Rod

My dissertation on leadership talk defines dialogue as requiring live, personal, and present interaction. Socrates makes this argument at the end of *Phaedrus*. Socrates critiques writing because written words "preserve a solemn silence" when questioned—they "always give one unvarying answer" and "cannot protect or defend themselves." You cannot interrupt a document. It cannot sense confusion and adjust mid-thought. He contrasts this with "an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner, which can defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent." This is dialogue: adaptive, interruptible, present. The speaker can pause, answer objections, pursue new threads spontaneously—none of which writing permits. My definition aligns with Socrates' distinction: writing is fixed and unresponsive; living speech is flexible and interactive. Both require speakers and listeners together in real time, capable of interrupting and being interrupted. lnkd.in/euBzj3kv

Kristen McQuillan argues that "differentiation"—giving struggling students easier texts—backfires, trapping them in permanently lower-level work instead of catching them up. She recommends "teaching to the top": give all students the same challenging material, but add temporary supports like vocabulary help or read-alouds. Unlike differentiation, these scaffolds should fade away as students improve. kristenmcquillan.substack.co…

Robert Pondiscio argues reading comprehension isn't a set of skills to drill but depends on background knowledge. Kids who "read but don't get it" lack context to fill in what writers leave unsaid. Schools wrongly teach reading tricks (predicting, questioning) instead of building knowledge through science, history, and art—the engine of comprehension and critical thinking, especially for disadvantaged students. thenext30years.substack.com/…

Greg Ashman explains that "oracy," invented in 1965 by Andrew Wilkinson, aimed to rank speaking/listening alongside literacy and numeracy. He argues this is flawed—speech is naturally acquired by children, while reading and writing require deliberate schooling, making them fundamentally different skills. He's also critical of "numeracy," seeing it as a fuzzy stand-in for "mathematics" favored by progressive educators. His bigger worry: England's new oracy movement, linked to Voice 21 (born from a failed progressive school), could reintroduce faddish teaching. A tweet about this led to pushback from Pie Corbett and Michael Rosen, debating whether "oracy" is truly "made-up" compared to naturally evolved words like "speak." fillingthepail.substack.com/…

Peps Mccrea argues that effort is essential for growth, but modern life has made it optional, especially for kids. We tend to avoid effort because we're evolutionarily wired to save energy, its rewards (like good grades) feel far away, and we often underestimate how good pushing through hard things actually feels. The good news: effort works like an acquired taste — the more we experience its payoff, the more we start to want it. So parents and schools need to keep reintroducing effort into daily life and gently push young people through tough moments, like dreaded presentations or extra practice, until the habit sticks. snacks.pepsmccrea.com/p/a-ta…

This post argues that bipartisan K-12 education reforms since 2020—including science-based reading instruction, stronger classroom discipline policies, knowledge-rich curricula, and expanded school choice—have led to real improvements in student achievement and teacher satisfaction. The author worries that political shifts following recent elections could reverse this progress, specifically citing concerns that Texas's governor-elect plans to remove Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who's credited with driving these reforms. The piece urges policymakers to prioritize students' long-term needs over short-term political point-scoring, warning that constant reversals hurt children the most. bgeoghegan4.substack.com/p/p…

My blog post describes a simple method for helping teachers improve: instead of vaguely watching a lesson, I use two quick tallies from the back of the room—one tracking how a teacher responds to student answers (praise, correction, or deeper push), another tracking off-task behavior. Research shows feedback type matters more than amount. The post ends with a coaching tip: build follow-up questions from someone's own words. rodjnaquin.substack.com/p/be…

Mona Sloane, a sociologist, says AI isn't just another "industrial revolution"—it's becoming part of everyday infrastructure, like electricity or internet service. That means the public should have a say in how it's built and used, not just big tech companies. She worries AI lets us skip hard thinking and real conversations by just trusting predictions. Schools should teach kids to think critically, not just use AI tools. At UVA, students now help make real decisions about campus technology—a model other schools could try too. stefanbauschard.substack.com…

Isobel Stevenson defines a mechanism as what *actually* produces change—like a clock's inner workings driving its hands. She warns that listing activities (collaboration, PD, coaching cycles) isn't enough without explaining how they cause improvement. Her example: feedback only works if it's *used*, not just "timely" or "clear." Her core mechanism: teachers test instructional practices, observe surprising student thinking, which shifts their beliefs about students' abilities—driving real instructional change, supported by coaches and system leaders. isobelstevenson.substack.com…

Something keeps happening to me while reading *Atonement*. Long stretches move slowly: close attention to light and heat, the inside of a character's head, a single afternoon spread over many pages. I start to feel it drag. Then the book reminds me that someone is *writing* this, and the slow parts suddenly look deliberate. The publisher's letter in Part Three is the clearest example so far. The editor calls Briony's piece lovely but stuck, too caught up in perception and style. He also says it owes too much to "the techniques of Mrs. Woolf," and that it needs "the underlying pull of simple narrative." That hit me because sections of *Atonement* are so Woolf-like. They cover one summer day on a country estate, move between different characters' minds, and linger on small sensations. McEwan is having a character criticize the same style he used, so my boredom ends up being part of what the book is talking about. Earlier moments work the same way, like young Briony's play and the fountain scene she realizes could be told from more than one point of view. Each time, what I took as plain story turns out to be about how stories get built. I'm starting to trust the pattern: when the book drags, it's often setting up one of those moments.

