👀👀👀 This is so ridiculously cool.
HS English teacher clinging to what the legendary Gwendolyn Brooks wrote: "we are each other's / harvest:" (yes, that line break feels heavier than ever these days) Also: I share writings, resources + thoughts on education at thebrokencopier.substack.com!
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👀👀👀 This is so ridiculously cool.
Year 2 of this "tradition": writing down one small good thing before I leave the classroom. You see what you look for, right? (So much to choose from today, too! 🙏)
"Legacy media was all over parent-teacher conflicts during the pandemic, but areas of agreement are wide and deep." This thread, this morning 🎯
"I will not be covering the mirrors or closing the windows and doors that books provide for my students." This whole piece encapsulates how immensely difficult this job is right now and also how immensely important. 🙏
The annual tradition of refreshing my online rosters and readjusting seating charts as I wait until the very last minute to print for my clipboard tomorrow...
Also why one of my top priorities to begin any school year is building that foundation for a collaborative classroom. It doesn't just happen! Intentionality matters here. (So does priority.) thebrokencopier.substack.com/p/building-a...
✔️ Attention (culture of collaboration helps with this) ✔️ Active Engagement (culture of collaboration helps with this) ✔️ Error Feedback (culture of collaboration helps with this) ✔️ Consolidation (culture of collaboration helps with this) Reminder: collaborative classrooms = better classrooms
Fantastic new post and podcast episode with @marcusluther.bsky.social, who shares four ways he uses student exemplars to teach craft lessons, build student confidence, practice giving feedback, and foster a much-needed sense of belonging. www.cultofpedagogy.com/student-exem...
Since tomorrow is Labor Day and school is in session, I'd like to argue (again) that teaching about GenAI should include discussion of the extractive, exploitative labor conditions that make the technology possible. 🧵
Always immensely grateful to get a chance to talk teaching with @cultofpedagogy.bsky.social and both this post and the conversation that went with it have me energized and purposeful going into a new school year. How we use our space matters—now more than ever. Believe this to my bones.
"It has never been more important to ask myself, How am I making writing meaningful in my classroom?" There's a lot of things (more than ever) that I'm unsure about—but one thing I am sure of? The value of uplifting student writing in the classroom. www.cultofpedagogy.com/student-exem...
5% of me wonders if that blue ketchup is actually responsible for pretty much everything that is happening right now in society... (at minimum: definitely explains the RFK madness)
Especially if you haven't given your first assessment yet this school year, here is a system with templates you can use (for any class) if you want to try it out! thebrokencopier.substack.com/p/how-studen...
This 🧵 is like the end of a Scooby Doo episode when you realize how utterly incompetent the villains are (At the same time, that it's still happening? With increasing speed? Even more depressing.)
Reminder-to-self: how students see their own learning matters way, way more than how we see their learning. Which is why it's really, really cool to have a system to help understand the way students feel about how they are doing throughout the school year:
At least in my eyes, credibility comes from acknowledging and grappling with very-real downsides—not ignoring them.
*almost 100% silence from AI enthusiasts on stories like this*
All you have to do is label something "Science of ______" these days and a lot of people will immediately treat it as gospel...
Lemov from TLAC, others (mainly on the other website) starting to repeatedly argue that classrooms should be in rows rather than groups
I did this yesterday for Day 1 with my 12th graders, and it was EXCELLENT. Much better than the long survey I used to do. Handed out the class roster with top values and interesting facts today for students to put in notebooks. Year 21, and always learning! Thanks, @marcusluther.bsky.social 🤩
The latter
I think we're about to see a massive push for "students should always be seated in rows" (because "RESEARCH!") from Science of Education folks and I have zero doubt this conversation is going to be abysmal while also leading to worse classrooms for students
🧵 worth reading today
Full conversation here, too, along with a link to get your hands on Jared's book, Learning Environment—which was an incredibly refreshing read this summer in terms of pushing my own thinking about my own classroom. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...
