Awwww Taylor loves a dirty joke just as much as I do AND is just as likely to flog it to death

"'Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country. Never before have so many states passed laws or regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide.'"

[SCREAMS IN NEW JERSEY DESPAIR]

Save me

Can any Billy Budd fans confirm?

This Times article about unprepared readers cites students with high SATs who struggle to read. Maybe tests inadequately define good readers? Maybe English teachers need the freedom to foster readers who value the experience as an end for itself? Who knows! www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/u...

In 2024, teachers earned 73 cents for every dollar their similarly educated peers made, on average—a record low. In 1996, the gap was much smaller: teachers earned 94 cents for every dollar. We need to pay teachers more! How? By investing in public education. www.epi.org/publication/...

Every time I prepare a big, multi-course meal and my kitchen winds up covered in flour and peelings and dirty dishes I take pleasure in the fact that my maternal grandmother’s legacy lives on

Reading is more than pronouncing words. Writing is more than producing simulations for the purpose of a grade. These things have been OBVIOUS for well over a decade and yet the systems that want to rank, sort, and track, rather than engage and develop students ignore this reality.

It’s the first day of fall, English teachers. Now is our time. Put on your sweaters, revel in reading in early dusk, assign spooky poems as we approach Halloween

I don’t know if it’s the perimenopause or the escalating collapse of American society to blame, but I’m finally really into Rage Against the Machine

I’m just a girl standing outside the two single-use faculty bathrooms during lunch hoping someone comes out of one of them in the remaining 10 minutes I have left to pee before I teach again for 3 hours

Such a smart and thoughtful unwinding of one of my favorite complicated, weird romances (and romance writers)

Powerful piece by @mrneibauer.bsky.social about the challenges of teaching today. It should illuminate for everyone--not just teachers--how resisting conformity, standardization, and authoritarianism by promoting creativity, community, and communication in our workplaces is essential right now.

I’m drafting the most awkwardly horny pair of dweebs right now and am kicking my heels in delight every day over the torture I’m putting them through. These two could not accurately interpret a social cue if it ripped their pants off and hopped on for a ride

"integrating genAI into education will result in commercialization of a collective responsibility: fostering & cultivating the coming generation" and this responsibility can't be left to an industry that has aligned with authoritarian regimes, prioritises profit at any cost, and is powering fascism

The 13yo asked to watch Citizen Kane with me and who am I to resist a pitch like that? He loved it and had so many questions about the editing and cinematography and acting and the structure and genre and the ending and its influence on other films Time to start taking him to film forum

More private school bullshit. No, kids have to be taught in the same old, long, boring way. It’s going to cost a lot of money and guess what, that’s okay. There’s no shortcut. Cough up the money, pay teachers more, hire more, make lunch/breakfast free. More schools, end illiteracy. Fuck you NYT

Every year without fail the night before the first day of school I worry l’ve forgotten how to do this

I don’t care about Taylor cosplaying as an English teacher. It’s the best job in the world! What I do care about is the silence of multi-millionaires & billionaires as actual teachers consider how to pay for groceries while praying we’re not gunned down at work or arrested for teaching books.

Schools can do many things to help children stay and feel safe. The problem for schools in the US is that they are in the US, where we aren’t able to keep children safe anywhere from the threat of gun violence, a leading cause of child death. This is not a school problem. This is a gun problem.

This isn’t bad luck or coincidence or predestination. This is our choice. To live in a nation where our leaders teach hate, and military style guns are everywhere.

I’m so fucking sick of this shit

What if -- hear me out -- the Democratic Party admitted that neo-liberalism has been a complete and utter flop that made enemies of their core constituents and instead embraced an active platform of New Deal style democracy...

I think part of what changed is that we’re (generic we) afraid to let characters be fucking mean to each other now but Kinsale and Ivory and SEP never were, and the catharsis in those books comes from watching characters both destroy and rebuild one another

In fall of 2023, my 70+ father— a man who only turns his cellphone on to make outgoing calls and stopped paying attention to popular culture in 1978– saw footage of Taylor Swift at a Chiefs game and said “Mark my words, she’s going to marry him” This is the power having 4 daughters will give you

suggests that very little happens to us when we read something new. This tool reinforces the idea that instructors have some kind of narrow personal agenda that they will reward when in fact what we "want" is for our students to write about what matters to them and figure out what they think /6

On a lighter note and because I am a particular kind of nerd:

According to my 7 yr old it’s just as good the 8th time as the first

I debated writing this. It can feel tempting, upon encountering yet another instance of this administration’s racism, to let it be. How many ways can you say the same thing over and over again? And yet we have to write it down, if for nothing else, so those who come after us know we were against it.

This is so deeply depressing but not surprising. My back-to-school letter from our superintendent mentioned instruction in and integration of ai as a district-wide teaching goal for the year. Not in my classroom

I just scheduled six doctor’s appointments, three on the same day, and that day is Rosh Hashana, which means no sub plans. If you’re thinking of taking me on today, don’t

Happy Monday!

Why is The Gilded Age rated TV-MA, explicit discussions of opera rivalries and alarm clocks

The best worst time

That time of year thous mayst in me behold when I have to readjust my internal clock to wake up at 5:15 am again 😭

Every word correct

There are statement cane handles, and then there is this:

“Cats & Soup” is probably a totally fine app to approve for my 11yo, but that could also be how “Cats & Soup” gets me

Oh man, this is always the tension for me in writing romance, walking that line between what the reader will want and what the character would want/need, and sometimes (often times when you like to write warped weirdos) the character wants something a lot of readers might not like

Kids are not scores

I read this poem every August. It’s music and religion to me. “sweet fellowship of the bin” “devour, dusty skin” “O, to take what we love inside” and “from blossom to blossom to/impossible blossom to sweet, impossible blossom” Some summer days do feel like the sweetest, most impossible blossoms

Heading out for a run in the midday heat. Perhaps *I* was the rabid raccoon of my own fears all along

this would bother me less if we had summer institutes for teachers and professors to talk about books together, at scale, for professional development or service credit, at no cost to participants

On a beautiful evening walk, and the threat of the neighborhood rabid raccoon is adding an unusual spark of excitement

Man in Durham: This open relationship’s not working for me. Woman: What’s not working about it? Man: It’s open.

Ways to help ensure children thrive in the future that don't involve teaching them how to use AI: - fully funding public pre-K-12 schools and colleges - fighting against censorship and for academic freedom - volunteering in schools and tutoring for free - providing free school meals

Having the loveliest writers retreat with @alexandravasti.bsky.social but this view is making me wish I was writing a book set in July rather than February

I take it back, universe, you are just and good