Purpose is in short supply. Belief not so much. When you match purpose with belief, you often times get magic. And yet, when you confuse the two, you often find tragedy.

Purpose is something that fulfills you. It is a kind of accomplishment in and of itself. Because that fulfillment is often with your hands and with your heart. If you are  for yourself, for the love of it, for what it can bring. Careful woodwork or well prepared sushi. A well understood instrument that is caressed into song.

But, marry that purpose. The kind that stretches fingers and makes motion. Marry it with belief, the kind that is so strident that all else falls away in the face of it. There you will find life changing magic that fells trees and moves people across continents.

Ann Lee had that kind of marriage. At least according to her testimony as told through the lens of 2026 film. Her shaker belief met the purpose of salvation and every single house and family and chair and floorboard she touched showed that purpose and the belief behind it.

But, what I saw... the transcendent nature of quaking in the face of god. I saw in her conviction, the humanity that it requires to believe together. To love together. To dance together.

Sometimes when you do a thing with enough purpose and belief, it opens you up to an awakening. To a rebirth. To something that cannot be reproduced or manufactured. It is only available to those who witness it. It is a spiritual encounter. An ability to notice and name the divine.

I do not want to be a conduit for the almighty. But, I do miss the community that makes the almighty possible. It is only in those meeting rooms that the divine exists. It is only when people are there to give voice to it that it has power. I miss those people, the purpose, and the belief.

An honest encounter with death is not something I am prepared for, most of the time.

When the actress I only knew from The Crown, a former queen in my eyes, said that she was sorry that the rabbit died, that her hawk was to blame, but so are we all. We are to blame for our own deaths. We are to blame for one another's deaths. Responsible for them.

And more important still, we are all going to die. And that knowledge is why we do almost everything we do. The transient nature of who we are, and why we are here is never so very far away. It is why we are so obsessed with being right. With making it harder for others, when we could just shut the fuck up.

But, when you face it. When you see yourself as you are for the majority of your non-existence, as a dead man, you know that it has been an honest encounter. You don't have to pretend that it won't happen, because you already know.

And then it is not about my death, the one that I find the least likely. It is about my father's death, the one that already happened. And my mother's death, the one that is still yet to come. The one that seems far away, but ever nearer. Theirs is the generation that is next, or that is present. And yet, it doesn't always work that way. Death is never so clean cut. It never quite follows the natural order, even for a natural process.

I do not wish for death. Not for myself and not for others, and yet it is such a constant companion that it is hard to do anything other than greet it as it is all around you. It isn't just in the hospital as the death rattle hit for my grandmother. When my father stopped me in the middle of a story to listen to the very last breath. When I heard the wet in and out, the subtle ache that was longing to let go.

When I was in the bed next to my father. Knowing that it was hours and not days. When he asked me, "Am I dying." And I told him, "not now, but soon." He knew I was telling the truth. He knew it was a conclusion, a restating of the thesis of his life. And none of the trailing sentences mattered that much. The time he would spend on the bedside commode. The time I would spend cleaning him up. Trying to care for him even a tiny amount as he had cared for me.

And he had cared for me. From beginning to end. And then death took him. And we were left, watching the TV in the waiting room as more and more people came to say goodbye. As every faculty he had left him, one by one. The thoughts, the words, the breathing.

My father is dead. And I will never have another. And I will do the same to my sons. I will leave them. Perhaps in a hospital bed, and perhaps in the middle of the night. But, odds are that each of them will say something just as I said something for my father. It is absurd. It is nonsense to leave this place. With all of its magic and consciousness.

And I do not envy them the eulogy. But, I do wish I could hear it. The fortunate part is that just like my father, I know that I am loved.

However, I did need to make sure that the full 20 years of Learning is Change was preserved, and for the most part, it is. I still need to figure out RSS feeds if I want to keep on making those work, but for now I'm pretty satisfied with the fact that after about a day of tinkering with Claude.AI, I was able to re-write the entire function of posting new content and updating all of the category, tag, yearly, and monthly archive pages while preserving silly things like breadcrumbs and navigation. This is the first post in the new format, and I think it looks rather nice. 

I also can upload pictures and do fancy formatting. Because I have relied upon Wordpress for so many years, I really haven't thought about just what I could make this blog and my own writing space be. But, now that they are just dumb HTML files, I can do pretty much anything I want. Here is to the future of Learningischange.com. May it become exactly what it always should be, a reflection of who I am in this moment in time. In November 2025, I wrote over 50,000 words. (Hint: I'm The Laserdisc Leftist on this list.)

At least on my version, this is how it works. The newer versions have added cursor support. They have added the ability to see folders of files, navigation of settings. And while these things would make the device more user friendly, they would make it less like the device that I actually want in my life.
I want the fewest features possible. I want it just to take the letters that I type into it and display them on the screen. The fact that it connects to wifi and let’s me sync to the cloud or send a version of the draft to an email address is all gravy. It is nonessential for getting ideas out and for translating thought into words on a digital page.

And that is all that I ever wanted in a blog. The ability to share my words. The ability to post into the ether, scream into the void. Because it is the scream that matters, not the amplification.

So, I finally found my solution. The blogging device. And I will attempt to describe the setup without the aid of any HTML or formatting that a typewritter could not handle.

1. Write something awesome on my Freewrite.
2. Put a special hashtag that only I knew at the bottom.
3. Press the “send” button on the Freewrite.

That’s it. The whole draft gets posted to my blog within a few minutes.

How is this sorcery done, you might ask?

Well, it is a pretty simply process of taking the default email that is generated by Freewrite and sent to my email address and then having Gmail use a filter to look for the special hashtag I have set. Once it finds the hashtag within one of my drafts, it shoots the email off to an account I have set up to post to my blog.

Then the Postie WordPress plugin takes over. It checks the email account I have set up to post to the blog and strips out any attachments or formatting that don’t work for a blog post. And it just posts it, at the exact date and time of when I pressed the “send” button on my device. It is elegant and it is incredibly fun.

So fun that I think I am going to do it right now!

I got exactly one of them completed by the time that my oldest will graduate from high school. And that was him being born. I succeeded in making it through his whole K-12 education, even though I didn’t make it through my own higher learning. I succeeded in imparting to him a love of music, even if I wasn’t able to continue making new music past his birth. I was able to write notes and messages and posts and pages, but never a book. Still, his story is far more compelling than any novel or memoir might have been.

Someone told me recently that your child graduating high school was a success for the whole family. That it took a lot more work than just the individual effort by the child themselves or by the parents either. And while I have always scoffed at the “It takes a village” of it all, it is nonetheless true. It is nonetheless a fully realized nugget of wisdom.