So I just really loved this conversation with Jared Fox from the jump. (Also: what's YOUR favorite Magic School Bus book?)
Getting ready to dive into this opening lesson next week—cannot wait to see how students encounter it yet again as I begin Year 14 in the classroom! www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhdw...
🎯🎯🎯 I think we can all agree that the worst possible path forward is one in which we do not talk about what is happening with students.
"...I want teachers to know that there are still people like me that want to learn and don’t want to cheat in school." Must-read piece of the day from @janerosenzweig.bsky.social's The Important Work: theimportantwork.substack.com/p/at-my-high...
Absolutely stretched in SO many directions going back to work this week and flabbergastingly exhausted (duh) but also just got to take the 5yo to kindergarten open house and my heart is so very full of gratitude for those who creates spaces that make students feel loved and supported ❤️
Students and families have a right to know what part of their education experience—lessons, assessment, correspondence—was generated by AI. (Pass it on.)
My former student will be teaching 8th grade science and Biology this fall. I am so excited for her and proud! I am sharing her wishlist. Please help if you can! #BlackEducators www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/...
This season of Survivor has been nothing short of remarkable—and all the coverage has made the experience that much better! Seriously grateful for all the work you're doing to help showcase a season already deserving of all the accolades 🙏
As always, read @jenniferberkshire.bsky.social. (And yes, this is horrifying to read—but we need to be clear-eyed about what's taking place in public education.) substack.com/home/post/p-...
I’ll also add: we have decided to make it very easy to be a very mediocre teacher. And too many folks are okay with that.
It’s very simple to me: we are choosing less for our students who very much deserve more, now and going forward, and I am so sad about that right now.
Spent hours this morning hearing about all these AI tools that “can save time for teachers” with lessons and feedback and all I could think was how disappointed I already am about what the K-12 writing experience is likely going to be for my own kids who are just about to enter into that journey.
Tools like these have been instrumental in my classroom; both in teaching kids to receive feedback and get them to progress as writers. As I loop back with the same group it's rare we see the same issues present themselves. The reflection is there, even in thirteen year olds.
A major focus of my "Why Public Schools?" workshop is a focus on the 20th century expansion of inclusive public education as the realization of American ideals, & I include this excerpt from @jenniferberkshire.bsky.social & @jackschneider.bsky.social in my slides:
It's almost as if they figured out that when people from different backgrounds and perspectives sit in the same room and learn together they learn to appreciate and empathize across those differences—which then makes it much harder to enact a dehumanizing, oppressive political agenda. (2/2)
Agree 100%. Unfortunately, though, a lot of people are quite determined right now to prevent schools from being the place where all those incredible differences sit together and get to know each other in a classroom. (1/2)
What a kind thing to read—especially right as I go back to work for a new school year (and of course am immediately exhausted!) 🙏🙏🙏
Creating a space for students to reflect on their learning throughout the school year has made a world of difference in my classroom—especially in knowing how students see themselves as learners. (Which, at the end of the day, is what matters.) thebrokencopier.substack.com/p/how-studen...
Full link to this NYT piece: "Students Hate Them. Universities Need Them. The Only Real Solution to the A.I. Cheating Crisis." www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/o...
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.
It is quite wild having a 5-year-old in our house who will just pick up a paper and draw something completely of their imagination. It makes me super protective, too, of not letting that spark extinguish. We need imagination in our world—and kids deserve to be allowed to keep it.
This read is both inspiring and practical, and it’s full of helpful resources. (PS - Thanks for the @edutopia.org shoutout, @mrneibauer.bsky.social!)
I struggle a lot with the back-and-forth paper trail, though I know others who prefer binders. (Also: with spirals, much less reliance on individual prints and, have to say it, broken copiers 😂)
Without question my favorite wall of the classroom: 📌 classroom culture wall for peer nominations 🐙 📌 sticky note posters for 1-7 scale answers 📊 📌 completely blank Beautiful Language Wall awaiting student writing from year ✍️ New school year? Here we go.
