at responding to this stuff. focus on the impact on real people. focus on moral clarity and uncompromising values. this just sounds like an annoying hall monitor, and is a huge part of why dems lose elections.

what % of accounts here are bots? because it seems high

wife: what do you want for Christmas? me: I want you to argue with me like we’re in the 2015 facebook comments

nice to see some offense for a change

I really want to see those in favor of eliminating school shootings (and other American gun violence) fight more offensively on constitutional grounds. The first clause of 2A is “A well regulated Militia…” The founders enshrined legislative gun control, and we’ve completely ceded this ground.

I asked the doc what happens if we don’t fix my baby’s torticollis & she said this:

i’m watching my family members post AI slop with the same energy their boomer parents had for email forwards in the early aughts and thinking it’s very funny that this will cause our economy to collapse

why aren’t groceries FSA eligible? isn’t diet like, the absolute most important thing when it comes to healthcare costs?

is it just teachers who have to say “I noticed” before giving even the mildest critical feedback? I’ve stopped doing this & instead say things like “we need to get better at” (especially with students) because it’s more direct and communicates that I’m confident in my feedback AND their ability

ah, perhaps instead of pumping millions into endless factional infighting Dem donors could invest in making local Dem organizations genuine civic spaces that can reach people during and between elections

if he does his merch, we do AOC-Zohran ‘28 merch

my baby (almost 3 months): [wailing, as the end times are upon us] me: check out this light. it’s not turned on, but is a circle. baby: this is a happy time, for laughter and joy

as today was the last day of the quarter in AP Lang, we ended with original persuasive speeches on a topic of the student’s choice.

“hi! I’d like to have a conversation about how your essay was flagged by an AI checking tool” (me)

my takeaway from watching 2 episodes of love is blind is that our culture has so effectively starved people of meaningful conversation that as soon as they are given dedicated space for it they experience it as a radically novel connection (and can be easily mistaken for love)

people on linkedin use a lot of words to say they’ve sold their souls

hey so we could actually have secondary classes where the lesson plans are all just “read your favorite book and then talk about why it’s awesome and then do a cool project every few books” and kids would learn a lot and work really hard in that class

the real cognitive dissonance I’m having with AI is that it will save incredible amounts of time, so we can reallocate to more fulfilling (personal) pursuits. but CEOs will never concede that people deserve to eat and live without sacrificing their entire week.

she compared herself to an English teacher, sooooooo

I’m tired of seeing feel good puff pieces about teachers volunteering their time over the summer to get things done at their school because nobody else will do it (or pay to have it done). You think they want to spend their time like that? Unpaid??? Write the story about how fed up they were.

Hypothetically, if voting for a wealth tax meant we would definitely have working class abundance, solve the crises in climate, health, housing, education, crime, poverty, and immigration, would you vote for a wealth tax? Or is that thought so abhorrent you couldn’t bring yourself to do it?

so we’re just gonna violate FERPA and violate student & family privacy rights because we have a fancy word calculator now?

I just said “alexa turn off the tv” except i’m in my classroom and was talking about the projector

I want to set up some kind of class blog for students to publish and share their writing next year with each other. I haven’t done this in a while, and don’t love the idea of managing things like substack accounts. Any class blog platform recs? Something clean, efficient, and (ideally) free.

once standardized tests move to AI grading—as I think they inevitably will—those same companies monetizing them should be compelled to offer free, real-time AI feedback throughout the entire school year on the same model that will score student responses on the high stakes exam

Imagine teaching research methods to 11th graders right after Jaylen Brown drops by your school for a surprise visit bc that’s what I’m doing rn

I bought a 2025 Honda CR-V in July 2024. I am sad about the fate of the republic but at least my car will actually increase in value by the time it’s paid off.

I teach AP Lang, and at its core the class is about the art of persuasion. I think I’m pretty good at persuasion. Something important about many of the protest signs from this weekend is that they are very, very funny. Humor is incredibly powerful against cowardice, and all bullies are cowards.

last recession I applied to TFA because there weren’t any other jobs & that worked out okay honestly

idk who needs to hear this but “attention grabbing” is a very important skill these days and maybe we can learn a lesson

discussing today’s prank fallout with the OG teacher chat

the “above and beyond” rhetoric around teachers is toxic and perpetuates burnout. celebrating sustainable systems that allow students to thrive in safe, predictable, affirming classrooms is more important than individualized after-school tutoring.

If we cared about kids learning instead of blaming teachers, standardized tests would be administered in the fall with an 8 week data turnaround to teachers as a year-long instructional tool. Imagine how quickly schools would collaborate and improve.

teacher appreciation week is May 5-9 this year and we should be in the streets

Saying federal money “only accounts” for 10% of school budgets is a national average. In rural, low-income, mostly red districts, that can be up to 25% of a small district’s budget. A death blow to one of the only critical community institutions & largest employer in many small towns.

start with the premise that if AI can do it, it’s not that important to begin with

just learned about @5calls.org today. if you’re like me & don’t know what it is, it’s an org that provides call scripts for progressive messaging to target the right representatives & elected officials. calling your reps is still the most powerful way to influence policy & people in a democracy.

Until you start funding progressive candidates for mid term elections, you’re still directly part of the problem. Yelling at dems to waste their time on legislation we all know will never pass is just meaningless clickbait and virtue signaling.

In 2015, a study showed that 1.6 million students attended schools that had a cop, but not a counselor. Schools are overly surveilled + overly policed. AI is an extension of this surveillance + policing. On that note, kids: do not ever say anything about your mental health to AI.

thinking of using facebook to behave like my pre-Elon twitter persona

I want to see spreadsheets of the most vulnerable GOP house members with phone numbers, issues they campaigned on, issue polling from their districts, and talking points. It should be updated weekly, with weighted scores for issues & color coded data viz. I do this in my classroom, why can’t dems?

What if the response to all this from teachers was a summer full of marches & public demonstrations of how great our schools and students are? What if we took our idealism outside the classroom and reminded everyone how fun & empowering our school communities are?

What if the response to all this from teachers was a summer full of marches & public demonstrations of how great our schools and students are? What if we took our idealism outside the classroom and reminded everyone how fun & empowering our school communities are?