And this village of suburbs and of punks in the city. This village of music and movies and books and random people on the internet. This village of many days spent in his room making meaning all his own.

It is an accomplishment. Graduating from high school. It is a success of an incredible kind. Especially now. Especially in 2025.

When he was born, I really thought that having a kid graduate in 2025 would mean something. That number was somehow special in my mind. And as it turns out, it was special, but not for the cosmic reasons that I had originally given to it. It is special because he is special. It is special because of just how much we have gone through together in order to get to this point.

All experience is just a period of transition from one state to another. This transition to adulthood, to life after high school has been hard fought and hard won. I am so proud of him for making it. I am proud of myself for being here when he does. I am proud of this village for helping him to survive and to make the next transition one that he is capable of making.

I love him dearly, and I wish him the best Last Week of his life (so far).

I may not have written a book, recorded an album, or gotten a masters. But, I do have a son. And he is graduating high school. I want for nothing.

I used to read the news. At all times of the day and night. I used to perseverate upon every new headline and breaking story. For years I did this. And I wasn’t really sure how to stop. I knew that it wasn’t healthy for me. I knew that it wasn’t “life affirming” or giving me much hope for the future, and yet I did it. Constantly.

For a long time I thought I did it because I wanted to know what other people think, but that wasn’t quite the truth. Instead, I read the news religiously because I wanted to know what I thought. I wanted to see all of the takes on the day’s information and simply understand it enough to form a coherent opinion. And yet, these coherent opinions didn’t make me happy. They didn’t bring new relationships into my life or deepen the ones that I already have. Rather, these coherent opinions crowded out my days.

They stopped me from having time to read any long work of fiction. They halted my ability to see other people as anything other than someone playing for the Red team or the Blue team. They made me disregard the fact that we are all just trying to survive in a modern world filled with infinite distractions. My opinions about the news, even more than the news itself, were the reason why I couldn’t sleep at night. They are the reason why I was considering moving to a different country. They are the reason why I was so incredibly angry all the time.

But, I’m not reading the news right now. At least, not most of the time. I read a single article about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. I read a single newsletter analysis on the dismissal of the confidential documents case in Florida. I watched a single video of Jon Stewart attempting to explain the madness that was the RNC.

I haven’t scrolled Twitter or Threads. I haven’t looked at TikTok or Instagram Reels. I haven’t looked up the latest poll numbers or tried to wade into the waters of “will he or won’t he” drop out of the race (Joe Biden, if that wasn’t clear). I haven’t tried to learn more about the ways in which the wind is blowing or about any number of tragedies happening around the world.

And I have, thus far, successfully convinced myself that doing this isn’t putting my head in the sand.

I am not reading the news and I am not forming coherent opinions about it because it was slowly killing me. I was dying from the exposure to the constant stream of information. I was drowning in the flood of hot takes and factoids that only seem to matter for the moment during which they have been uttered. I was filling all of the small moments of my life with little doses of poison, building up more tolerance to take more and more inside me.

And I don’t want to die, at least not like that. So, I will engage when I able and when I can actually do something good for myself and others. I will absolutely vote and volunteer my time. I still plan to work as an Election Judge this November (having had an incredible time doing so for the primary just a few weeks ago). I will still engage with my kids or my partner or my friends as they try to sort out their own political conundrums.

But, I will not be reading the news. I will not be consuming every word of commentary from the curated sources that I have been building for years. Not because there aren’t things worth fighting for in this election and not because I want to just “let whatever happens happen.” No, I will not be reading the news because it isn’t good for me. Not healthy and not valuable.

I am living in a post-news world, and for the moment, it feels kind of okay. Who knew?

I have taken to walking our dog at night after the temperature dips just enough to make the evening air inviting. I started trying to listen to podcasts during my constitutional, but I found that I was just getting angry or tired, so I switched to music that I know and love.

As Petey or Bleachers or Ben Kweller blast in my headphones, I’m struck by just how incredible it is to feel in control of all of my limbs. To walk, to breathe, and to see the beauty that is all around me. Even if it is just suburbia. Even if the moment is politically fraught. Even if there are plenty of things to worry about in my family or my work. The nightly walk is enough.

It is enough to show me that there is still so much of existence that feels achingly perfect. I would say that it feels like a miracle, but I don’t believe in miracles. It is more than that. More than just some unexplainable mystery, it feels so quintessentially human. Like, I am most myself, most human while I am perambulating upon this small bit of soil.

And all I have to do is notice and appreciate. So I do.

I am such an enormous fan of the work that John and Hank Green are doing to help democratize education. From Crash Course to Study Hall, they are constantly looking for ways to make engaging learning opportunities for the broadest group of people possible.

And then they drop something like this video. In it, Hank is interviewing another of the most prolific creators in the world of online video and fantasy storytelling, Brennan Lee Mulligan. But, the interview is mostly about the paths that Brennan took through his educational journey.

The best part about hearing this story is knowing just how unconventional it is, and yet just how successful he has become in spite of (or, because of) his unconventional approach to learning and growth. His story is deeply resonant. He was a precocious kid. He tried to power through his education and leverage the “official paths” laid out for him by others. But, he also started camps and led small groups of people in his roleplaying efforts. He interned and bartended. He won $50,000 on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” He started writing for one part of College Humor and then became a much bigger part of it.

It is the story of paths taken and choices made. He would do things differently if he could, but he doesn’t regret his choices. All of the things he has done up to this point have made him into the man he is today. That is a startlingly refreshing take.

We are all the sum total of our paths not taken. We have branched off infinitely until we find ourselves here. You don’t get to see what the other branches would have had in store for us, but we do get to enjoy the view from this idiosyncratic perch. It is a spot that no one else could have found. And it should be celebrated.

I encourage you to watch this interview and to understand that your journey is just as precarious as it is precious. You may not be Brennan Lee Mulligan, but you are someone with just as many decisions and just as many paths not taken. We should embrace the diversity of life within your own story, and we can learn as much as we can from others as we do so.

Every summer, our children are out of school. And yet, I am not out of work over the summer. You can see the problem this poses for getting work done.

So, every summer, our kids are involved in various “camps” and “activities” that will help me to get work done. This summer is a little different because our 15 and 17 year old boys are both fully engaged by work (Lifeguard and Art Camp counselor, respectively). So, the only activities we must organize ourselves are camps for our 10 year old.

And wouldn’t you know it, he had some ideas about the kinds of camps he wanted this year. While there are still plenty of soccer, swimming, nature, and other sports camps. One of the activities that he is most excited about is a camp that is dedicated to playing Super Smash Bros. with other excited tweens.

So, I wanted to spend a little time reflecting upon that choice.

