i just don't think there are any shortcuts--if we want kids who are readers, we need teachers who are readers, and if we want teachers who are readers, we need professors who are readers

This is how it sounds when the exurbs build a new planned commercial area over corn fields and call it something like Heritage Square or Legacy Crossing:

Recomano lectura del fil. #eduCat

El citado "efecto placebo educativo" es una interesante idea sobre la que reflexionar.

Now seems like a swell time to point out that Frontline just released this excellent 11-minute mini-documentary about what happened inside CECOT.

Thank you, @laurarbelin.bsky.social, for publishing this! I expected something disheartening from UI's new center... I didn't realize it'd be this bad. Or that they'd say a soup of feminism and social movements is supposedly destroying higher ed. (?!)

New post: Early this month, greg wickenkamp attended a panel discussion at the inaugural event of the University of Iowa's "Center for Intellectual Freedom." A reflection on what he heard there: www.bleedingheartland.com/2025/12/21/o...

Loved listening to this!

Education policy seems immune to the complexity education demands, reinforcing the need to fight on normative & democratic fronts: "...policy tends to fall for the promise of easy answers to complex problems rather than taking the complexity of education sufficiently seriously."

Teach like a Luddite! In which I join @philnichols.bsky.social and @anterobot.bsky.social to argue for a Luddite praxis in education grounded in three elements: embracing strategic playfulness; developing localized tactics; and building networks of resistance. Read the article at Kappan:

New additions on the placebo effect in education research: "The basic point is that whereas in medicine, drugs are only considered to work when the patient has no knowledge of what they are receiving, education only works because of the active involvement of the student." (!!)

"...in education the 'intervention' generating the 'effect' is not the treatment to which the student is exposed. The intervention—if we wish to use this notion—consists of the treatment plus the student's engagement with what is being offered."

Gert Biesta just published a brief reflection on his important 2007 article, "Why 'What Works' Won't Work" in Education: "...whereas policy argues that practice should take research findings seriously, the same doesn't seem to hold for policy." onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... A 🧵:

Feel extremely lucky to walk into a room every morning and be like “whoa, look at this thing—what do you think of it”

Know that there are nobler reasons to be a teacher but staying interested in the world is probably my number 1

I can't imagine a better sendoff for 2025 than this. Crash Course is a staple of my history teaching toolkit, so it was surreal to sit down with @mistermeyer.bsky.social to talk about that work, his perspective on history ed, and the current challenges social studies teachers face. #edchat #sschat

Our final episode of 2025 is a conversation with @mistermeyer.bsky.social about the old days of Crash Course History and the current state of social studies teaching in America. 👇 www.humanrestorationproject.org/podcasts/cra... #K12 #NCSS #sschat #edchat

Clear evidence that at universities conservatives don't face higher obstacles than liberals to establish student groups + invite outside speakers. "These results fail to offer support for the view that conservative students encounter more difficulty in efforts to access campus resources."

“Back in June, medical researchers discovered a similar racial bias in large language model (LLM) psychiatric diagnostic tools. In that case, results showed AI tools often proposed “inferior treatment” plans for Black patients whenever their race was explicitly known.”

Social studies education is essential to democracy

Crash Course SAVED me during SY 2020-21 when I had four preps and simultaneous hybrid instruction - students face-to-face and online simultaneously. Could’ve been a live shot of me: 👇👇👇

I can't imagine a better sendoff for 2025 than this. Crash Course is a staple of my history teaching toolkit, so it was surreal to sit down with @mistermeyer.bsky.social to talk about that work, his perspective on history ed, and the current challenges social studies teachers face. #edchat #sschat

The name "Popular Science" doesn't mean we shift our coverage depending on public opinion. It means we cover relevant subjects that are rigorously researched, reliable, and grounded in reality. And trans lives are grounded in reality. We see y'all. No matter what. www.popsci.com/science/tran...

still thinking about this

one way to tell the story is that over the past 30 years, "workforce training" became the more or less singular focus of ed policy and now we're seeing partisan splintering about art worth preserving and how and why to teach it

My Favorite History Books of 2025 🗃️ open.substack.com/pub/kevinmle...

The real question is how many highlights from this podcast with @mistermeyer.bsky.social is *too* many?

