I love this diva!

"New Pokemon starter reveal day" is one of my favorite days! 😍

The people who want to remove trans books from schools and libraries also want to remove trans people *from public life*. It's never only about books. It's always about who they believe belong in our shared public, civic life.

For your weekend listen: PragerU makes bad history content. Really bad--like Frederick Douglass explaining how the Founding Fathers were the REAL abolitionists. And now it's on the approved list in 11 states. Check out NPR's On Point for more from me and @edweek.org's Sarah Schwartz:

Here's a quick action you can take to support Right to Read legislation at the Federal level. Yes, we know, we know, but Congress changes and we can't get what we don't fight for

Living in a country where people can simultaneously celebrate Lunar New Year, observe Ramadan and Lent, and party at Mardi Gras on the same day is cool, good, and worth fighting for. Pluralistic democracy is one of humanity’s greatest inventions!

Happy Lunar New Year! Feb. 17, 2026, marks our entry into the Year of the Horse.

Ramadan Mubarak

"Bad Bunny did not frame queerness as an exception. He integrated it into the fabric of the performance. ... He is not asking permission to be different in terms of masculinity. He is demonstrating that it already is." projecthumanities.asu.edu/blog/content...

The current book ban movement is, at its core, a movement to defund the public good. The necessary bigotries were a feature of that, not a bug.

As some of you may know, I’m writing a book on the history of high school English in the United States, and I’m excited to share a new article from that project—“High School English and the Making of American Readers”—out today in American Literary History! 🧵 academic.oup.com/alh/article/...

As I argue in the article, there’s no version of “the public humanities” *more public* than high school English!

Happy Birthday to Frederick Douglass who would by very disappointed in all of this BS but would never, ever stop fighting (or getting his photo taken)

Donate to help my union brothers rebuild, three months after they were detained at an immigration hearing.

The application window for NCTE's Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Award closes in just over one month. Apply to be part of the 2026-27 ECEOC cohort and get mentor support as you build an accomplished teaching career in literacy education. https://bit.ly/2Uv8mUl

Look around. The case for more, not less, liberal arts education remains stronger than ever.

Benito is a threat b/c he makes art so alluring and enjoyable you want to understand everything about it and then you end up learning about sugar and slavery and colonialism and the Taínos and Hawaii and then you probably have some thoughts of your own, and that's why art is powerful and dangerous

Bad Bunny for Vanity Fair in 2023: “What I do, I do from my heart...I believe that every human being has the duty to have empathy for others, to help others, to respect them, to always try to contribute something to society, to bring a positive change.” www.vanityfair.com/style/2023/0...

A fantastic episode with Alana Casanova-Burgess, who runs La Brega: Stories of the Puerto Rican Experience, and music critic Julianne Escobedo Shepherd that digs into the history and politics of tonight's performance! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

"God Bless America:" then he lists most of the countries in the hemisphere starting with Chile I think? this rules

I wrote about ICE's concentration camps and the tech bros' data centers as key elements of the economic infrastructure of fascism. And how politicians need to take the public's lead in opposing both.

Dr. Ernest Morrell was a legendary scholar and multifaceted leader who helped pave the way for critical English education as a practice. We express limitless gratitude for his service to NCTE and his invaluable contributions to literacy education and ELA teachers everywhere. https://bit.ly/3LYyx2W

I had a great conversation with @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social & @johannawinant.bsky.social on the what/why/how of close reading. There’s much to be gained by creating connective tissue between literary studies & secondary English, so I’m excited to share this episode! open.substack.com/pub/trevoral...

Y'all should register to see my brilliant friend @hinessolo.bsky.social talk about Black superheroes, Black comic creators, and representation in comics! The library is streaming the event and it's free! calendar.houstonlibrary.org/event/15452129

They got a new Spider-Man backpack!

Please don’t read costal papers pretending to know anything about Texas. We’ve got great local reporting that’s with your time.