Think about how often teachers give out an assignment, assuming students already know how to do it—only to watch the class fall apart in confusion. My blog argues that handing out a task isn't the same as actually teaching someone how to complete it. Using research on reading instruction, effective teaching habits, and a major study on classroom assignments, it shows that what looks like "bad behavior" is often really just kids guessing because no one showed them the steps first. The solution offered is simple: before giving students a task, try doing it yourself under the same conditions. That reveals the tricky parts you need to explain, model, and practice with them—before expecting them to tackle it alone. rodjnaquin.substack.com/p/as…

A kindergarten teacher shows how she teaches phonics and vocabulary at the same time. While working with short words like "cog" or "gum," she pauses briefly to explain what the word means or has kids use it in a sentence—without slowing down the reading practice. The tip for other teachers: pick a couple of tricky words in each lesson and quickly explain them while kids practice sounding out words. scienceofreadingclassroom.su…

I couldn't help but pick up this Zola, flip the introduction, and find a line that explains why I keep coming back to him. Zola is known for his facts — the research, the mine shafts, the railway details, the market scenes, all that careful documentation. But that's only half the story. The introduction says the facts aren't the point in themselves; they're the foundation for something bigger, almost mythic. That's the part I hadn't quite put into words before. People praise Zola as this meticulous recorder of industrial France, and he is. But he's also doing something closer to epic poetry underneath it. A pithead turns into something like a monster. A department store sale turns into a kind of frenzy, a crowd losing itself to pure want. The detail stays careful and real the whole time, but it keeps opening up into something larger — fate, hunger, collapse, renewal — and it never feels like he's cheating the facts to get there, because the groundwork underneath is so solid.

Just picked up Canto I again after *Blood Meridian*, and the connection is so clear. Dante's dark wood isn't just a forest — it's a reflection of where he's at spiritually, lost and afraid. McCarthy's desert works the same way: it's never just scenery, it's always testing the characters, almost judging them. Even small things match up. Dante opens each canto with a little summary line, almost like a scribe noting down what happens. McCarthy's chapter headers do the exact same thing — short, flat lists like "Riding south — A hat shop — Toadvine — An incineration." Both create that cold, outside-looking-in voice, like someone recording events rather than living them. And Dante doesn't just say "at dawn" — he describes the sun's light touching the hill, measuring the moment by the heavens instead of the clock. McCarthy opens the kid's whole life the same way: "Night of your birth. Thirty-three. The Leonids they were called. God how the stars did fall." A life dated by a meteor shower, not a year — time measured against the sky. And the language itself feels borrowed straight from Dante — old-fashioned, formal, almost like scripture. Dante writes "Ah, how hard a thing it is to tell of." McCarthy's prose has that same heavy, biblical rhythm throughout, except he points it at violence and the desert instead of heaven and hell.

We have a rhetoric problem around AI in education. Students "abuse" AI. Schools "combat AI use." Headlines warn about "your brain on ChatGPT." This language turns a teaching question into a moral one. Do kids abuse books or the internet? Students have always leaned on SparkNotes and copied from Wikipedia. We called that a shortcut, not abuse, and good teachers responded by redesigning the task, not by declaring war on the library. "Misuse" calls for teaching; "abuse" calls for discipline. Most students are simply asking for help: 64% of college students use AI daily or weekly for coursework they don't understand. And students are more honest about how they use AI when they don't feel like suspects. Let's talk like teachers, not prosecutors.

I love how Adrian talks about books. His Top Five Fall Reads—Little House in the Big Woods, All Creatures Great and Small, A River Runs Through It, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and East of Eden—aren't new discoveries but worn, dogeared favorites he returns to each autumn. Woven with Thoreau's memento mori, the post celebrates slow, seasonal rereading, embracing cozy firelight evenings and heavily annotated pages over the pressure to constantly read something new. adrianneibauer.substack.com/…

I love how Marcus Luther frames starting a novel unit as intentional design, not routine. It reminds me of my own first-day *Frankenstein* launch: turning off the lights, putting on an ambient thunderstorm YouTube video, and handing kids battery candles as they enter—paralleling his dark-room, "scary jungle music" entrance. He unpacks four priorities: pacing the reading calendar, making Day 1 memorable, finding a "Goldilocks" context balance, and swapping graded quizzes for honest reading-habit talks—arguing novels deserve this careful, humble craft. thebrokencopier.substack.com…

Whitney Whealdon contrasts two ways to teach Gary Soto's poem "Oranges." Standards-based teaching targets specific skills (like identifying literary devices), letting students pass tasks without truly understanding the poem. Understanding-based teaching instead builds genuine comprehension—about words, the world, and human relationships—using standards only as tools, not the goal. whitneywhealdon.substack.com…

Michele Caracappa argues that looking closely at student work—not just adult discussion—is the real key to improving teaching. She suggests checking for strong work habits, clear understanding of tasks, and solid content knowledge, then using three questions to link gaps in student work directly to needed changes in how teachers teach, not just reteaching content. michelecaracappa.substack.co…

I appreciate how Marcus Luther keeps human connection and genuine learning at the center of his approach, rather than letting AI dictate the agenda. He prioritizes building community, encouraging honest reflection, and fostering real engagement between people before adding in new tools. I like that ordering of priorities — people and learning first, technology second — even though I personally think AI itself is great and see a lot of value in it. thebrokencopier.substack.com…

Adrian Neibauer announced his new book, *The Redress of Teaching*, releasing February 2027. Drawing on 25+ years as a teacher, he reflects on post-pandemic burnout, pressure from standardized testing, and AI's growing threat to classrooms—arguing for keeping teaching human-centered rather than data-driven. Though I see some of these issues differently myself, I truly value Adrian's honest, thoughtful voice and his deep care for students' humanity in education. adrianneibauer.substack.com/…