Super Smash Bros. is a game full of animated fighting that is anything but violent. It is silly. It is strange. But, most of all, it is entertaining. It is something that you can play or watch and enjoy just as much. It is fun to root for (or against!) your friends and it is easy to get caught up in the lore of each of the characters (of which many come from other Nintendo properties with huge followings).

For each day of this 5-day long camp, our 10-year-old plays a video game for three hours. It is something we would typically not do at home. While we don’t have hard and fast rules about screen time, we don’t tend to let any of our kids play video games for multiple hours in a row. And yet, I don’t have any issues with our son doing just that within this setting.

I think that is because of just how collaborative he is within this environment. Much like he is when he is playing soccer or jumping on a trampoline, he is almost constantly talking while he is playing the game. In fact, I observed a significant amount of conversation before, during, and after each match. There was good-natured trash talk and genuine question asking. There was competitive conversation and team-building words of encouragement. I believe this is why it makes sense for the camp to exist.

My 10 year old needs more opportunities to be with people he doesn’t (previously) know, engaged in a collaborative effort. That is the core of what a summer activity is all about, and this one fits the bill perfectly. The “screen time” required for the activity is superfluous. It is about the community that he has built that will last beyond the week. We know each of the kids usernames to keep it going even after the summer is over, which is not something I can say for any sports camp he has enjoyed.

I deeply believe in the idea that no one actually wants to write a book.

They want to HAVE WRITTEN a book.

They want the destination more than the process. They want the comfort and resolution that comes from having completed the work. They do not revel the toil. They do not want the discomfort that comes from unresolved characters or un-researched topics.

And when I say them, I really mean me too. I too do not want the process to be so daunting and to cause so much frustration and to feel like it will never end. I too will shy away from large projects, knowing that they are very likely never to reach their conclusion.

And yet, the writing process is where the best bits of learning are. They it is were the most compelling art lives. It is also where the joy of figuring out who you are can be found. And so, I must trust that somewhere in there, a final work will reside. That there will be enough love and wonder and growth in the middle to help guide the way to the end.

You see: I am in process.

Of writing a book. Of starting a podcast. Of saving a marriage. Of going on international travel. Of building a life.

I want to HAVE LIVED. But, I also want to BE ALIVE.

It is my privilege to live in such a place: to be born into a insulated world in which war happens “somewhere else.”

Within that privilege, I have two options:

1. To act as if everyone has my experience, as if the war either doesn’t exist or at the very least will not impact me directly. I can choose to turn away and ignore the war that has made millions of refugees and killed thousands of soldiers and civilians alike. I can choose, in my privilege, to devalue those lives and inflate my own worth as a result.
2. I can look right into the heart of war and see my fellow humans being killed, understanding that I am them and they are me. I can make it known to others that I believe in solidarity and in the global community. I can choose, in my privilege, to use the power that has been given to me as a white, male, American to demand change, for justice in the face of war-crimes, and for peace for my family in Ukraine (whether a blood relation exists or not).

It may be rather obvious which one I would like to choose (hint: it is #2).

And yet, I find myself gravitating toward #1 throughout the day. I forget for whole minutes at a time that people are being killed around the clock. I find myself ignoring the full scope of the war and its immediate implications for whole continents of people. This is when my privilege shows most clearly, across my unbloodied clothes and powered and heated home.

So, how do I remind myself of the ongoing tragedy that must be grappled with? I look to those who are closest to the war, and I try to see what they see.

The best way I have found to do this is by following the Associated Press photography collections, which are now a daily set of the most important and powerful vignettes on the war and its immediate impacts upon the environment and the people of Ukraine.

While I am not entirely sure of the right way to cite these images (I’m linking and providing attribution), I will state from the outset that I am in no way claiming that they are mine. Rather, I am using them in order to not “look away.” I want to face these atrocities and use the power of these images to galvanize support for those uprooted by an unjust war.

Infrastructure is incredibly difficult to create, as it is a public good that can only be carried out by having the support the populace. And yet, anyone can destroy Infrastructure. You can take a country back to the 19th century in a hurry. Getting them to the 21st, is far harder

Death is inevitable. And yet, not like this. Watching the smoke billowing from someone else’s death (likely, many others) as you watch your own loved one be buried is an unfathomable reality.

All artifice is gone. These lives are laid bare, their appliances hanging on by their power cords. When Ginsberg wrote, “Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs,” he did not mean for them to be blown apart by bombs. He was asking for us to open ourselves up to what happens when we get rid of these barriers between us. And yet, all that I see when we blow up these barriers is that we are all vulnerable and lost. That is the difference between the empowerment Ginsburg spoke of and the oppression that Putin offers.

This life matters, too. She isn’t just a casualty of war. She had a whole other life, one filled with purpose. And now, it has been cut short. But, that is too passive to describe the tragedy of her death. She was killed by men who believe she is the price to pay for conquest.

The price is too high.

Formal education stops in a war-zone. Kids still learn things (see below), but they do not learn what their teachers intended or even what they wanted. Children want safety and to be nurtured in their curiosity. These children will receive neither. They are not less deserving than your children.

This is the first war for which I have seen cell phone videos and photos. Clearly, other wars have featured these pervasive devices, but I have not been privy to them. The juxtaposition of the modern technology in the palm of your hand while the whole world is crumbling around you is astounding.

Steve Jobs famously said that computers are like a “Bicycle for the mind.” And yet, when all you have left is a bicycle and riding has become treacherous, you walk beside it or carry it along. It is no longer a means of conveyance when the world has crashed down around you. We should be able to ride our bicycles down the street. We should be able to put our “bicycles for the mind” to the collective effort of ensuring that everyone can do just that.

Children will sleep through pretty much anything, including war. We, however, cannot sleep through this.

I hate guns. I hate what they can do and I hate what they represent. And yet, in this environment, guns are a practical tool for survival. This child is learning that first-hand. It isn’t okay.

You can hold a portal to the world in your hands. You can grasp freedom through the screen. You can connect with those who want to help, and those who wish you harm. These tools have made the war possible. These tools are the ones that will end the war too.

We haven’t figure out how to use our phones yet, at least not really. We haven’t figured out how the internet will bring us back from this, but I trust that the medium that let’s us share the truth in black and white and lies in technicolor will be the same one that holds a mirror up to ourselves. We will see who we are, and whether or not we are worth saving.

What did he die for? What will his death mean to us?

I hope it will mean not looking away. I hope it will mean that we will amplify his death until it is a cacophony of pain and righteous anger, too loud to ignore. I hope it will mean we stop allowing power-hungry leaders to dictate the terms of survival and society. I hope it means we are all going to choose option #2.

