NEW FREE POST Five arguments against explicit teaching #5 Explicit teaching is demotivating fillingthepail.substack.com/p/five-argum...

"They prove what I said two years ago, quoting from his own books, that [President Roosevelt] is a game butcher pure and simple, and that his interest in animals lies chiefly in the direction of blood and brutality." timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine...

www.realcleareducation.com/articles/202... #edusky #academicsky

The idea that seems to be circling around the crew now is that, rather than change course, we can keep our instructional bowsprit pointed in the same direction and change the direction of the current instead--by directing efforts to professional development and parent involvement.

"If nature had left the mind of the hearer evenly balanced between believing and disbelieving what is said, we wouldn't take anyone's word until we had positive evidence that he was speaking the truth . . . www.textsavvy.org/blog/the-for...

Where are you going: to pout because of the mean lady Where have you been: ko'd by Joyce Carol Oates

I would like to learn these terms so that I can inflict this confusion on others. "The bowsprit of a sailing vessel is a spar extending forward from the vessel's prow. The bowsprit is typically held down by a bobstay that counteracts the forces from the forestays." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowsprit

Value Saturation is why things dont matter because we feel them, we feel them because they matter. Take a look at my latest paper where I explore the architecture of subjective experience. #scicomm #RecursiveIntelligence #PhilMind www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Where did 'wherefore' go as a substitute for 'which is why' (e.g., I was in the habit of writing it down as he said it, wherefore my record of it reads like a diary.)?

"According to [Clara's] theories, her first duty was to be faithful to the highest requirements of her art and not move upon any plane but the highest; this meant classical music for all audiences, whether they were qualified to appreciate it and enjoy it or not.

NotebookLM is pretty neat stuff. Does a decent job of explaining. youtu.be/AyfEgQKILko?...

Knowledge is what conducts thinking electricity.

I've been quoting Twain, because I just like to quote things as I read them, and I've been reading his autobiography. I loved his writing as a young adult; the stories were okay. So it is nice to read the writing again, outside of the 'story' context. Past-me would have liked now-Twain-stuff better.

Imitatory transmission is still transmission. Knowledge gets passed around in lots of ways and forms that aren't "this is the capital of Nebraska." Folks presume that this is the only kind of 'knowledge' and then gnash their teeth that it isn't more fluid. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🎯Learning is a civil right. Kids deserve instruction that works. How to do it? Read about explicit instruction. Then do it. 🎥 Clip from my conversation with Anita Archer. Link to full episode and link to resource page with articles below. 👇

Machismo--an incomprehensibly infectious and stupid mental disease affecting both genders when they're in their gaggles--is good for nothing but as entertainment for the idiots that point and watch and swoon.

Really enjoyed this podcast with @sheinalew.bsky.social and @dorsaamir.bsky.social on evolution and childhood. Super-smart people talking about a super-interesting topic podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/m...

From an advertisement for an upcoming youth concert: "This talented group of young singers explores what it means to 'sing because we’re happy and free.'"

Every November, we honor #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth by celebrating the knowledge, resilience, & creativity of Native communities. JSTOR Daily offers a roundup of stories exploring Native history and more. Read the full roundup: https://bit.ly/3WE3J9d

SITKA Whalefest I wish Sitka, SE Alaska wasn't on the opposite side of the planet! This interview is about Whalefest which features Tlingit Elder and Storyteller, David Kanosh, who was so much a part of my book 'The Knowledge Gene'. Great ideas about memory systems. www.kcaw.org/2025/11/03/w...

You can't escape being you. Value Saturation explains why: when biological systems build recursive self-models under survival pressure, consciousness becomes structurally necessary. What makes minds feel from within. Pre-proof: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

✏️"collective synesthetic squint"

The power of explicit instruction with Anita Archer youtu.be/EE5wvi-xQTM

Really interesting developments. I wish that along with the struggles, rightly mentioned, they would also give a nod to the visuo-spatial strengths of dyslexics. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #neurodiversity #dyslexia

"Our standards were fairly high a generation ago, and they had been brought to that grade by some generations of wholesome labor on the part of the nation's...teachers; but Jay Gould, all by himself, was able to undermine the structure in half a dozen years." --Twain en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Gould

Newborns. www.news-medical.net/news/2025102...

I've started a podcast preview feed for LIGHTS ON—wherever you listen to pods. Feat. @saraimari.bsky.social @davideagleman.bsky.social @anilseth.bsky.social @zoeschlanger.bsky.social @jannalevinastro.bsky.social @seanmcarroll.bsky.social @adamfrank4.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/l...

If it wasn't a competition, we would lose.

"Math is cumulative." Is it, though? I can't read that without interpreting it as asserting a 'natural' order to mathematics teaching, which seems almost silly on its face. If Day 1 of Grade 6-7 😕 opened with intro group theory, it would be WAY simpler than the madness of operations with integers.

Happy All Hallows Eve! See our selection of Halloween postcards, ca. 1900-1920. Hobgoblins, joyous skeletons, and truly terrifying gourds... publicdomainreview.org/collection/h... #halloween

"I am here to tell you that it is MUCH less important how committed you are than what you are committed to." --A. Scalia

Heads-up on the new e-book @nautil.us. Just on the versos.

I need to write something where I get to use the word 'gambol.'

Selective breeding (I think?) of dogs for canine teamwork, instead of for individual docility or aggression. What is suggested at the end is intriguing: selection for teamwork seems to require team-affiliated tendencies along with a division of labor (diversity). www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7or...

youtube.com/shorts/RrfkC... Here's my guess as to why: philpapers.org/rec/FISCAP-12. 🐣

This is why I find lecturing so unsatisfactory and unfulfilling.

I would never venture to talk like this if I were alive. It is only by keeping steadily in my mind that my Autobiography is not to be published until I am dead, that I am enabled to force myself to say the things I think, instead of merely saying the things which I wish the reader to think I think--

From Twain's autobiography. He inserted sections of his daughter Suzy's attempts at a biography of her father also. This entry is from December 28, 1906 (and Suzy's was of course written 20 years earlier. (Twain outlived her.) @lynne-kelly-42.bsky.social

I see that none of these are available at my Home Depot as 60-feet-tall light-up decorations, which seems like a good move.

P. H. Ditchfield's Books Fatal to Their Authors (1895) shows that writers have been punished for their works with more variety, more frequency, and more severity than you might expect: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/books-fatal-to-their-authors