Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course, / And we are graced with wreaths of victory.

King Henry VI Part 3, 5.3.1-2

Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course, / And we are graced with wreaths of victory.

King Henry VI Part 3, 5.3.1-2

Did the same earlier in the year. Agree 100%

System-wide testing can be useful when the instruments are well-designed and the information they generate is treated in a cautious, contextualized, reflective way. But when it becomes a thing in itself with its own momentum and imperatives, trouble awaits --

a bike leaning against a wooden railing; a near-melted river in the background surrounded by a lot of brown grass and trees waiting for their leaves; bridge and downtown skyline in the far distance

On the bike for the first time in over five months. Got me thinking about how natural something feels when you've done it so often -- teaching, reading, writing -- and how important it is to be mindful of that when you work with students and colleagues who don't have access to all that experience.

It strikes me that those same people would likely never insist that kids know how grief works, or joy, or identity

It's once again the most wonderful time of the year, when the Pistons and the Oilers will join forces and propel the engine of playoff madness all the way to the finals let's goooooooo 🏒 🏀

Canada 2025: the grocery run that avoided "made in USA" as much as possible was slow, tedious -- a lot of label-reading

Canada 2026: the same run is much faster, with a long list of go-to products banked in the memory

It's a habit now, which means it won't flip back easily or entirely

I'm not saying I'm middle-aged, I'm just saying I remember a time when the most mundane daily purchases did not require an account, a club membership, your phone number, an impromptu blood or skin sample

A great Canadian poem about herons

hmm, let me think about it -- nope, I'm good 🤣

the covers of three books: Backyard Alchemy (J.D. Ho) There is News Along the Ohio River (Beth Gilstrap) Scythe (Elizabeth Sylvia)

Saturday highlight: picking up a @riverriverbooks.bsky.social book haul that made it safely across the border. Can't wait!
@nematode.bsky.social
@bettysueblue.bsky.social
@esylviapoet.bsky.social

Dancing quickly, deftly, on (perhaps thin) ice

As with many 'everything is capitalism' perceptions, the marketplace of ideas is a really limited metaphor.

I'm thinking, exploring, refining my sense of meaning and the self; I'm not, you know, deciding which jar of pasta sauce I should buy

from Thirteen Ways of Looking at the NHL Playoffs

XII.

The NHL playoffs are starting.
The school year must be ending.

It's evidence that capitalism and ideology is all we can see.

A perspective that you can adopt but also shift to see things in different ways is an incomprehensible notion when you're convinced the world is just a field where narrow, competing interests fight for dominance --

Smetana Quartet No. 1, "From My Life" YouTube video by Balourdet Quartet

After a long week, how delightful to spend the evening listening to this vibrant quartet in concert. Their energy in an intimate venue was really quite captivating.

Friday night rewards and escapes go a long way to getting you through a school year --

Saw him about a month ago -- great show 🎶

Dénes Várjon - Bartók: 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs for Piano, Sz. 71: Nos. 7 - 15 "Old Dance Tunes" YouTube video by Deutsche Grammophon - DG

A Hungarian pianist playing some magnificent, magnetic Hungarian folk melodies arranged by a famous Hungarian composer, because I don't know, why not

It takes a bit of time to filter through, but Macduff creates permission for the other thanes in Macbeth to dissent. Models create possibility, even if the momentum comes a bit later.

Yes -- it is merely the path of least resistance

I have ordered this and will read it, but not now -- will have to wait until summer. That and Middlemarch --

And that's nobody's business but the Turks'

Macbeth doesn't give in -- concede, step down -- because he has committed crimes and will be punished for them. With no easy off-ramp, he fights to the last. Claudius follows a similar pattern. For both of them, there is no chance of being displaced and living on to fight another day.

Days I've had a new phone: 1

Days it took for the AI "Writing assist" to somehow be switched back on even though I manually switched it off: 1

Do I use my phone a lot? Not like most people. Could I use it less? Of course. And now that it's a garden full of AI weeds, I absolutely will.

Given your deadline, can we dare to say that the Fourth will be with you? Let's hope so! 🤞🤞🤞🤞

This is always the flawed assumption that hands the educator's power over to the gadget-builder / gadget-huckster:

“It’s not going anywhere, and we aren’t doing our students a service if we are not incorporating it and teaching them the proper way to use the tools that are available,” she said.

The best description of this I've ever come across

We have a list of resources and a novel / full-length non-fiction list for each course and grade level, but I am not strictly bound to it. That creates a nice balance of commonality and autonomy. It also gives me a framework for assessing a new text and deciding what level would be the best fit.

I'm not saying I'm middle-aged, I'm just saying that when I listen to an album, I involuntarily respond to when the first side of the cassette would've ended 🎶