I heard multiple experts this weekend proclaiming that a “tactical nuclear weapon” was a likely outcome for Putin, especially if he believes he is losing the war in Ukraine. There was a fire at the largest nuclear power plant in Europe after Putin’s forces attacked it. More than 1.5 million people have fled the war zone and are now refugees in need of care and protection. These are the terrifying realities of a global war that will impact us whether we like it or not. But, wars are not merely made up of worst case scenarios and doomsday proclamations.

Rather, the war in Ukraine has fundamentally reorganized power structures that were long entrenched, causing thousands to protest against injustice and the lack of a voice in the political machinations of their homeland. It has presented models of modern leadership to the world that have inspired both support and solidarity. It has spurred multiple nations to apply for inclusion in the European Union, building a stronger international coalition for combatting economic and political upheaval. These are all reminders that any conflict is a mixed bag of fear-inducing realities and hope-inspiring reactions.

But, what if modern war took a different middle path? What if instead of leaning heavily into fear of nuclear fallout, we came together and saw the way modern society, accelerated by democratizing technology, has re-engineered what was possible to build during a time of war? What if the best case scenario were on the table, if we only could articulate it and start to pursue it together?

So, I wanted to take a stab at laying out the Case, the Best Case for how this war might progress. I don’t know that we will get everything on this list, but if others are laying out the case for Nuclear war, perhaps there is room for a counter argument, an anti-totalitarian future with both shared wins and shared sacrifice.

The tenets of The Best Case Scenario resulting from the War in Ukraine:

• We learn from our whole, unvarnished, history.
  • We don’t try to ban books or teaching certain subjects that make some uncomfortable. We don’t try to whitewash wars or use whataboutism to justify our own actions. We embrace the messy negotiations of progress and help to build a more equitable world.
• Our strength comes from sustained collective action, not isolation and handwringing.
  • The collective action of supporting Ukrainian civilians has been inspiring. We must have the resolve to sustain that action. We must build upon temporary humanitarian action with systems to support democracies and fledgling movements toward freedom. It is not enough to simply stop a war. We are in a global community. Isolation is impossible.
• Telling the truth to one another is the hallmark of both our personal and political discourse.
  • We all make decisions based upon the information at our disposal. And yet, some information is demonstrably false. We must be open to being wrong, to changing our minds, and to correcting the record when we find ourselves lacking. We must be honest about who we are and what we want. It is the only way forward.
• We protect the vulnerable, using Empathy without the need for Affinity.
  • The stories of non-white refugees from Ukraine being turned away (or having extremely long wait times) from the borders of neighboring countries are heartbreaking and totally expected. And yet, Empathy is available for all. For Roma, for Africans, and for all foreign born Ukrainians. We don’t need to see ourselves in those seeking refuge. We must simply see humanity and know that we must act.
• Our agility of decision-making is not hampered by infighting. We pull in the same direction because our broad interests and values have the power to unify.
  • War is wrong. Killing, especially for such a terrible reason as annexing a sovereign country, is never justified. Surely, that can bind us together. And while we are together, we must agree on the other values of freedom and democracy for all. Our disagreements about how to support should not stop us from supporting at all.
• Coalition building is not weakness and Tyranny is not strength.
  • The world has come together in opposition to Russia and in support of a caring leader who will not leave his people. We can no longer hold “strong men” up as the model to emulate. It is an outdated and immoral way to govern. Let’s move away from it with every step we take.
• Our policies meet the moment, for both the urgent and the globally important.
  • Higher gas prices are one of the hallmarks of high demand and low supply. We cannot solve the problem of lack of access to cheap energy by leaning into the system that has gotten us here. We must solve for global war and for global warming. It is not either/or, it is both/and.
• Mutually-assured prosperity is our daily practice.
  • Nuclear war is not inevitable. Neither is kindness. If both are a choice, why would we choose destruction? Why would we go out of our way to create these artificial barriers between us? Why would we allow ourselves to hate when we have better options available?

I know this is an extremely tall order, and I don’t think this Best Case Scenario is the obvious result of the war. And yet, when I see the world rally together in a matter of weeks to dismantle a dictator and aid an ally, I see what is possible. It must also be possible to come together for more than just stopping a war, though. It must be possible to come together for the sake of one another.

The world order that existed on February 23, 2022 no longer exists.

There is a new one being created right now. Let’s make it better. Let’s try for The Best Case Scenario.

The video essay is not a brand new art form and it wasn’t created from scratch by YouTube’s algorithmic interest in long-form video that increases “watch time.” People have been constructing commentaries on popular culture and on “important works of art” since there was culture popular enough to be commented upon by others. And yet, the video essay as it exists today has grown into a community of thinkers and writers who have transformed the consumption of media into an urgent and participatory act.

As one Wellesley College film studies course puts it, the Video Essay is the result of the following process:

1. The student watches an audio-visual artifact, a film;
   • [Or book, piece of news media, poem, painting, etc.]
2. She then reads [more] about it, discusses it with her peers and the professor in class [or people online]; and this ‘translates’ the experience of film watching into a verbal register;
   • [i.e., speaking her own opinions to others about the work]
3. In the wake of her readings and discussions, the student then writes a script of sorts where she envisions arguing AUDIOVISUALLY the points she would argue in a conventional paper. This in turn forces her to to foresee how to couch verbal arguments within an audio-visual format;
   • [It is the audio and visual elements that do a great deal of the persuasion and therefore, it isn’t just coming up with the argument, but rather coming up with the plan for how the argument will be laid out visually to achieve the greatest impact.]
4. The student then selects the images she needs to substantiate her argument and transfers them into an editing application
   • [These visual elements can be direct references of the work itself or entirely new visuals and audio elements that help to prove her point or further make meaning for her audience.]
5. A dialogical process of a peculiar kind then must take place, namely the process of going back and forth between the written script with its logically formulated ideas and its ideal translation into another ‘idiom,’ that of audio-visuality. Words and ideas must somehow be transmuted into images and sounds, inter-titles and voice-overs, musical soundtracks and split-screens for comparison purposes. It is an INTERMEDIAL exercise that forces the student’s mind to shuttle back and forth between two forms of communication, two forms of thinking, thus proving that the moving image is a form-that-thinks.
   • [Such a process is the modern act of responding to digital media, and is therefore the primary tool we have for understanding our world.]

I believe that this process of observing, reacting with others, building a cohesive thought, gathering media to prove that thought, and then creating a trans-media representation of that thought is the work not just of Video Essayists. Rather, it is the work of meme artists, of journalists, of TikTok personalities, and of every person on social media that is attempting to understand the barrage of information that is too voluminous to understand without some kind of means to process it.

