SCOOP: Seattle Public Schools tells teachers that the education system is guilty of “spirit murder” against black children and that white teachers must “bankrupt [their] privilege in acknowledgement of [their] thieved inheritance.”

Let's review the whistleblower documents.👇

The problem that the ‘lets-shut-schools-for-a-couple-of-weeks-crowd’ ignore is that its much easier to shut schools than to open them. Therefore, the probability is that once schools are shut, they will be shut for months on end, just like last time.

In other words, they are engaging in wishful thinking. The probability is that schools will be shut for months on end whilst online teaching provision will likely be patchy/minimal/inadequate/non-existent like it was last time & educational inequalities will continue to widen.

We’ve learned nothing from the schools shutting for 6 months last yr. Once those schools are shut, they will be shut for months. Online learning will continue to be inadequate, meanwhile big-mouthed Twitter users with no skin in the game will continue to opine on the subject.

The average Twitter user is more likely to be parent to a cat than to a human child. No skin in the game & it shows, quite frankly. The online learning that is available for parents is inadequate & it will be left to parents to utilise their own resources, again.

Educational inequalities will widen into a chasm. It will be a disaster for children, especially primary school-aged children, & for what? Where is the evidence that school closures minimised the spread of C-19? But the average Twitter user need not worry, their cat will be fine

What does it take to sustain screwiness in the way the world works? Mostly, it's just good people, trying their best to get us to a better place... within constraints which pretty much preclude us actually getting anywhere! A case in point with

These authors come across as hugely committed to something we might all agree upon: improving young people's experiences of physical education through better school-based-interventions. Sounds great? Agreed, & pretty much everything about their study models best practice 🥳

Sadly, established "best practice" involves further embedding the medicalisation of PE as if it should be about the potential contribution of physical activity to everything from quality of life, self-perception & cognition to the likelyhood of becoming healthy & active adults 🤯

We're reminded of the Chief Medical Officer's "recommended guidelines of 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day for healthy growth and development" 👇 This is a focus on what we can easily measure (generic) rather than on what we might value (individual).

We get recognition that PE "is not merely an opportunity for children to engage in PA" but that's linked to its role in "the development of knowledge & skills to foster their PA engagement throughout life" - so further focus on health outcomes. A long way from @meaningfulPE 🙄

HOW TO COME TO AUSTRALIA (WA) AS A STUDENT

Unfortunately, you can not come as a student to study most trade occupations as they are offered as apprenticeships and heavily subsidised for locals. Only if you want to be a Light vehicle mechanic.

This thread is to help anyone interested and can afford to study in Australia but have 4 O levels or as low as 2 A level points. Most people think Uni when we talk about studying abroad, but do you know you can study in Australia and end up getting a work visa and/or a degree?

The answer is yes, and I will show you how! The information I will share now pertains to Western Australia only, as I do not know how other states go about it.
Before I continue, a note to those who might consider migrating to Australia or might want their kids to end up here.

If you can afford, it is better to come here as a student. Australian graduates have any easy pathway to PR whereas if you study outside Australia you will need work experience first and yet you are not guaranteed of success.

Now back to study stuff.

The equivalent of a Polytechnic college here is Technical and Further Education college, shortened to TAFE. TAFE colleges in WA have courses streamlined for international students ranging from certificate III (equivalent to NC) to Advanced Diploma (HND).

Many of us are about to begin a new semester of online teaching. The learning curve for moving my lecture units last semester was STEEP, so I compiled some sort of hand over notes to people approaching this for the first time. I hope it's useful for someone somewhere.

Reduction in the amount of content was important. What used to be 2 x 1 hr in-person lectures/week had to be condensed down into 6 x 10 minute prerecorded videos (aka aynchronounous content) with 1 x hr live zoom session (synchronous). Even that was too much.

For the sake of yourself and your students, SLASH. Slash your content down. This doesn't mean having to lose important stuff, but keeping it short and sweet.

10 minute video chunks was just about short enough to hold attention. Have you tried watching an online lecture? It is HARD to maintain focus. The shorter the better.

Importantly, each 10 minute video had an explicit Intended Learning Objective given at the end and in the associated text, so that everyone knew what the point was (and how this might relate to assessment later).

🧵1) I don't know if my view is appreciated or puzzling to the professor and students in my seminar course on the conquest narratives. It's been enlightening in some ways because it has started to prove my theory that there is a hermeneutic for those who are #ActuallyAutistic

🧵2) I have been quite appreciative of the voices I have connected with, especially here on Twitter (@robertjmonson, @JoLuehmann, etc) that have expanded the space of interpretation I take into consideration when approaching the biblical text.

🧵3) While one cannot be wholly objective about a text (Hermeneutics 101), it has helped me develop a stronger empathy for "interpretations from the edge," minority and philosophical interpretations. Admittedly, this also stems from my own baggage with Evangelicalism.

🧵4) What I learned from the flavor of Evangelicalism I was exposed to in college has more or less been designed to exclude (read: ignore) other voices because of 1) its deep roots in American Imperialism and 2) its implicit ties to a passive form of white supremacy.

🧵5) If you don't believe that, you needn't look much further than the previous presidential administration. Chris Hedges, in his book "American Fascists", connects religious conservatism to fascism, which is "a kind of colonization," according to Rev. Davidson Loehr.