A rigor divorced from creativity isn't that rigorous.
Ditto. What a gift it was to begin the week reading this. 🙏 (In other words, read it!)
It's definitely easier to pretend that education is just as easy as throwing money at a problem.
Amidst all else, I do have to say: this season of Survivor Australia v. The World is an absolute joy to watch. (Not taking it for granted!)
Yup. This one right here. No nuance or critical thinking about the label. (And they're the ones making the decisions for our classrooms, too.)
I really do have to hand it to the textbook companies: whoever coined the phrase "High-Quality Instructional Materials" has made the industry a ridiculous amount of $$$. Quite the branding move.
"the adults are the problem" would be a perfectly fitting title for any book about education more broadly, too
New school year, new blank octopus!—ready to be filled with student signatures from peer nominations this year 🐙
“Most social institutions emphasise empathic sorrow, not empathic joy or what is now referred to as “positive empathy”. We are encouraged to care for others’ pain but not to celebrate their success and happiness.” 🔥🔥🔥 This puts words to something I’ve believed about teaching for a long time.
These are excellent! I love the idea of students saying just one word and everyone contributing which takes pressure off students who are often hesitant or even shy about speaking up in class. Thank you for sharing these!
Yeah I think one of the mistakes that is being made by the system is the assumption that content and SEL have to be in opposition, competing for time. Can this be a discussion? Can it be an activity? Can it engage other core content for introduction or reinforcement?
Also: in almost all cases of "too quiet" classrooms I've seen, the teacher wants there to be better conversations amongst students and just needs support to get there. Here are 4 things that I lean on right away each year for this: thebrokencopier.substack.com/p/building-a...
If students aren't talking to each other regularly and purposefully in the classroom then what is the point of the classroom?
"Grief might sometimes tell stories, grief might speak through the imagination, grief might find its way into our dreams as well as our prayers." Oh my, what a thing this piece of journalism and writing is—especially as another football season begins. www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/...
🎯 docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Just about to record my own reflection to attach to the vision documents for the upcoming year—and it's a great place to begin coming up with more/better answers to this question, imo thebrokencopier.substack.com/p/a-vision-d...
100% agree. I also have been thinking about the “because you need to be able to do stuff AI can’t” answer—I definitely have used that, but that’s both capitulating when we don’t need to, and ignores the more inspiring grounds of empathy, courage, curiosity, and creativity.
It makes me grateful to be a teacher. But also makes me worried—as I'm reminded that for some the discourse online/digital media is never interrupted and is the entirety of how they perceive the world around them.
One of the best things about returning to work each year as a teacher is the immediacy of the students in the classroom and the way it overwhelms + cuts through so much of the discourse online and digitally-consumed media. The presence of the classroom is loud in the best (and most needed) of ways.
Reminder-to-self for the new school year: Our answer to "why are we learning this?" has to be more/better than career-related skills. So much more, so much better.
Whose soul isn't crushed by this image? From street agents to the White House itself, there's not an imagined Hell hot enough for the people involved in escalating our brutal and dehumanizing machinery of immigration detention.
"the only reason to write it is if you will have an experience worth having by doing so" Our job right now, I think: make sure the experience is worth having when we ask students to write in our classrooms
"Expanding your school’s club repertoire beyond the usual chess, debate, and school newspaper offerings is worth the effort" Love stories like this: reminders of what is good in our schools and also reminders of what is possible ❤️
The label that will go on every desk in our classroom (laminated first to help them make it through the year!) 📌 classroom core beliefs 📌 check-in signal/reminder 📌 interpretation go-to's
😔 guess I need to buckle up for next week
Louisiana has to build three new natural gas power plants to accommodate the "AI" data center that Meta just crammed through because said center will use *Three Times* as much electricity (and, thus, attendant resources) as the *Entire City Of New Orleans*, every year. Y'all this isn't sustainable.