Video essays are just the purest form of this way of understanding, and I love them for that. I love watching the finished product of this process. It is simultaneously poignant and persuasive. It causes me to see the original artwork or moment in time that is being commented upon as having context. It encourages me to see the world more complexly and be okay with the muddy nature of modern society. The Video Essay is, for lack of a better term, truly modern art. Sure, it might be post-post-modern too, but given that it is the process we are all doing as a natural part of our day as consumers of content and “havers of opinions,” I want to celebrate the Video Essay as the Art Form of Now.

And these are my favorite representations of Now:

Spaceship You – CGP Grey created this Video Essay in direct response to the initial lockdown orders and the feeling of anchorlessness that many felt in their wake. The media that Spaceship You was commenting on was ‘the whole of society’ needing to reorganize itself around a new problem, the ongoing and ever worsening pandemic. It was a critique of ”survival skills” that were for a different era. We didn’t need to know how to stock up on food or prepare for the oncoming apocalypse. Rather, we needed a way to deal with the onslaught of bad news of 2020 and the isolation that social distancing ensured. In that way, Spaceship You is a time capsule of a Video Essay. It was critiquing a moment in time, but the lessons of what we learned in the early pandemic I believe will far outlast our memory of staying home, ordering in, and generally trying to wait out the worst of the unknown.

If There Are No Pics, Did It Happen? – Until Idea Channel stopped posting new videos in 2017, it was reliably one of the best places to find new Video Essays which critiqued the exact kinds of things I was most interested in: the ways in which the internet has influenced our society. Whether that was critiquing post-modern masterpieces like Community or simply questioning one of the internet’s strongest beliefs (pics or it didn’t happen), Mike Rugnetta built a strong approach toward questioning the media landscape. In this particular piece, he helps us all to question our need to validate our own experiences with pictures and our further need to share them with others to prove that we are worthy of love and attention.

In Search of a Flat Earth – In my favorite example of a Video Essay that claims to be about one thing (flat earthers), while really being about something entirely different (Qanon ideology), Dan Olson expertly builds the case that the Qanon community is, in their own incomprehensible way, trying to make sense of the complexity of modern life. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but I can unequivocally state that the final line in the video is the most satisfying conclusion to any video essay. There isn’t any other work that earns “the prestige” more than this does. Please watch.

The Cruel Optimism of Steven Pinker – There is nothing quite like a Video Essay for helping to re-contextualize an author or a work in a brand new way. For me, there is no better representation of this than the way I have come to understand Steven Pinker after watching this work of scathing critique.

Auld Lang Syne: The Anthropocene Reviewed – Seeing as how this podcast-turned-book (The Anthropocene Reviewed) was literally written as a series of essays, it is hard to frame this as a true “Video Essay.” However, I believe that the way this essay comments on a piece of media, the classic song Auld Lang Syne, demonstrates just how adaptable this model of modern critique can be. We can comment on the despair of the world while still bringing hope to the table. Definitely worth a watch/listen.

Why is Gen Z Humor So Weird? – While I do not believe the humor is strictly generational, this video essay makes the case that the always-on nature of the ways Gen Z grew up have made for a distinct brand of humor that is both post-ironic and self-referential. By watching this, I became for more adept at understanding my children’s preferred method of simply repeating lines from the most ridiculous TikTok video they can find.

Sony MiniDisc: The (Not) Forgotten Audio Format That (Never) Failed – As you can tell by the title, this video essay is attempting to reframe a technology in our collective consciousness. Rather than commenting on a particular piece of media, this style of video is rather digging into the media format itself. I find these deep dives into our past (whether you personally experienced MiniDisc or not) and seeing what it might mean for modern life to be entirely satisfying. Your mileage may vary depending on your ability to get past some of the nerdier bits.

Wes Anderson: Breaking Formality | Deconstructing Funny – I feel like Wes Anderson is a filmmaker built for the Video Essay. His particular style of ”everything just right” is exactly what a video essayist is trying to construct in their argument. In this video, though, we go deeper and try to understand the ways in which Anderson uses juxtaposition of order and chaos to create humor. It is an attempt to appreciate the media through a different lens, and it is effective in its precision for doing so.

Human Test Regarding Your Creativity – No list of Video Essays would be complete without at least one entry for Ze Frank. As the ”grandfather of online video,” his work played a pivotal role in forging what Video Essays could become. In this instance, he critiques the very notion of creativity and what it means to be human. Ze Frank places seemingly nonsensical images next to incredibly earnest questions. It is partially existential yearning and partially a description of everyday life. Minus the small ad for coffee in the middle, it is a perfect Video Essay filled with nothing but questions that seemingly make more of a statement than stating the conclusion outright would.

What This Photo Doesn’t Show – While not technically another John Green video, it does feature his wonderful and resonant voice for social critique. This video takes a photographic work of art and explodes it so that we can see the true context in which it was created. This historical approach is not always present in Video Essays, but I appreciate the level of depth that it requires.

The Absolute Pleasure of the Rocky Horror Picture Show – Queer theory and critique is a rich vein of media criticism that is only aided by modern Video Essay conventions. Matt Baume’s understanding of Camp and his ability to create narrative significance around touchstone media for the queer community is on full display here. If you have never really understood “Rocky Horror” or its importance to ‘weirdos, goths, and other alternative types’ of kids, this is for you.

The Yellow Wallpaper: Crash Course Literature 407 – I could probably include all of the Crash Course as examples of ‘Peak Video Essay,’ but I am particularly drawn to Crash Course Literature because of my own affinity for literary criticism. The Yellow Wallpaper had a strong impact on me when I first read it, as I was looking for feminist works to help understand my world and the patriarchal structures that are ever-present. This Crash Course episode dives into some of the historical context for why this short story (of a bed-ridden woman who questions her sanity as she is forced to stay in a single room) was so important. Also, it is another way that I can sneak John Green into this list.

Tragedy In Comedy: Unraveling The Genius of Bo Burnham – Before Burnham’s pandemic masterpiece, Inside, was released in May of 2021, Bo Burnham’s genius was not yet well established. This Video Essay changed that for me. It let me understand where Burnham was headed, and just how impressive his type of introspection and “reflective practice” can be. Even though the video looks a little dated with inclusions of Louis CK as “establishing shots” for a type of comedian who pushes boundaries, the essay quickly moves on to what make Burnham such a unique voice. Ultimately it is a critique of modern culture, which any good Video Essay should be.

