And so, driven to despair by loss, Montague left Verona and moved to the west coast of Canada, bought some land in the harbour, and made coffee as a way of bringing peace and harmony to the world

Well it sure looks like there isn't going to be an old Adams Division Nords vs Habs Stanley Cup Final, or even a throwback WHA Nords vs Whalers Stanley Cup Final. Only a Habs win can make up for this, hockey gods

to = ➡️ two = 2️⃣ too = ➕ Toto = 🙏🌧️⬇️🌍

I quite like Bluesky. But then, I hang out mostly with the teachers and the poets, so why wouldn't I. With all due apologies to Talk Talk, social media's what you make it

And so, driven to despair by loss, Montague left Verona and moved to the west coast of Canada, bought some land in the harbour, and made coffee as a way of bringing peace and harmony to the world

Added to the summer task list: build an emergency backup plan to leave the province you've lived in your entire life in order to stay Canadian, if it comes to that Yay

Have often thought that the most moving, meaningful line in Macbeth is "Give sorrow words"

Teaching is a very different space, more circumscribed by virtue of being part of an institution, but something of this is still present. There is a level of personal commitment you aren't required to make, but must make if you want your teaching to resonate beyond checking curricular boxes.

English teacher life: Sunday morning is a time to delay the marking you have just by an hour or two, so you can feel the maximum intensity of time pressure and at 9 o'clock tonight think damn, I should've started earlier

In a world rife with uncertainty, it is comforting to hear Peter Coyote narrate a documentary and know he was absolutely destined to do that because it's perfect

No Amazon, no Netflix, no Apple TV, no Spotify, no iTunes, no Facebook, life without it all is possible, I live it, I own a lot of books

That alternate version of Gatsby where he made his money in a very different way

"Exactly where to draw the line on acceptable uses of AI is not as obvious as it might seem." Sometimes things actually are as obvious as they might seem, but because they'll make things harder for us we equivocate or pseudo-intellectualize. It is perfectly obvious. Don't.

Life in 2026: the tension of wanting to live in a community but realizing you live in a casino

Would love to rock a Victoire t-shirt or hoodie, but checked a big sports merch store in my town and all the PWHL gear was women's sizes only Come on now

Teacher life: that night when you took your school bag home but it never got opened because you crashed out on the couch, and then the next day you actually feel rested and energized So this is what a full night's sleep feels like, my god should I have been doing this for the last 20-odd years

Thinking back to the 80s, but instead of athletes being disgraced and stripped of their medals for steroid use, they are told that steroids are here to stay whether they like it or not, so they must learn how to use them ethically, and that they're "a tool, not a shortcut"

I'm not saying I'm middle-aged, I'm just saying that if I were in Montreal tonight, I would stay indoors

Game 7 overtime is so compelling that even when your team's not involved, it's still gut-wrenching

To teach in a world where taking shortcuts is pervasive, and just slightly more pervasive than rote shortcut denial

The "ambient awareness" created by tech is pervasive. A recent phone conversation with a friend got me thinking how that once-default mode of communication has been replaced by texting, which is a kind of connection but really quite a thin tether compared to real-time exchange and presence --

The final scene of Hamlet, except instead of rapiers it's UFC on the front lawn of Elsinore

Every sports fan knows the slow passage of a day that will give way to the terror and exhilaration of a Game 7 -- best wishes @mitchnobis.bsky.social @mrdecember.bsky.social

To teach in a time when authenticity, once unquestioned, can now feel quaint, old-fashioned, even vaguely ridiculous -- and thus becomes worth fighting for with all you have

Social media for introverts: you want to be seen, but also if you post anything that even remotely catches fire beyond your circle of regular contacts you start thinking oh god, how do I turn this off

An ed-tech guru or anyone else who thinks education is some clean, efficient process of input and output has simply never spent time in a school. Those of us who actually live inside the four walls know it's a complex, chaotic human community that runs on connection, relationships, care.

People who say things like "kids need to learn how to use AI so they aren't left behind" unwittingly sell out the very purpose of education, which is supposed to be about learning so you can shape the world, not learning so you can fit into its seemingly inevitable imperatives

To teach in a world that has mostly lost its bearings, its moorings, the plot

By virtue of our profession, teachers who are sports fans can spot misplaced accountability from a hundred miles away

That time of year where 16 of the next 107 days are classroom teaching days, and so my mind starts to reflect and plan for next year while wrapping up this one

As a Canadian, am I happy to see the US Olympic gold medal winners on the Minnesota Wild crash out of the NHL playoffs? Yes, I am. Is that quite petty and sad? Yes, but such are the times.

Remembering the good old days when a program would randomly install a desktop shortcut and you'd get mildly annoyed. Now it's like hey, this thing will replace your brain, no we're not asking

The deep problem is hidden in the language, talk of how districts "perform", a "learning recession", and "accountability" -- seeing schools as businesses instead of centers of learning focused on the growth and well-being of children

Teacher life: thinking to yourself that the day, the afternoon, your last block class is going to be smooth sailing is always the kiss of death

To move students from following directions to thinking, from completing assignments to writing, from templates and scaffolds to independence, from guidance to freedom

Hamlet in the drug store on a Sunday morning, searching in vain for a Mother's Day card that says "assume a virtue if you have it not"

Online education platforms, whether for marks or exams, are simply tools of surveillance and control. Whether they are used that way or not does not change this fact. As teachers, we need to be absolutely clear-eyed about this.

I'm not saying I'm a middle-aged teacher, I'm just saying that those days when the internet goes down in the middle of class I just carry on no problem, sometimes I don't even notice

English teacher life: That marking weekend that has you quoting Iago WAY out of context -- This is the night / That either makes me or fordoes me quite.

When it comes to student reading, choice is powerful, but it's vital to foster intellectual openness and curiosity as well. To find value and interest in things you didn't choose and may not be your favourites -- making the journey instead of making things come to you -- is an important capacity.

We’re building a bunch of data centers and chip manufacturing plants.

A constant and often insurmountable challenge to maintain an intellectual, reflective life about teaching -- reading, writing, thinking about it -- in the face of merely trying to survive the onslaught of responsibilities and activities

We should spare no effort to build data centers, if by data centers we mean the young brains sitting in classrooms

Teacher life: Sunday night and you're thinking damn, why did I set up a week where I can barely get everything done, and the reason is because you didn't work through the entire weekend, only a big chunk of it

God's anger broke through the clouds / And he spilt the cargo for all to see / The fault of the sailor, the fault of he / Who asks no questions about the cargo he is carrying

I'm not saying I'm middle-aged, I'm just saying that 80s-style firewagon playoff hockey is awesome, let's go Nordiques and North Stars

English teacher life: a stack of papers on A Doll's House is all macaroons, macarons, macrons, sweet treats and French Presidents

And the mail has delivered the Big Summer Reads. See you in mid-June 📚

I have always loved sports, but as a teacher a significant part of my interest has become the study of coaching and leadership

@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social Thank you for this. For quite some time I've had this intuition that so much of what we are seeing is backlash, so it was nice to explore that and transform it from a vague sense into a more concrete notion.