This week, on top of the absolute exhaustion, there’s the heavy sadness of what teaching has become. When I started, it felt like teaching was an art.

How I’m heading into this new school year.

I am so sick of articles about plummeting test scores. When the tools we use to measure our children do not match the world they are living in, it’s like attempting to assess American’s ability to drive by insisting we only test our driving using stick shift cars as test vehicles.

The world of education loves an acronym & a set of initials. Especially when it comes to a child’s social-emotional learning (SEL). I’d like to suggest we throw them all away. Get rid of PBIS & CHAMPS & STOIC & all the rest. And instead let us just focus on CARE. It doesn’t stand for anything.

Like so many other teachers, this year has forced me to teach a prepackaged, scripted literacy program. It’s been soul sucking to say the least. One thing I’m trying hard to do is to help my students learn to read these texts critically. Weaving critical thinking into a program that is devoid of it.

Tonight, I spoke with dozens of educators and librarians about the ways in which we can keep working to create inclusive spaces for our LGBTQ+ young people within our classrooms and libraries even in this unsafe political moment. At the same time…

Often, in education, we make decisions by asking, “Will this meet the needs of our students?” I think we also have to start being more clear about the answer to the question, “Which needs are we most concerned about meeting?” Are we trying to best meet their test taking needs or their human needs?

One of the things that makes me most sad about these new packaged reading curriculum (and so so much makes me sad) is the way it feels as if we have switched from teaching children to training children. And we can do that, we can make it work, but it is costing us (and our students) so very much.

I’ve been feeling so sad at the loss of freedom to craft curriculum in a way that allows us to cover standards while also guiding students towards compassion, critical thinking & justice. So I’m trying to find other ways to do that work. With that, I’m committing to a focus on care this new year.

Every year, on New Year’s Eve, I pick a poem to carry with me into the new year. It’s a way for me to set some intention on what I want this new year to be. This year, my poem for the new year is Joy Harjo’s “For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet.” Here’s to 2026.

Holding on to justice and liberation in the classroom right now feels like trying to light a candle outside on a really windy day. And the lighter, it’s running low on fuel, y’all. And I guess we just keep on going. Trying to light the fire in whatever ways we can. That’s all.

Today I filled my shelves with workbooks. And my heart is just so sad at what teaching and learning have become.

I’d be curious to know how many people at the large national teacher conferences are classroom teachers. It just seems like such a far away world to what’s happening in our classrooms these days.

I think about what we, as educators, will say in years from now when we are asked, “How did you help kids through the crisis when human beings were being dragged off the streets by masked folks with guns?” For some of us the answer is sadly going to be, “Oh. We doubled down on phonics instruction.”

This year the letter home about Halloween costumes and ways to help us ensure they are not harmful, feels particularly important. Teachers, please feel free to use in whatever ways feel helpful! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Halloween Letter Home

Dear Families and Caretakers, Halloween is quickly approaching! While dressing up and celebrating the holiday provide opportunities for fun and community building, they can also create situations w...

docs.google.com

Teachers: DO NOT DEBATE ICE IN YOUR CLASSROOM! To ask students to witness their own humanity and safety being debated by their classmates is harmful. This is a reality that is causing harm and fear and pain to so many young people.

What they are asking us to do is not teaching. It is moving through curriculum. And I fear for what that means for our students.

Yes, there is good reason to be deeply concerned about what is happening in our schools. But no, it is not because of our test scores.

We hope you’ll join us in the work of building toolkits that help us create LGBTQ-affirming schools. Register today to secure your spot! 2/2 #IREL25

We can’t imagine moving through the world of education without the light that Jess consistently provides for children, families, and communities. Now more than ever we need this light and each other. 1/2

The school year has started and I find myself already in desperate need of the kind of community rooted in justice and liberation. I am so grateful that @sonjacherrypaul.bsky.social and @triciaebarvia.bsky.social are bringing us back together again for another Teaching Towards Freedom.

Y’all. I’m trying something new this year. I am going to completely ignore the start of the school year. Until it arrives. I’m going to hold on to summer until it is gone. I’m going to welcome my students with a big open heart and a lot of love and whatever I can plan in the time I’m given.

How you know back to school time is right around the corner…

I’m running a PD in a few weeks where we are using Dr. Barbara J Love’s framework for developing a liberatory consciousness as we center the stories of young people talking about their school experiences and how those experiences were impacting by various facets of identity.

For two decades now, I have worked with my fifth grade colleagues to build a literacy curriculum that weaves together reading and writing instruction with the kind of work that helps kids understand the ways in which we can use reading and writing to create positive change in the world.

There’s still time to register: TheIREL.org

These three women are writing dissents like our lives depend on it. I’m grateful for their work documenting the severity of the crises of this moment.

Today, the anger came first. In response to a myriad of Supreme Court decisions released today, and in particular on the case involving LGBTQ+ related books in public schools, I feel the anger really strongly. Clearly. And that anger is justified.

Small bits of hope, friends. Small bits of hope.

Zohran Kwame Mamdani@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · last yr.

In the words of Nelson Mandela: it always seems impossible until it’s done. My friends, it is done. And you are the ones who did it. I am honored to be your Democratic nominee for the Mayor of New York City.