I Can’t Stop Watching Contagion – In the early parts of the pandemic, I felt absolutely trapped by the existential dread of knowing the world I knew was collapsing in on itself. I felt like all I could do was refresh twitter and watch movies. This is a very real representation of this time period, and is the best way I have found of understanding just what it was like in those initial moments. They feel so far away now in March of 2022, but in March of 2020, we knew nothing. We had no idea how bad things were going to get, and the only thing we could do is to watch Contagion and try to understand our mortality. Whenever I need a reminder of just how scared we all were, I watch this. And yes, I need to be reminded of it, because the “raw nerve” that the pandemic exposed is still very much there.

The Social Network: Sorkin, Structure, and Collaboration – This video essay is one of my favorite examples of the genre because of the direction of the first scene of the movie. It lays out the ways in which Sorkin’s writing, Eisenberg’s acting, and the college culture of the early 2000s became a perfect match for one another, making meaning out of an incredibly mundane conversation. In long works of video essay, you can forget single lines pretty easily. But, by studying the text in such great depth, as if it were poem, there is far more that can be understood about just why this white college-dropout would change the world.

Find the Hidden Opportunities – John Spencer is one of the only educators I know who understands video essays and their power. He has made visual storytelling into a teaching tool and one that resonates far beyond the confines of his own classrooms. His style of using hand drawn visuals mixed in with video excerpts shows that we are not limited to filming our critiques. We can comment on the world around us (or our given vocation) with whatever tools best suit us.

Casey Neistat: What You Don’t See – One of the best Video Essayists of all time is Casey Neistat. Although he would probably argue that his videos, when he was still making them regularly, were Vlogs. He even talks about them as Daily Vlogs much of the time. And yet, when you look at the vast majority of what he has made since March 2015, they are little movies. They are explainers of this life and of the world around him. They are critiques of his city and of the police. They are deep dives into the world of technology and the impact of wealth upon all parts of the art-making process. And the below video essay goes into all of that, but better, because it wasn’t made by Casey Neistat. Rather, it is done by one of my other favorite Video Essayists, The Nerdwriter. By having the distance that this Video Essay about a Video Essayist creates, you can actually appreciate the craft of both far more easily.

Additional Master Works of Video Essay:

• What Makes This Song Stink Ep 3 – Weezer Beverly Hills: A Retrospective
• Why I wish I didn’t get 9s in GCSE – A Spoken Word
• How did the Enigma Machine Work?
• Rendering game worlds in text
• The First Video Game
• I built myself a proud parent machine
• Why Do Crimes Expire?
• Why I’m Not a Boy
• How Southern Socialites Rewrote Civil War History
• What I’ve Learned about Community Design
• The Case for Ai Weiwei
• The Alt-Right Playbook: Always a Bigger Fish
• The Politics of the McElroy Brothers
• Why Do People Like Being Parents?
• The Iron Giant (1999) – Movies with Mikey
• It’s Not Easy Being Blue
• Draw My Life
• Hustle Culture is worse than you think…
• Adam McKay – What Is Smart Dumb Comedy
• Adaptation.
• Over the Hedge: Peak Trash
• The Failure of Victorious
• The Story of Tetris

Now that you have read a few hundred words on my favorite Video Essays and perhaps even watched a few of them, it is time to explore your own reactions to the media that saturates our world. Now, I’m not recommending that you hone your own video creation skills for years before releasing your own masterpiece of video essay. Rather, I am advocating that you make memes or share gifs or write blog posts or do something else that is, in fact, the same act of creation that video essayists do. I am saying that you are already a video essayist. You are already critiquing the movies you have seen or the books that you have read. You are a pioneer of the modern internet, and you are making meaning however you can.

But, I want you to keep going, and to feel like you are a part of this broader movement toward all of us making things as we consume. We are not merely consumers of media, we are makers of it, too. And the sooner we recognize that, the better stories we will be able to tell and the more sophisticated our understanding of the world will become.

So, as I said in 2014: We should tell the stories of us. In any way that we know how. And all of us, now, know video essays and we have the tools to create them, in our pockets.

[FYI, if you want to watch all 40 of these amazing video essays as a single playlist, here it is.]

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the industrialization of textile equipment allowed for cheaper production of clothing and disempowerment of skilled craftspeople across the industry. In the face of losing their livelihood to automated textile production technologies, the Luddites fought back. They fought for better working conditions in factories and they fought for a return to a pre-industrial era. They are known for “Machine-breaking” which was outlawed in the early 19th century as a way to ensure the Luddite movement would have severe consequences (death, in many cases).

And yet, many have noted that the Luddites were not actually anti-technology or anti-progress. Rather, they were against the poor treatment of workers and the deterioration of working conditions in the factories that implemented these technologies. They wanted high-paying jobs and skilled work for continuing to make high-quality goods. They rightly saw the “race to the bottom” for textile production (making the cheapest possible shirt, for example) was beneficial only for those who owned the factories and not for those who worked in those factories.

The Luddites were for a concept of “fair profit” in which the increase in profits from the efficiency gains of technology would be widely shared with the workers as a kind of moral imperative. They believed it was “good” for the wealth and productivity gains of industrialization to make positive change for the lives of more people and it was “bad” for those gains to have a negative impact on society by concentrating wealth in the hands of a few industrialists who, in many cases, already had the benefit of generational wealth.

Ultimately, the Luddites were defeated, as they lacked political power and the money from industrialized production easily outweighed the poor workers that were displaced by the advanced machinery. And yet, the concept of a “minimum wage” and worker’s rights continued to have an impact across multiple industry modernization efforts. Their movement was not successful in finding a way back to high-paying jobs for thousands of skilled handloom weavers, but their fight was an important one for how we understand the power technology and “progress” can have on our lives.

And perhaps, I am starting to see a movement toward a new kind of Ludditism, a new fight for the future of how money is made and who gets to control it. I believe the new fight is with Crypto and Blockchain technologies. And this time, the Luddites are going to win.

For the past few years, I had been cautiously optimistic about how blockchain technology might be beneficial for education. I was listening to folks in the Office of Educational Technology (in the US Dept. of Education) about their Education Blockchain Initiative which seeks to subvert traditional educational models in favor of transactional and credential-able learning outcomes.

I was enamored by the idea of easily transferable credentials that would not have to be verified by a single arbiter of education (a school, a business, a government entity, etc.), but would rather be verified by the whole system of learning that we had all agreed to govern the process (a distributed ledger of all learning!).

I was further excited by the idea of student ownership for their learning data and that future versions of student profiles could have their entire portfolio of learning objects stored “on the blockchain” which would allow for better reflection and demonstration of competency and progress.

And when strong and inclusive Community structures for learning became a part of the blockchain ecosystem, my head started spinning with possibility for what it could mean for educational institutions and individuals who are passionate about bringing people together to do important work (like solving for the climate crisis or creating a more equitable society).