My ADHD and the locked-in nature of media editing are *not* vibing today. Send stimulants.

@dianeravitch.bsky.social's memoir offers as much insight into her incredible life story as it does a cross-section of American life during each of her eight decades. I honestly did not expect it to be one of the most interesting books I read this year, but here we are.

When you have zero understanding of history, it's a lot easier to miss the fact that white people, especially men, have been the beneficiaries of affirmative action for over 400 years.

NEW: A Texas district in which Black students were allegedly taunted with monkey noises. An Arizona school where students admitted saying “slavery is good.” These are some of the incidents Trump’s Education Department has ignored:

Always go back to a workshop on police abolition at NYU American Studies, circa 2015: mod asked us to close our eyes and imagine what safety was and felt like. Ppl mentioned family, home, nature, mom’s cooking, hugs. NO ONE SAID CAMERAS! And yet we are sold that’s what safety is & should feel like

I loved this conversation with @covingtonedu.bsky.social and I’m honored that so many folks tuned in! If you haven’t heard it, I recommend it! I’m gonna listen to it again!

Most Popular Video: Henry Giroux's 2022 conference keynote, Critical Pedagogy in a Time of Fascist Tyranny, remains as important today as when it was published. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WM1... #K12 #edchat

Top New Resource: Conference to Restore Humanity! Conference Collection - "Discover a [completely free] transformative collection of resources, videos, and learning tracks curated from Conference to Restore Humanity! held each year." #K12 #edchat

Top New Podcast: Our conversation with @heymrsbond.com, Reclaiming Teaching & Learning in an Age of AI, was our most downloaded episode of the year *by far*! 👇 www.humanrestorationproject.org/podcasts/rec... #K12 #edchat

Top New Writing: My IEP, My Future from middle school special education teacher Catherine Patton - "How are you supposed to improve and take ownership of your learning when so much of your learning journey is confined to this mysterious document?" #K12 #edchat

‍2025 was certainly one of the years of all time. 🥴 As a send-off, we thought we’d curate our most popular articles, podcasts, videos, and resources of the past year alongside other education-related recommendations, as well as a preview of what's coming up in 2026. #K12 #edchat

I'd love to talk with some teachers and students about this. DM me if you're up for it.

Two shootings on opposite sides of the planet shed light on America's exceptional culture of gun violence. www.pbump.net/o/twin-shoot...

The purpose of *public* education is so that *we* won't be a dumbass.

I didn't have room to add it to the previous post, but there are versions of nationalist education that are perfectly compatible with racial authoritarianism, but the American ideal of a *pluralistic* public education is not. As Dewey wrote, "A free education is incompatible with fascism."

We would argue that humans, especially kids, are learning beings. But the structures and systems of schooling are not always compatible with what we know about learning and motivation, and rather than change kids, let's change systems. 😁

I'll go one further and add that preparation for job skills alone *is* totally compatible with an authoritarian state-capitalist system but doesn't cut it in a system of democratic self-governance where we expect citizens to do more than work on behalf of the regime.

Upcoming episodes! 👇 12/20: Crash Course Social Studies Education w/ @mistermeyer.bsky.social 1/10: Why Fascists Fear Teachers w/ @rweingarten.bsky.social 1/24: Changing my Mind About Schools w/ @dianeravitch.bsky.social 2/7: Redefining the Purpose of Education w/ Yong Zhao #K12 #sschat

AI tutors are often held up as an ideal, but prioritizing individualized teaching can detract from the benefits of learning in social environments. buff.ly/sHsZiV8

Opinion | No, Colleges Do Not “Over-Accommodate” A certain genre of articles skeptical of higher ed’s disability accommodation process fuels attacks on civil rights. https://bit.ly/4qcHTXd #EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky

“We should afford them aesthetic experiences. We should help them understand for themselves what it means for a beautiful piece of writing to withstand scrutiny and to be the focus of honest conversation across generations.” @annieabrams.bsky.social #EduSky

Same thing is happening with the revived reading wars. Drives me nuts that actual experts/researchers are ignored because someone made a popular podcast or wrote an airport non-fiction bestseller *ahem* that reduces complex issues into pat narratives that lethally mutate into unimpeachable truths.