Seattle is relatively close to my neck of the woods and I have friends who are Seahawk fans, so happy for them, champions of the National Football League world which is America, not the world

A distinctly 21st century form of entertainment is scrolling through a social media feed where everyone is commenting on an event, assuming everyone's watching it, and you're -- not

Football for English teachers: the offensive line is a line of iambic pentameter. Starting with the space on the outside edge of the left tackle, the gaps are the unstressed syllables and the lineman are the stressed syllables.

At school doing stuff for tomorrow, completely forgot the Super Bowl was on Can't wait to see which team becomes the WORLD CHAMPIONS. Of American football. A sport nobody else really plays.

Hoping that AI is going to generate a counter-reaction of beautiful amateurism, where people are sketching and painting and writing simply for the joy of creating something, because that joy makes life richer and better --

Do I use AI in any corner of my teaching practice? No. If I'm preaching authenticity with students, I need to practice what I preach. That takes a good bit of my time, but it's worthwhile because in this context authenticity is far more important than efficiency. It really isn't complicated --

"Many authors don’t reveal they use chatbots, for fear of alienating readers." "Ms. Rompoti began writing romance novels with the help of artificial intelligence in 2024." These are things students say and do when they plagiarize. Why is any of this being countenanced in the slightest

I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest. Much Ado About Nothing, 4.1.301 #ShakespeareSunday

Quite Iago-esque, if Iago had made a miraculous comeback at the end of Othello and become Governor of Cyprus

The Cows are by the Windbreak Peter Shostak 1986

So wonderful to see the raw emotion from Valerie Maltais as she receives her bronze medal. At her fifth Olympics, 16 years after her debut, she wins her first individual medal. What a moment for her.

If we want to get back or get through, one of the most urgent questions to wrestle with is why open lying and hypocrisy and corruption just ceased to matter all that much

The Olympic hockey arena has an old-school organist, and that's amazing 🎹 🏒

Teaching only becomes a profession when you articulate a larger purpose for doing it and try your best to refine and live out that purpose. Without that, it's a job like any other job.

Dear Canadian Olympians and Paralympians, athletes who have lived a life of devotion, discipline, integrity, and sacrifice for the love of sport: I am proud to be associated with you, I am rooting for you, and I don't care where you finish because you're an inspiration regardless 🍁 🇨🇦

So four-ish months ago I went to Calgary to see Lang Lang, and after the concert was in a restaurant where he walked in and was like 20 feet away from me, so when he appeared on TV playing at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, yeah I kinda squealed and took a picture

Setting Shakespeare aside, Death of a Salesman means more to me than any other piece of theatre. Excited to see it unfold on the stage instead of in my classroom --

When it comes to AI, the only stance that makes any sense to me as an educator is resistance

Nothing makes me feel like I'm living in the wrong century quite like the pleasure I derive from rewriting a memorable, well-written sentence into a commonplace book

If only I'd known that you could just describe how you've been teaching high school for decades and get published in a big-time magazine I guess it was predictable that a tired stream of "the kids don't read" articles that are really just anectodes stitched together would lead to a counterpoint

Macbeth saying "To know my deed ’twere best not know myself" betrays a catastrophic lack of self-understanding. To say "this is not who we are" comes from a good-hearted place, but it denies reality just when a clear-eyed, unflinching confrontation with the truth is needed.

I like sages and stages, because wise people are indispensible and going to see a show is fun, we do it all the time I also like guides and sides, because helping someone gently is very noble, and being on someone's side is empowering for both parties I like it all, I don't choose one or the other

February in the Village A.J. Casson n.d.