Curious: which complexity within it do you think is most often overlooked?
That was a lot of fun. I forgot to say thanks! It was nice to just hang out and riff on poems, plus got lots of ideas for a future poetry unit. 🙏
#PoemADayJuly feels like a year ago way more than a month ago, right @thevogelman.bsky.social and @heymrsbond.com? (Where did time go?) docs.google.com/document/d/1...
"Be patient." I just got this "lessons I learned this year" email that I sent to my future self from the last week of the previous school year—and I feel like it was exactly what I needed to read as I go back into work next week. Goal going forward: patient urgency, with an emphasis on patience.
In 2020, @jackschneider.bsky.social & I wrote a book called A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door. We warned that the vision of the future was *unbundling* in which school = whatever education content consumers purchase. As @flbaloney.bsky.social reports, the future is here substack.com/inbox/post/1...
Well, this was a thoroughly disheartening thing to listen to on my last Friday before going back to work. (But also really important reporting and conversation by @danagoldstein.bsky.social here, too.) www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/p...
Agree—except for the challenge of then norming that across different class periods as well as courses taught with other teachers. I do think, though, that there is immense value in bringing students into the process!
I think we (or at least I) have a pretty strong idea of what writing is as an act/experience. Every so often I take a step back and realize that over my lifetime, schooling has been on a steady march of alienating students from the act/experience of writing, replacing it with a kind of simulation.
"Maybe helping students to be successful in an AI world means NOT using more AI in my classes." The voices I value most around AI are teachers who have actually done the work thoughtfully experimenting in their classroom. Such as this: theimportantwork.substack.com/p/shifting-m...
Whether you've started already or are still getting set up, I'd recommend 2 things: 1️⃣ name/write down what you want your classroom to look/feel like in the best of worlds 2️⃣ about six weeks into the school year—pause and reflect on how reality matches up podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
Also, if someone happens to have something like this for Macbeth...please and thank you 😂 (First time teaching it this year!)
In case there are folks out there thinking of teaching Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston this school year, two quick things: 1️⃣ It is the absolute best. 2️⃣ Here is a resource with 20 things to help you move through it based on my experience! docs.google.com/presentation...
Just shared your post yesterday with another 5th graders teacher wanting to lean into annotations!
👀❤️🐙
Yep, fully aware others are grabbing their stuff off TPT or having ChatGPT spit out rubrics, but I genuinely appreciate and value what I get from collaboratively building these for our classroom. Cannot imagine skipping the depth of understanding that comes with actually building the stuff…
The more I see how AI is being used in education, by adults and students alike, the more I worry about how we are not giving enough consideration to the costs of efficiency. Because there are very real costs. thebrokencopier.substack.com/p/the-senten...
The other day, I worked w/ our teaching team to construct unit plans, assessments, rubrics and exemplars. We took the time to make the stuff—no shortcuts (TPT, AI, etc.) and yes, it took a bit longer. But we understand it so much better as a result. And that's better for students. (And us.)
Really appreciate this!
This was my answer-to-myself last year to this very question: thebrokencopier.substack.com/p/ktc-15-wri...
There's someone like you somewhere in the building. Find them. Also, make sure you spend your outside time doing things you love. And maybe stay off line.
Here's the link to the event, by the way—still time to get some questions in! (Or respond!) www.edutopia.org/ask-and-answ...
Another really good question from the @edutopia.org Q&A event: "What tips can you give a teacher who is determined to stay positive even though their colleagues can be negative?" Thoughts, #EduSky?
I’m glad you have asked this. I sent a letter/email and invited parents to email me. We have done a lot of community building and will continue to do more. I’m interested to read other comments to see how I can do more.
it's the most wonderful time of the year... 😎
We don’t allow cell phones at all any more during the school day. One thing we’ve done is promoting use of the office phone when a kid expresses a need to call home. We teach them how to use it and make it clear that it’s available for them, without an adult standing over listening to their convo.