MASA Winter Webinar: “On Community in Martial Arts" 4 February, 9:00AM-10:30AM - Online via MS Teams www.eventbrite.com/e/masa-winte... feat. panellists Lyn Jehu, University of South Wales and Jack Sugden, Liverpool John Moores University, discussion led by Kyle Green, SUNY Brockport.

We shouldn’t make it seem like bad practice, for example, to let kids read quietly in your classroom for 30m and take some notes. Classrooms could be where we teach kids to inhabit the silences reading requires—instead we turn them into another form of pressure and noise.

If you listened to the Southlake podcast or read They Came for the Schools by @mikehixenbaugh.com then you may recognize the name "Wambsganss." Leigh Wambsganss was a key figure in enacting book bans, anti-DEI, and anti-LGBTQ policies in North Texas.

A powerful portrait of teachers and school officials in Minneapolis who have been putting their bodies and lives in danger to shield students from ICE. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

For Liam.

Doomers should read more history. Reading about some of the darkest chapters in US history may sound depressing, but it gave me so many examples of ordinary people fighting for what's right despite horrendous odds.

"It may take time to prove you're right, but you have to stick to it." - Fred Korematsu Jailed for refusing to abide by FDR's Exec Order 9066, he took his case against internment all the way to the Supreme Court - and lost. Remember him on Korematsu Day, January 30th. 1/

Jim Obergefell–the name you know from the SCOTUS case on LGBTQ+ marriage–has penned a hell of an editorial about the political battle over LGBTQ+ books in Ohio libraries. www.cleveland.com/opinion/2026...

Chanea is incredible. I spoke with her about this over the summer and it became our most listened episode of 2025: www.humanrestorationproject.org/podcasts/rec...

There is something very, very odd about a society that is simultaneously more thoroughly and constantly saturated in media than any human group has been during the entire history of our species... but also finds it puzzling why studying art & literature might be worthwhile.

Mrs. Bond is one of the absolute best educators I know! Like this article highlighting her work demonstrates, we need good teachers and good books not more screens and less human connection. 📚 www.npr.org/2026/01/28/n...

One thing I found deeply moving about resistance in the Twin Cities was the universalism of loving your neighbor, the philosophy driving the opposition to the ICE/BP invasion. I couldn't help but notice the contrast with the blood and soil-ism of Miller and Vance. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The terror that ICE and CBP have inflicted on the children of the Twin Cities is, by itself, a crime of scandalous proportions that will forever stain this country's moral fabric, and all those responsible should never know another day of peace. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

Comics retailing legend Greg Ketter standing up to ICE in Minneapolis. Yes, that's tear gas. He's 70 years old.

Immigration is a fake problem. We have politicians on the one hand who want to use immigrants as scapegoats for our real ones and politicians on the other who are too cowardly to stand against them and tell the truth. That is the entire situation. Until that changes, people will continue to die.

Yesterday, Minneapolis gave us hope. That’s what they’re trying to kill: the will of a people who are willing to fight them.

We owe an incredible debt to the Minnesotans who are on the streets protesting and documenting what is happening.

Call it woke indoctrination or whatever, who cares: the entire point of public education in a pluralistic multicultural democratic nation is to make sure we can live and work together without subjugating and killing each other. The alternative is what we're living through right now.

Anyway what’s amazing is that it’s a vampire movie but the real monster is the inescapable labyrinth of the Jim Crow economy. www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

Please help us bring Liam Adrian Cornejo Ramos (he’s only 5 years of age and is currently in pre-K. Yesterday, he and his father were kidnapped by ICE. This will help the family with legal services to help reunite Liam and his dad with their family. gofund.me/be8a1b2ab

When co-teachers Robert Van Auken and Karissa Sullivan recommend game-based-learning to other educators, they’re often met with a skeptical look akin to “Games are cool, but c’mon… games?” Yes, they say: games! 🎲 Here are 5 reasons why—and tabletop game suggestions to get started. #GBL #EduSky