Excellent perspective from @thejosevilson.com pushing back on community-building as a ‘soft skill’ in math learning: “There is nothing 'soft' about trying to build community. It’s actually hard to figure out what’s going on w/ a particular student that isn’t allowing them to connect to a problem.”

You’re looking at your 2026 Cecil Memorial Lecture speaker at Smith College! Grateful for the opportunity to speak to young people and those who uplift them about these times of peril and hope. Let’s get into it!

I'm not typically the "silver lining" guy, but I've been in a space trying to help people (in community or on their own) see their way out of the darkness we're in. The only way out of the nonsense we're in is to get your people together and commiserate.

I did another 20 minute talk where I truncated about 200 years of education policy histories through a sociological lens for a nice virtual audience and … I still can’t get hired by a local college because not enough publications. Academia is playing. 😂

Someone said “Why don’t we get rid of Black History Month and just celebrate it all year?” This *waves frantically at everything and everyone* is why we don’t just get rid of Black History Month. It’s a 100-year-old bookmark, and it’s still useful.

If you were in El Barrio and heard a collective yell when Bad Bunny won the Grammy for Best Album, you were in good company. That album was a movement.

Day 1 of #BlackHistoryMonth Celebrating black educators making history....now @thejosevilson.com

It's the first day of Black History Month. As an intellectual, I'm supposed to remind you that BHM elevates Black people's histories and lives in America's canon in case America forgets. As a Black man, I'm here to tell you that we're still gonna celebrate us whether America chooses to or not.

When independent journalists get into peril for doing their jobs, we can point to that very first time "fake news" was uttered and say "Oh, that's how seemingly trivial terms evolve into dangerous concepts." That's why we need to memorialize and document, so we don't forget the horrors.

I did Nazi this coming so quickly, but thank you Minnesota.

I don't see hope and pessimism as opposites. If anything, the more horrific the situation gets, the clearer the solutions become. Abolishing ICE is the *least* we can do to rectify these ills and get towards a society that believes in a shared humanity. I'm hopeful we can do it. For all of us.

Every year, I give one bit of advice: Don't look for the next MLK, Jr. Instead, look for the community builders and organizers within your community. When you find them, support them and thank them for moving the work forward. For many, the leadership you're looking for may be right within you.

New Bank Street Occasional Paper Series Call for Papers!: www.bankstreet.edu/research-pub... “Education for Democratic Participation Across Places, Cultures, and Peoples” Guest Editors: José Vilson @thejosevilson.com, Amy Stuart Wells, and Xinyu Pan Submissions Due: June 1, 2026 cc #EduSky ✍🏻

One thing I learned as a professor: We toss students too quickly into the material without creating a guide about the expectations we're setting forth. In other words, we're more focused on content than the practices. Which is not too different from teaching in K-12.

How did a bad encounter with two wayward teenagers after Trump's inauguration transformed my outlook for the rest of the year? Read more here and let me know what you think!

Writing a long piece on my blog about 2025 and how getting robbed two weeks after Trump's inauguration transformed my outlook for the rest of the year. (For those asking, no it's not a Substack. Get it before anyone else at the link pinned below!) thejosevilson.com/newsletter

It’s amazing what can happen when we organize for people, not just a comfortable middle. I’m proud to have supported the @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social campaign, but more importantly, to elevate the city I call home. I believe that we will win.

I’ll be at Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration and I’m looking forward to starting the new year with the rest of my city. If you’re still looking for a way to participate, try this. Livestream link all in here as well: www.transition2025.com/inauguration

Update: I had way too much and not enough pernil, potato salad, and other assorted leftovers. I’m gonna need to write my 2026 resolutions twice.

Y'all. I'm in this video. Don't even ask me how. 😂 The link for tickets to his inauguration is in his pinned post.

You'd actually have to have shame for any of this to matter.

Writing a math book might seem easy for a person who taught math for 15 years, but don't let the fact that I'm posting and not writing be evidence to the contrary.

The Knicks won the NBA Cup and the vibes across the city are (mostly) immaculate. Good things a-brewin', but there's no need for a parade.

I got a story to tell, and it's about the wild trip that is high school admissions. Can we do better? I hope so. Read more here!

