DrAnnD

Community responds to help and protest 95 book challenges filed by fired substitute teacher The Twin Falls School District leadership said the system is not designed to handle over a hundred challenges at once, but the district will follow its policy — with a slew of volunteers.

My take away from this story: Not only do the majority of people want open & accessible libraries, many people will also put in the work to make it happen

There’s so much to love in this thread.

Nope, def not. Though a lot of advocacy over a decade has shifted the norms. Those masters and aren’t enough. I served in the cmtte to update evals that don’t ever go anywhere either. People’s experience is better now than mine was, but the system is the same.

As one of the White ladies in my dept, I started asking these questions before I got tenure. The answers were, of course, disappointing, but I kept asking. And now push back hard when P&T conversations veer into that territory around student evals, now that I’m in the room. Try to put in the work.

I do a version of this with my future teachers: "So, what assumptions would you make about a student who said that to you, their teacher? Where do you think their question is coming from?"

The definition on these tiny icons is amazing. So impressive. So beautiful.

It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber Yellow poster with image of children playing on an earth-shaped jungle gym.

It’s just so fucking simple & true. This poster was a staple of my childhood & hung in my 3rd-grade classroom. “Serious people” are not supposed to make arguments this simple, I guess. 🙃

Write for me and my friends! We're cool and this volume will be ah-mazing.

Pitch your research, pitch your story, share widely.

I do not like this gen AI
I do not like what it implies
I do not want it in my art
I do not think it makes you smart
I do not want it in my games
I do not like its goals and aims
I do not want it in my books
I do not like the way it looks
I do not like it, I don't care
I do not want it anywhere

We’re Also Sick of the Question “Will Texas Turn Blue?” Yet Here We Go Again. In some ways, we’ve been here before. In others, this is uncharted territory. Here’s what last night’s primary results could mean for November.

Hey, are you following Texas politics but don't live in Texas?

Consider Texas Monthly instead of whatever thing the NYTimes published this morning. Or the Texas Tribune. Or any of the Hearst papers (Austin, San Antonio, Houston).

Listen to actual Texans on this one, please.

a large screen shows a man 's face and says ingsoc ALT: a large screen shows a man 's face and says ingsoc

So... A friend was supposed to give a PURELY SCIENTIFIC talk at NIH within the next couple of weeks and it was cancelled because of a "new process" where all speakers/talks have to be CLEARED BY A POLITICAL APPOINTEE.

The Texas Tribune The Texas Tribune covers politics and a range of policy issues that affect all Texans. Those topics include public and higher education, health and human services, demographics and voting rights, immi...

I’ve been in Texas 20+ years. My mom grew up here.

Please, y’all, stop listening to anyone about Texas politics who hasn’t been here at least that long.

Tree trunk looking up a very tall line from the bottom. Grey-brown bark, branches and green needles very far away up.

A white pine at my folks. No idea how old but it takes 3 adults to give it a hug. Definitely pondering it today.

Image of the 4 new statewide banned books in Utah: The Carnival at Bray by Jessie Ann Foley The Handmaid's Tale: The Graphic Novel by Margaret Atwood Red Hood by Elana K. Arnold Breathless by Jennifer Niven

As you may have heard, Utah banned 4 more books statewide.

Keep reading and talking about these books.
And join us tomorrow at Elevate Utah and Better Utah's Action Fair at 6 p.m. at Church & State to learn how you can help us fight back against book bans.

I try to make that argument to my PSTs. I teach all the subjects muddled together, so I can easily point to the future art/PE/theatre/music teachers and say to everyone else, "So, they practice their craft .all.the.time. You should to: read more, write more, think more."

CfP - Vol 3 - Impacts of Censorship The Impacts of Censorship, Volume 3: Centering the Experiences and Activism of Youth Editors: Ann David, Katie Burnett, Susan Cridland-Hughes, Christina Dobbs, Chantal Francois, Tiffany Larson, Emily...

Hey, #literacies friends, scholars, teachers, and young people! Want to contribute to the conversation around censorship and its impacts, particularly as it relates to young people? Drop me a pitch (due March 30)! More info at the link.

This is real. And it's only part 1 of the flowchart.

The number of fixed-wing aircraft lost in friendly fire incidents today equals the number lost during the entire 20-year span of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11.

Things my PhD didn't prepare me for...

The reality here is that universities would love to hire visible and capable conservative scholars. That they have to create separate centers, and then hire people who would never make it in an open search, underlines the fact that its not anti-conservative bias, its a lack of strong candidates.

blue graphic with an outline of the United States. Red and white text reads: Call. National Book Banning Bill Proposed in US House of Reps. Tell your rep: Vote no on H.R. 7661.

We've had a day to pull a few things together, so here's a thread some more targeted info opposing the potential national book ban just proposed in the House of Representatives.

How it’s going in Texas.

AI usage forces professors to reevaluate trust in the classroom Generative artificial intelligence is more than just a new academic tool — it has unsettled the assumptions of academic integrity and self-driven learning that have historically defined liberal arts e...

Me in the campus paper today, talking about generative AI in the classroom. If you are interested in the week of material I do on generative AI (emphasizing ethical, environmental, and other issues) and/or the process I use to have students generate a policy and/or the policy they created, just ask.

How it's going in higher ed, if you're following along.

Texas Board of Education delays vote on reading list Faced with a proposed list of almost 300 readings for K-12 students, the State Board of Education delayed a vote until its meetings in April.

The Texas "required books" list is a disaster.

TEA's "research" justification includes a dissertation about sts' perception of the bible, an article from an undergrad journal, a '91 survey of rural elem schools under 500 sts, and a study by the Lexile company.

5.5 million children deserve better

Apples. The scent, the layers of flavor. The texture. In October of 2020 I wandered all over my hometown and harvested apples off whatever trees I could find. Glorious. Flavors I’ll never forget.

Still Life A violent tackle in a high school football game paralyzed John McClamrock for life. His mother made sure it was a life worth living.

If you do, I highly recommend teaching Hollandsworth’s Still Life. It’s an essay that will hit me out of the blue once month and I first read it 15 years ago.

I always appreciate it when someone weaves together a whole bunch of different threads into a coherent, readable essay I can point to in my next conversation when I make my anti-LLM position clear. Reading, saving, and passing it on.

Quiet part out loud, #23140972608123

Yeah, I felt for the folks who grew up there. There was so much to love before 2010ish, then things got not-weird.