There are all sorts of human endeavour where the art is knowing when to do nothing. I suspect that the culture of monitoring struggles with that, because it's invisible. (This isn't just a teaching thing.)

Recently been looking at teaching from an outside perspective with my insider knowledge and I don’t think many people realise how impressive it is that there are actual people who can hold the attention of 30 fifteen-year olds about something they haven’t chosen to study for an hour.

Worse than that, we now all have AI assistants who are programmed to tell us how brilliant we are. "What a delightful mess jacket, shall I order five more now?"

Academic gowns? I'm up for academic gowns.

It's a useful reminder that sometimes tech can make a task more efficient for one side (applying for jobs), and more efficient for the other side (writing job adverts), and yet make the system as a whole completely inefficient.

please don't @ me like "actually cerium is unique among the lanthanides for its +4 oxidation state" ⚗️🧪 #chemsky

You're all a load of useless bloody loonies. #celebritytraitors

Ooh! Flame tests! #celebritytraitors

Why call them The Traitors when Catalan Separatists is right there #celebritytraitors

The signature of Guy Fawkes on the first piece of coursework he marked and the piece handed in two minutes before the deadline.

Coming to Friday night TV in the new year.

To put the size of London into even more perspective: If all the cats in London moved to the countryside and founded a city... ...it would INSTANTLY be the second or third largest in the UK. (Allowing for general fuzziness on "metropolitan areas")

Some fresh goodness on display in Spain.

Geological maps are ace. We should all spend more time contemplating geological maps.

TBH the only genuine hot-take I have on timezones is that One of my favourite timezone facts is that Franco switched to Berlin Time in 1940 to mollify Hitler and they really should switch it back. In summer, somewhere like A Coruña is about two and half hours ahead of "normal" solar time.

You have got EXACTLY ONE JOB #celebritytraitors #uselessbloodyloonies

One of the bitterest lessons of adult life is there is often practically nothing you can do about someone or a company breaking the law without the resources to pay someone to enforce it for you.

Subtly downgrade a band: Ordinand Blue

"Do you remember how we met?" The Dragon asked. "That feels like a trick question." The cat replied. The Dragon snorted. "I remember you were radiant." The cat said. "Oh stop. I was old and frumpy." "Never." The cat said, firmly. "You were terrifying. And in that moment I loved you forever."

The Mayor is a marvellous man and this is the best City Region I have ever been to.

Who is up for making "side quest" (with that name) a required part of all curriculums? (AL Maths/Further Maths/Physics, original format AS Contemporary French)

TIL that you can measure pressure in joules per cubic metre, so it's a kind of energy density. This is surprisingly pleasing.

Went to Lidl today, and the stollen bites are on sale. On one hand, this is clearly madness. On the other hand, MMMM, STOLLEN BITES...

Eventually you have to accept that no matter how many different notebooks you buy, they won’t make you a better writer. For that, you need to spend a lot of money on the right pen.

Cesium xkcd.com/3131/

John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme back for 2025

Thread. I'd go further; as teachers, we often underestimate how much time and effort it takes to get sufficiently good at full questions. First, there needs to be fluency at all the steps. Then, there's the more mysterious skill of turning those steps into an answer. That needs lots of modelling.

Check the lingerie sections of department stores.

The product of the assignment is never the point, it's always just an excuse to think properly about something. AI in education can create an impressive shell, but there's nothing living inside.

A beautiful but sad story. Cheating will always be an easier way to succeed than doing things properly. So the winners' enclosure is always at risk of containing cheats who have to lie about their cheating. (I remember many PD sessions where pro cyclists were held up as role models.)

Not just for cyclists. “For a few men, however, doing the right thing was always more valuable than any other reward. It is that we should take from this story and the thought of how and when we might have to emulate them, and how we can encourage others to do so too.”

One of the things teachers have to do is make ourselves redundant. To say to students, "you don't need me anymore, you can learn the next bits yourselves." It's a privilege to say it, but gosh, it's a bittersweet one. I want to know what happens next.

kinda weird how we all just expected a coyote to know rocket science and then laughed at him when he failed

What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders? Although every physicist knows about Newton's First Law, most of us don't really believe it and forget to apply it unless we make a conscious effort.

Sorry, couldn't help it!! @davidmaher.bsky.social @almagroschool.bsky.social @brendanboyle.bsky.social @jmorris14.bsky.social

wife: how was guarding the two paths today, honey? guard: [looking away] fine wife: did something happen? guard: [tearing up] no wife: would the other guard tell me something happened?

Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of this, and I don't know how we re-establish it.

Lots of good advice here. Rejection is part of the business in academia. But it still sucks. Having rituals to cushion that blow is a v good idea.

Great scenes with extra virgin olive oil back under the €5 mark in Spain.

Implement a 100% tariff and ruin a movie: Bottomless brunch at Tiffany's The Two-Mas Crown Affairs

Here are the US reciprocal tariffs against all the territories mentioned in Enya’s Orinoco Flow

So, is there an actual TG Jones, or are they going to make up a pretendy one? Or is it going to be Colin the Caterpillar all over again?

Suspect this applies more widely. Full academia as a very strong example, schools as well, but so many jobs are so much more managed now. It may improve efficiency, but it has consequences.

subscriptions >>> shop.viz.co.uk/viz343bs

'Thankfully very few people try to drive through custard', is a thing I just heard my HoD say to his year 12 Physics class.

Today’s Blue 💙 #sevilla #azaharsevilla #azaharblue #spain

From the latest @trientertainment.bsky.social; An audiobook takes about 50% longer to listen to than the equivalent book takes to read. And that is why, wherever possible, meetings should be emails.

"It's a good thing we don't have a teacher recruitment problem, isn't it?" part 1.

“The rest of the thesis contains careful, reasoned findings and figures, but on this one page, the author-scientist can release all the pent-up emotion they couldn’t express elsewhere. They’re like an explosion in a lab” #acknowledgement #science science.anu.edu.au/news-events/...

"Science that has changed since I started teaching". 30 years ago we told students that atoms were so small you couldn't see them with the best microscope. Now we can. This is praseodymium orthoscandate (PrScO3) nice to see the image matches the theoretical.