A photo of Carl Wendell Hines Jr in the top right corner. Black text on white background that reads: NOW THAT HE IS SAFELY DEAD. A Dead Man's Dream Now that he is safely dead, Let us praise him. Build monuments to his glory. Sing Hosannas to his name. Dead men make such convenient heroes. For they cannot rise to challenge the images That we might fashion from their lives. It is easier to build monuments Than to build a better world. So now that he is safely dead, We, with eased consciences will Teach our children that he was a great man, Knowing that the cause for which he Lived is still a cause And the dream for which he died is still a dream. A dead man's dream. - Carl Wendell Hines, Jr. Jazz pianist, educator, and poet Carl W. Hines Jr. penned this devastating poem the morning after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Gladys West, Mathematician Whose Work Made GPS Possible, Dies at 95 ALEXANDRIA, VA — Dr. Gladys West, the pioneering mathematician whose work laid the foundation for modern GPS technology, has died. She passed away

Very grateful for her contributions to a profound technology spanning many uses.

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything, but been reflecting on.. anger after a reflective art exercise I engaged in last week.
urbanscienceed.wordpress.com/2025/12/07/o...

Koreans and Korean Americans def need to do better about addressing the anti-blackness and anti-miscegenation that we grew up with. I’m not really a K-pop fan but K-pop owes so much to Black music (esp hip-hop) and credit is long overdue. This is a fascinating read on KPDH that I hadn’t considered.

Know your rights, Chicago. Ask for a warrant. Record the goons from a safe distance. We don’t want or need them here.

Word wall for classroom 2 ☺️

Word wall for classroom 1. I kind of love it 😍 and honestly I forget how much HS kids still like doing artsy things even if they don’t actually say it (inspired by @mrtomrad.bsky.social and cult of pedagogy)

Today I learned that other people don’t just poke around when things change on our digital platforms to figure out what’s going on. And this is how I inadvertently became known as a “tech expert”.

Shared this with a few colleagues because we’re all looking for different ways to connect with our kids this year and 3 of us are trying the word wall next week!

Image with text: Knowles 2025 Annual Conference July 24, 2025 | Philadelphia, PA Knowles talks: Staying, Leaving, Returning: Reimagining what makes teaching sustainable. Moderator: Karen Ge | 2024 Teaching Fellow Presenters: Oryan Brown | 2022 Teaching Fellow & Heidi Park | Senior Fellow Knowles Teacher Initiative logo

Going back to the Knowles Teacher Initiative annual conference for the first time in a minute, presenting on sustainability. The title of my part: “Meeting the human needs of your students (and yourself)”. (If you’re in PA that day, you can still register! knowlesteachers.org/annual-confe...)

Awareness Protests Won’t Threaten the Richest, Most Well-Armed People on Earth “Making durable changes isn’t always about the raw numbers,” says Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò.

Protests should not only express dissent but also serve as credible threats of sustained action, such as strikes, boycotts, or other forms of collective withholding to compel systemic change.

@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social in conversation with @mskellymhayes.bsky.social

Really looking forward to this! I think it’s coming right as I really need it (been thinking about to finish this rough rough school year in integrity and alignment with my values because its so close but also so far)

Image with the quote “Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, am ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it has a chance to succeed. -Vaclav Havel, Czech playwright and political leader”

Found this quote about hope today and just sitting with it.

“The constitution doesn’t mean anything if no one enforces and defends it.”

Request for Information on the Development of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan On behalf of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the NITRD NCO requests input from all interested parties on the Development of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan ("Plan"). Th...

The government is about to give OpenAI the ability to legally steal if we do not flood this page in the next 12 hours.

OpenAI will have immunity from all lawsuits regarding copyright infringement. All other AI companies will follow.

Do you despise AI? Dissent, retweet. Do something. #furry #art

Mahmoud Khalil’s Detention Is a Trial Run The pro-Palestine student was arrested without due process for exercising his right to free speech. He will not be the last.

"If the state can deprive an individual of his freedom just because of his politics, which is what appears to have happened here, then no one is safe. You may believe that Khalil does not deserve free speech or due process. But if he does not have them, then neither do you. Neither do I."

How different the world might be if Americans learned to think in terms of power structures, to always ask why someone is seeking power, and not to accept answers that are only about ego and not about structural features of society

So many people only know "good/evil" as an analytic frame

My principal sent an email today expressing dismay at finding out at our LSC meeting that some staff don’t feel safe at work and said that his door is always open… but what @asv.bsky.social says about teachers and safety is true of school leaders and their staff too…

Screenshot that reads “And so, I bowed down to that. I heard that many years ago and then I felt the sense of, Oh my god. That speaks to me as a philosophy of living, that hope is a discipline and that we have to practice it every single day. Because in the world which we live in, it’s easy to feel a sense of hopelessness, that everything is all bad all the time, that there is nothing going to change ever, that people are evil and bad at the bottom. It feels sometimes that it’s being proven in various, different ways, so I get that, so I really get that. I understand why people feel that way. I just choose differently. I choose to think a different way and I choose to act in a different way. I choose to trust people until they prove themselves untrustworthy.”

Reminding myself of @prisonculture.bsky.social’s thoughts on hope as a discipline from www.beyond-prisons.com/home/hope-is.... From 2018 but still so relevant.

Tried their Chicago offices, got a voicemail box for one so left a message but no option to leave a message for the other, it just ended the call after telling me all staffers were busy 🙄

I tried to call both of my democratic senators today to push them on this and of course their phone lines are busy and can’t leave a message 🙄

Thinking about this Gandalf LOTR quote: “Despair, or folly? It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope.”

This feels like an apt metaphor for how I’ve been experiencing everything this week (and what a week it was, indeed).

Abstract art made with paper, water soluble pastels, acrylic markers, sharpie, and glue. Swirls of teal and bronze under sharp triangular and other geometric shapes of silver and gold outlined in pink, with dots of orange and yellow and lines/swirls in black sharpie.

Attended an abstract art workshop this morning called “Release”.

There was an invitation to start with what draws us and then take opposite actions from our normal/default, which lead to this piece. A lot of sharp edges and harsh lines, but underneath there’s still softness and curves.

Do your best to communicate safety anyway. If you feel hurt or dismayed that someone doesn't see you as safe, work that out in your own time. Remember that more than a safe *person,* people need safe *communities* and webs of support, so don't go it alone. When in doubt, connect more. (4/4)

When I train teachers about trauma-informed classrooms, I emphasize that you cannot simply declare that a person or a place is safe and make it so. People determine safety for themselves based on explicit and implicit cues of safety. (🧵 1/4)

Apparently it was the Secret Service? I still don’t understand why they were at an elementary school.

bsky.app/profile/phil...

If it wasn’t ICE then who was it??

It gives me no pleasure in saying it, but people like nurses, teachers, social workers, and innumerable other civil servants are going to be a first line of defense for children who belong to any number of vulnerable classes.
Talk about it with colleagues, come up with a real plan.