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Spot the Difference
"School hasn't changed in hundreds of years." So goes the story invoked by politicians, entrepreneurs, and journalists -- a cliche often followed with an urgent call for school administrators to buy and teachers to adopt the latest technological gadgetry, gadgetry that's poised so these
The Magic Porridge Pot
Un-Listed
I've started and paused and restarted this email several times. I thought I'd send it Monday, then Wednesday, and now look: it's Friday afternoon (my time). We're already a week into the new year. Conventionally, “it’s a bit late to say
Days Gone By
What a terrible year. Good riddance to today being the very last of it. Way back when I used to publish things on Hack Education, I was always proud of my end-of-year stories -- the series of articles I posted annually that tried to chronicle all the incredibly awfulness that
Cereal Killer
Nothing But Flowers
The plan for December was to focus on a big writing project (okay, a book proposal), mostly pausing these weekly emails in order to write other things; but here we are, mid-month and I've accomplished very little towards that end. (You're still getting the odd newsletter,
The Off Season
The Right to Say "No"
A reminder: Second Breakfast is on hiatus until the new year. Well, sort of, as here's a Second Breakfast email in your inbox. There are a couple of weeks' worth of news articles to link to, to be sure – the usual Friday stuff. But I've
Sputnik Deja Vu
I gave this presentation on Monday afternoon at Yale University. The talk was co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science, DOWN Magazine, the Education Studies Program, and The Politic. A huge thank-you to Jennifer Berkshire for inviting me and having me speak to her students. This is the May 1958
AI Grief Observed
These remarks were delivered this evening at the Creatively Critical Tech Speaker Series at Illinois State University. "There is no good way to say this." These are the opening words of Yiyun Li’s latest book Things in Nature Only Grow about life after the death by suicide