It's February 1. Happy New Year! If you're a teacher starting a new semester, you know what I'm talking about 😎

Valiant and virtuous, full of haughty courage Henry VI Part 1, 4.1.35 #ShakespeareSunday

So the human teacher is a robot and the robot teacher is a human. Got it. If we had a dollar for every time someone has peddled the snake oil promise that ed tech is the magic key to personalization, we'd have enough money to fund the system properly and then some

Life in Canada, 2026: you can buy a ton of Team Canada Olympic gear, and a hockey jersey for all the other countries ... except one 🇺🇸

SCTV meant a lot to me in junior high and high school -- it was the first thing I ever taped when my parents got a VCR -- and so all its actors hold a special place in my heart and mind. Rest in peace

I'm not saying I'm middle-aged, I'm just saying that I play Hamlet's Ghost in class and "old mole" is starting to touch a nerve

The current vibe for English teaching is 9-9-6, drink coffee, mark late, fall asleep, drink coffee, eat ... something, teach early, eat ... lunch, what is lunch, lift heavy, heavy lift, heavy lift

Teacher life: one semester ends and another begins, which means a graceful return to a more normal level of coffee [read: caffeine] intake

This is the night / That either makes me or fordoes me quite. Iago; or, in a radically different context, the tired English teacher at the end of a semester marking the last set of papers before final marks are due

The momentum of dissent starts with an example. The thanes turn, and are able to turn quickly, because Macduff has led the way and given them permission, a model --

Secret English teacher skill that is no longer the fashion in an age of tech: handwriting recognition of pieces turned in without names

When the lake is snow-covered and frozen enough to drive on, it's hard to believe that winter won't last forever. But a few short months from now, on a warm summer night, it will look like this. Just in case you needed to renew your faith in the possibility, the inevitability, of positive change

If you're looking for a musical world to escape into for a while, times being what they are, I highly recommend Night Tracks. BBC can only be accessed live outside of the UK, but it's on now

Life in Canada: developing a heightened appreciation for irony when you go out to work the shovel and snowblower when it's -20, and you end up sweating like it's +30 while your fingers and toes are frozen and ready to fall off 🥵🥶

Fair warning -- this one will bring tears to your eyes, and that's precisely why you should read it If pure poetry is the deepest things you feel amplified by just the right words, this is pure poetry

A function of this is refusing to believe lies. Yes, they do leave the banquet at Lady Macbeth's behest and wish "better health" for the king, but they don't really buy it, and by 3.6 his lies are being mocked with sarcasm and the thanes are switching sides in earnest.

...’tis true that we are in great danger. / The greater therefore should our courage be. Henry V, 4.1.1-2 #ShakespeareSunday

That, by the help of these (with Him above / To ratify the work), we may again / Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights, / Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives, / Do faithful homage, and receive free honors, / All which we pine for now. Macbeth, 3.6.36-41

At the end of Othello, Emilia sheds her unwitting complicity and speaks out against hideous, corrosive lies: ’Twill out, ’twill out. I peace? / No, I will speak as liberal as the north. Her courage and conviction hurls Iago headlong into utter ruin

January trees just after sunset. The cold is deepening and the sun is fading, but just for now, not forever. Hold on, build fires, gather until the light returns

O Curler, thou must untangle this, not I. / It is too hard a knot for me t’ untie. Twelfth Night, 2.2.40-41 (I did change one word)

January morning light -- so still, so cold, so peaceful and fearful all at once

And just in time to whet your appetite for the Winter Olympics, the 2026 Canadian Women's Curling Championship, aka the Scotties, is underway! In technical curling parlance, an array of stones like this is known as a hot mess 🥌

'Tis now the very witching time of night / But it's January and -20 / So all the witches are staying indoors Hamlet, Canadian edition

Striking to me how he used AI to write emails, but when he had a problem with the company he insisted on interacting with a real person And "these tools were not developed with academic standards of reliability and accountability in mind" is, um, hardly a revelation

Thursday night marking music: Pat Benatar, apparently singing about Canada's new approach to international relations

Iago: a guy who convinces you that a bunch of lies are actually true, and that you should do something about them, about how horribly you actually haven't been treated but yes you have, I said so