Just imagine if you could hold “a token,” or key, to all of the resources you might need for your learning. Imagine that token was your identity and it could contain or provide access to your transcript, your job history, your “learning transactions,” and all of your assignments in an immutable ledger that requires significant storage space and computing power to add things or build upon.

And while I was continuing my cautious optimism about the ideas or the future of blockchain, crypto.com was buying stadium naming rights and Matt Damon started telling the world that investing in crypto was going to be the new frontier and we better get on board or we will be left behind (or worse, poor). The things that were actually the here and now of blockchain, the things actually being done with it in 2016-2022, were kind of terrible.

• The community was filled with misogynists.
• The verification of and transactions with NFTs are causing significant environmental impact.
• Putting private records (Medical, etc.) on a public resource (blockchain, etc.) is a true privacy nightmare.
• The kind of “Trustless” transactions that blockchain technology tout do not actually work (i.e., they encourage fraud rather than prevent it).
• The inerrancy of “math” or “code” is not a functional replacement for infrastructure made up of people and services that solve real problems they are facing.

But, all of these important “caveats” of blockchain were somehow dismissed as either “beside the point” or were not about The Future, which was obviously going to be awesome! And then I watched this video from Folding Ideas (Dan Olson):

I fully understand that you may not have the time to watch this documentary length YouTube video, but you should. You should take one of the times you would otherwise watch a movie and watch this instead. It is that good. Oh, and after watching it, there is a high likelihood that you will start to see all of the complaints about Blockchain, Crypto, and NFTs as just the opening gambit for the full truckload of terribleness that is the grift-laden blockchain hype machine.

But, in case you don’t have the time to sit down for the full video, here are a few summarized highlights that I found compelling (with linked timecodes):

• Blockchain projects (especially those around NFTs, Cryptocurrency, or gaining access to something via ownership) are inherently a “Greater Fool” scam in which the early adopters and hype-based promoters are rewarded and later adherents receive diminishing returns (38:51).
• The security of blockchain is laughable and the privacy of blockchain transactions is almost nonexistent (81:00 and 85:41).
• NFT’s (and all blockchain data) only “point to” the resource/image/asset being sold, and therefore manipulation of the NFT is as trivial as changing what the URL resolves to and the assets are infinitely copyable and can be “owned” on as many blockchains as can be created (46:47).
• One of the primary (although, unstated) goals of blockchain technology is to “tokenize everything,” making everything into a stock market that can be speculated upon (94:48).
• Organizations (like labor unions, communities of practice, schools, etc.) are too complex to be represented in code as a DAO and any of the claimed benefits (efficient bookkeeping, improved asset management, etc.) can already be done by faster technologies at a fraction of the price of running transactions on a blockchain (123:54).
• The “winners” of Crypto and blockchain projects are the same “winners” we have in more traditional financial instruments and that is why they so closely mimic the financial bubbles (and busts) of the past rather than representing a brave new world of commerce (75:16).
• Putting all of your records (passwords, credit card info, your social media profiles, etc.) into an identity on the blockchain creates a single, easily decipherable and socially engineered, point of failure that is not only impractical but has demonstrated to be an easy target for would-be thieves (80:25).
• Deflationary assets (in particular, currencies) punish the actual use of those assets, as there will never be more “tokens” or “coins” and so holding on to them is the only way to guarantee you “win” (meaning, can sell them tomorrow for more than they were worth yesterday). This means that the Crypto becomes essentially useless for tasks other than speculation (112:06).
• While decentralization has been sold as a core tenet of blockchain technology, the power over much of the “network” is concentrated in a very small number of people’s/company’s hands, and those people are not interested in further democratizing the internet (114:19).
• The power consumption for blockchain technology is entirely unnecessary, as the vast majority of the power needed is consumed doing duplicate work for verifying transactions (15:52).

I could continue to list all of the persuasive things in Dan Olsen’s video essay, but I feel as though it would just be piling on. By this point, you should recognize that Blockchain technology is bad at what it claims to do well: propose a viable alternative for economic institutions and transactions and way forward for building lasting and meaningful social institutions. You should also see that in attempting to solve for non-existent problems like man-in-the-middle attacks (31:15) or previously solved problems like conducting straw polls (125:20), it creates far worse problems for pretty much everyone involved (136:09).

This is why I am now a Crypto and Blockchain Luddite.

It isn’t enough to write snarky jokes on Twitter about Blockchain projects or do important think pieces about why paying more than a million dollars for a meme is a terrible idea. We must actively engage in “Machine-Breaking.” We must dismantle the incentives for folks to create more and more “Greater Fools.” We must not listen to the celebrity endorsements or the promises of large windfalls just over the horizon. We must not wait and see what the future of Blockchain technology holds. It is here now and no amount of hype is going to make the fundamental flaws in the technology go away.

But, what does a Blockchain Luddite believe? I have a few thoughts:

1. I believe in hard work over inscrutable schemes.
2. I believe in people and transparent processes over code and immutable ledgers.
3. I believe in shared ownership of ideas and power over individual gains and concentrated wealth.
4. I believe in equity and inquiry over toxic positivity and a hype machine.
5. I believe in sustained progress toward a better future over techno-futurists’ quick fixes.
6. I believe in building trust in and with others over creating trust-less systems.

And what can a Blockchain Luddite do to make sure that this kind of technology does not become the backbone of our economy, politics, or education?

1. Invest in local solutions to local issues. This includes investing in and supporting public schools, independent journalism, and technologies/companies that honor and value people.
2. Fight back against the hype machine wherever it presents itself. Whenever someone “makes a good point” about Crypto solving a problem (or potentially solving a problem in the future), ask if that problem could be solved better without blockchain technology. Ask if those who are “getting in now” are having the same opportunity as those who “got in” days, weeks, or months prior.
3. Do not buy Cryptocoins, NFTs, or other technologies that are based upon the Blockchain. If we do not provide more “Greater Fools,” the speculative markets will collapse.
4. Make cool things that do not leverage append-only ledger technologies or trust-less networks. Make privacy-focused opportunities for innovation. Bake equity into your technology and your organizations.

With all of this said, I do not claim to have a special kind of knowledge about the future (or the past for that matter). I am a technologist and an inquirer. I make observations based upon the information in front of me and what I can learn from others who have done the same. So, even if you aren’t ready to join me in becoming a Blockchain Luddite, I encourage you to read widely on the subject and make financial and technological decisions based upon your values and your understanding. That is the best that any of us can do.

If, on the other hand, you are ready to make Regular Progress that is not built upon the Blockchain, I’m attempting to forge a new community of people here to do just that. Blockchain Luddites of the world, unite!

