Reposting this petition for NYC people interested in pushing back rather than partnering up: actionnetwork.org/petitions/pl...

Amazing airplane row today: no one said a word to each other. Well done everyone.

Also “the next phase”? What was phase 1? Rampant cheating and the destruction of trust between teachers and their students?

My union has never sent me an email about a workshop for educators interested in fighting for, say, curricular autonomy, but glad they’re onto the important things, like designing “classroom agents”

NYC teachers/parents—consider signing! Don’t think we need to use children as experiments for tech companies. actionnetwork.org/petitions/pl...

Think I’m going to make “writing a letter” an assignment during Pride and prejudice. Maybe they write a little about the book or a character, send one to a classmate?

This is a weird and very funny little book. More relevant now I think than when it came out, given the hyper-homogenization of language

In class writing=no cheating, lots of doodles

it’s good to be interested in the world, even if you’ll never get a job at yale for it

Dorothy

Hofstadter on “the new education” and “life adjustment” education. A student learns “not Shakespeare or Dickens, but how to write a business letter.”

We were discussing the American dream in class last week (Gatsby) and a kid said that families come to to the US and NYC for safety, not to “make it big”—lots of kids nodded along. Why is this not something we proudly throw everything we have into making possible

Outstanding news! www.fastcompany.com/91461983/ind...

The use of “demands” twice 🫡

The forces that remove books from class in blue states (tests, online stuff, excerpts) and in red states (moneyed interests in right wing values) are both motivated by the fact that it’s really hard to monitor what happens to a reading mind

Hokheimer would’ve really disliked AI 🤖. “[An engineer’s] purposeful rule would make men an agglomeration of instruments without a purpose of their own”

Also had to vote yes on this to make sure our kids get to play—something that was cut down to make room for more measurable forms of Growth www.uft.org/your-union/u...

I think this is true but really hard work especially when those in power are pushing the opposite of something humanistic. But I think it's absolutely essential that we link scripted curricula to AI: two ways to make the teacher irrelevant and interchangeable in the classroom.

Optimistic side of me thinks that the infiltration of both scripted curricula and AI into schools—an infiltration that requires the kinds of standardization we’ve seen in order to exist—offers a pretty compelling organizing opportunity for people interested in defending something more humanistic.

Thank you so much for this encouragement! YES, we are still raising funds to meet our year-end goal. Anyone reading this can help us get there and provide more much-needed journalism opportunities to NYC public school students. We focus on under-served schools.

So curious what my kids are going to say about ole Sophocles today/tomorrow. Fun term-ending essay.

In my Intro to Medical Humanities, my students' penultimate assignment is to develop a diagnostic note for a character from one of the novels. Their final is a reflection on how the social determinants of health impact that character's experience of illness, care, and medicine. They smashed it.

Lovely year-end notice from @tonydomestico.bsky.social in @commonweal.bsky.social of CLOSE READING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. "Sinykin and Winant convincingly argue that close reading isn’t just an intellectual but also a social and ethical practice" www.commonwealmagazine.org/books-domest...

@presspassnyc.bsky.social is doing a fundraiser—they are a vital NYC resource that has helped bring journalism to/strengthen the programs of almost 40 schools in NYC, including mine. Give to this campaign if you can! www.every.org/presspassnyc...

Strongly recommend going to a play attended entirely by nyc kids that ends in a roaring standing ovation (we saw Oedipus—so good)

“Imagery” is stupid

Some parent/teacher organizers I know are trying to make the case that there needs to be a 2 year moratorium on student-facing AI tech in our schools and I think that’s a ~very good idea~

In today’s “Antigone” adaptations, we had the following Creons: Elon Musk, George Bush, Cartman, Kanye West And some good Antigones: Kyle, Greta T, Eeyore, France during WW2. The Musk edition, Musk was a president hoarding bees as a resource, and Mamdani was Haemon trying to reason with him

@schooldaves.bsky.social did a book talk for a bunch of public school teachers wrestling with questions of public finance and schools here in NYC, one I’m sad I missed. Figured worth mentioning here since I think it speaks to the nature of his commitment to this work! Excited to read for myself.

Do teach in a movie set sometimes

Huh so the ending of “brave new world” is insane

Good little Mark Strand snow day poem, who is clearly America’s snow poet.

Something I miss about working in book publishing is EVERYONE WRITING BOOK TITLES IN ALL CAPS

Someone I know who used to work at one of the many Ed-tech reading companies that rely on our current framework for “literacy” told me that the company’s “bread and butter” were Title 1 middle schools, and I think we should keep that front/center in the reading convo

Re. books: I’m taking my kids to see Oedipus next week in the city and we’re all pumped. There won’t be a clear way to measure what they get out of this.

People who designed the common core who attribute this to a misinterpretation of the project are not unbelievably naive—they’re just lying to you

Holiday cheer with ✅taste en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Motow...

Something you don’t need to do as a high school teacher is put in 6 billion grades. Growing out of that habit was ✨a revelation✨

Be good if people who identify as progressive educators could understand that being progressive doesn’t require being uncritical of all forms of progress, and that in fact sometimes the opposite is true

Have been to a lot of educator-organizer events over the past 12 years. @bradlander.bsky.social has been around at a lot of them—guy shows up.

I’m excited for AI to be another thing that’ll vindicate the obvious argument that, when it comes to schooling, we should listen to teachers

Bunch of thoughts about poems to read through. “Keats argues that only those who FULLY EMBRACE intensity, those willing to experience joy and melancholy completely — can percieve [sic] this understanding that melancholy gives joy depth”

Had a teacher mentor tell me years ago that other students’ work is “like catnip” to their classmates. Generally, some kid is doing something really interesting in your class—show it to their peers and see the ✨magic happen✨

Oh also: when this happens in red states, we call it book banning; when it happens in blue states, we call it “tailoring instruction to help students navigate the complex literacy needs of the 21st century workforce” 51st.news/opinion-dcps...

English Regents, 1985: Choose two texts that you would like to reread because they helped you to understand more about yourself. Explain, with specific references to characters or events, how each work increased your understanding of yourself.

Can feel a little crazy writing essays with “I think my students should read books” as their theses—just published one, am working on another—but it’s affirming to hear similar arguments from others, especially parents and students.

“Broadening access to the humanities…—an effort that gives, for example, a room of public school kids the chance to experience the thrill of something entirely new—is needed now in ways that are difficult to overstate. There’s an essential kind of freedom at stake.” 💙😭🤟

My wife is cooler than me and this book sounds amazing 🤩