My theory: Susie Wiles wants to have it both ways. She's both the not-so-secret secret of this Trump administration *and* wants a parachute for when this is all over and into public life. There are words for that, but ... y'all can use them below. 👇🏾

The BlueSky conversation is very much like when a student runs up to you screaming "Why won't they play with me?!" and you find it weird but when you ask the group, they tell you he's been cursing at them, bumping them too hard, and taking the ball whenever he loses. That's why teachers are here 😏

We’ve been discussing this Trump post for almost the whole day and I’m reminded that this is who a sizable number of Americans wanted. Even when he was lying, he told you who he was. We might make it out and, when we do, who’ll be there to say this never happened?

It's wild to see how long Elon Musk has been grifting the world, and how quickly he can layer lies on top of other debunked lies. And how the lies have caused chaos and harm across the globe at this point. Not posting on the other site seems like the *least* we can do.

If the numbers don't make America look great, you stop the numbers from showing otherwise. This isn't just about a jobs or economy report. It's also about eradicating any research that shines a light on our deep inequities. Especially for our children at the margins. We gotta do better.

All I see is a sea of white in my window. By window, I mean my computer monitor, and by white, I mean all the recommendation letters I've made myself responsible for. It's the most wonderful time of the year.

This prime number can also be used to describe the average NBA player’s height. What is …

I tell people all the time that, if it wasn’t for a union, I would have been fired over petty nonsense when I first started teaching. Due process is an important mechanism against administrative malfeasance.

The purpose of a system of is what it does.

Coming to you live from this two-hour nap I just woke up from after a nice Thanksgiving plate … or three.

I'll say this: We're all susceptible to arguing or uplifting randoms and bots because that's part of being on social media. People have been getting paid to antagonize you for "engagement" for years. The money was too good to have integrity about it.

Next step: reclaim public education as a right.

“When you decide to do the kind of things that really start to make a difference and get people listening to you, and you have an impact, it starts to make some people a little bit nervous. And you find yourself starting to become a target.” - Kenny Riley

More evidence for abolishing ICE at the first opportunity.

I woke up this morning with people mad that Mamdani ate everyone’s lunch yesterday: - Trump - GOP (esp. Stefanik) - corporate Dems - news media There are people willing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and call it “radical.” Yeah, nah. I mean that in the most NYC way possible.

Forget the charm. Peep the strategy. Mamdani’s been telling you he’s not scared since Day 1. This is all hard-won people-facing politics. He’ll go to any house, including the White House, to get his agenda passed.

Just goes to show the value of meeting people face-to-face because the minute you pull up and ask them about those social media posts, you don’t see none of that energy. Yes, I’m talking about Trump and Mamdani as well.

When Congress has to vote on condemning an economic system that they’re all benefitting from, that says more about capitalism than socialism. In this essay, I will …

Part of the problem with “Google it” assumes a baseline knowledge of what to look for and how. Now that people are using LLMs to summarize articles they’re not really reading, it adds another tier of faux knowledge we’re not adjusting for.

It's not that the AI bubble is about to pop, which it is. It's that we're already seeing people getting weary and wary of corporations force-feeding us AI content of all kinds. Believe it or not, that includes schools.

It's parent-teacher conference season here! As I tell people, the best time to have reached out to families and communities was the first month of the year. The second best time is now. As a teacher, I found that parent-teacher conferences were more efficient as a follow-up, not as an introduction.

I wish we talked about kids better. Not just about the news, but generally. Adultification has been true for people of color for quite some time. It's not just a legal issue, but a moral and ethical one. Our society could do more to let children live in their fullest childhood.

NEW: @propublica.org investigated the Chicago apartment raid where kids were zip-tied and citizens detained for hours. They find: - NONE of the arrested were criminally charged - NO evidence the building was "filled with TdA terrorists." - ZERO legitimate reason for DHS to rappel from a Blackhawk.

Wanna know what happened behind the scenes of the mayor-elect's last video before getting elected? And what that has to do with the movement towards affordability? Read more here! thejosevilson.com/until-we-get...

It’s a good time to remember that, if we started from believing the women who came forward, we wouldn’t need the Epstein files.

I let my students take over the class a bit and, again, I overplanned. These burgeoning scholars talked about everything from venture capitalism and Zohran Mamdani to gentrification and school privatization. It’s so dope when I can see the sociological imagination really click for my students.