Language is powerful. It has the ability to make us cry or move us to action in an instant. A few words, when written out and written on paper or pumped into our eyeballs on a screen can inspire a generation or topple a government. And because the cost of “printing” those words has gone through the floor, we no longer understand what they are capable of, what we are capable of when we use words to threaten or advocate violence.

A tweet is ephemeral. A text takes almost no thought whatsoever. A message posted to a private facebook group or the local Nextdoor community is habitual. Even, a letter sent to someone’s house after they have been doxxed is barely harder after you have been given the words to say by “your team.” We may not be inoculating ourselves to deadly viruses at the rate that will allow us to leave them behind, but we are all inoculated to language. It is around us in every moment, barely registering. Written language is water.

It is just that some of it has been poisoned.

Even though these poisoned words may cost us nothing, we must remember that they can cost others everything.

Our words:

• Can make others feel unsafe where they work.
• Can normalize lynching.
• Can make outside influence more important than local preference.
• Can build a culture of harassment and abuse.

And to what end?

What does winning look like for those who are advocating violence? Is it to live in a society where there are only those who believe as you do? Is it to have a single vision of education, politics, and the social order?

It seems now that we have ratcheted up the stakes so high that every message sent is kill or be killed. But, that isn’t all that language is for. We can speak to inspire, to create, or to empower. We can write to create opportunities for ourselves and others. We can entertain or wonder aloud. And yes, we can also dissent.

But violence is not dissent. It is not speech of any kind. In fact, it is the limiting of speech. It is making sure that others know that speech is meaningless. At least that is what it has become. For if the words you write into the little Facebook field don’t mean anything, you can say whatever you want and feel no remorse for death threats. You can keep encouraging one another to feel more and more aggrieved so that you feel justified in posting noose iconography. You can make others feel unwelcome and unsafe.

But, this is not where it ends. When words lose their meaning, violence is all we have left. And even if it isn’t dissent, it is still incredibly scary. For those of us for whom words still have meaning, we know what is coming. While it may have been true once that the pen was mightier than the sword, by making the pen impotent many feel as though the sword is all they have left.

What is it about Twitter that continues to hold my attention? Why have I invested so much of my precious time on this earth in writing a few words or sharing a few links with a seemingly indifferent internet populous?

Even though much of Twitter is wholly uninteresting, hateful, or even toxic, I can honestly say that the reason I keep coming back to the service after all of these years is the community that I find there. I can say this without a hint of irony about the same Twitter that empowered much of this country’s worst instincts. I can say this because I mean something very specific by Community.

For me, Community is not a hashtag to be thrown around or painted with a broad brush. A community serves a function.

A community:

1. Provides value to its members (although not the same value for each member).
   • I laugh frequently after reading what others have posted. I am inspired and I am angry. I am moved to action. I read and learn about new ideas. I get outside of my own little bubble of the world. The value I derive on one day is not the same as any other day. My value is not universal. It is personal.
2. Is made up of a diverse and ever-changing group of people.
   • I have mass-unfollowed everyone a half-dozen times over the last 14 years. Each time, I build a new group of individuals, sometimes political, sometimes personal, and sometimes professional. With as many types of people there are in the world, I have yet to find the end to the variation. It is incredible.
3. Receives contributions from its members based upon their varied lived experience and cultural backgrounds.
   • I want to learn from others who are different than me. Collectively, we know far more than we could ever know individually. I will likely never live in Paris nor will I ever know what it means to grow up Black in a Southern state. On Twitter, I can learn from both experiences. And that is the contribution they give to the community: the gravity of their own lives.
4. Has a common language that is always adding new words, memes, and touchstone moments.
   • We didn’t always have retweets, hashtags, or @ mentions. We didn’t always know how to thread conversations together. These things have grown up because we needed a reason for them to exist. Their reason is community, and that shared understanding of the platform helps to build deeper connections.
5. Has a shared self-selected purpose, even if that purpose only lasts for the duration of a single afternoon.
   • Many of us use twitter to comment on the world around us. When we are in a shared moment (a major world event, a political movement, etc.), we can engage in the same conversation. We amplify and build upon one another’s voices. This is a shared purpose, even if it is just a 3 hour football game.
6. Contributes to a larger public conversation.
   • One of the most important aspects of Twitter is that Tweets (for the most part) are publicly available and publicly searchable. It is the opposite of Facebook groups and pages because those spaces let anyone hide behind the garden walls. When people share on Twitter, they are speaking in public. And, that let’s us learn from anyone.

And yet, the same things that make this Twitter community so strong are the things that make it amorphous and often unfulfilling. The concept that “anyone can tweet” presents a challenge for maintaining long-running conversations or building deeper bonds within a community. Ideas can be co-opted or hijacked in an instant, and until now, Twitter has lacked the tools to fight against the base instincts of an internet mob.

But, that may be changing.

Yesterday, I was invited to take part in the Twitter Communities beta. This means that I can now have a space (exactly one, actually) with a set of community rules and a shared understanding for what should happen there. These are the ones that I came up with:

While these may change over time as the community grows, these were my first instincts for how to create a space that is only the best of what Twitter has to offer. And when I finally created the “Regular Progress” community, it felt like I was getting back what it felt like to scream into the void in 2007 and have a dozen or so strangers respond.

I wonder if you might like to join me there. Maybe you too would like to help “Chronicle the Regular Progress we are all making, whether that is in parenting, politics, or personal growth.”

We aren’t just going to share #wins, but also what we have learned from our losses. We are going to be real, whole, human beings in this space, and I would love for you to take part. And I hope, after spending some time there and sharing your progress, you will come to believe what I do about Twitter: Community Rules.

It is a ritual I complete every morning. And more or less, my counter looks like this when I’m done:

You see, our dishwasher is broken. It stopped working over a year ago, and I don’t anticipate getting it fixed any time soon. It isn’t because I’m overly cheap or because I think that I can fix it myself (I’m not and I can’t). Rather, my dishwasher will remain broken because I like doing the dishes, by hand.

There are very few visible accomplishments in my day. Most of the progress I make, is nearly imperceptible. Whether that is a deeper relationship with my oldest child or the dozens of applications that I review for role at Minerva University, there is no physical manifestation of the work I am doing. The dishes are different.

When I do the dishes, I know when I have scrubbed each one enough to consider it clean. I can see the food residue coming off as a result of my (not so) steady hands. I am making a difference in the clutter of my kitchen, ensuring that each of these dishes will find their way back home in the course of the day. I am responsible for them, and I love making good on the promise I make to myself each day, knowing that I will complete this task and have something to (literally) show for it.

I also wash dishes by hand because I know the outcome. Unlike most of the other actions I take in a day, doing the dishes is a known quantity. When I ask my children to clean up their room, I am often surprised by the result. Going to the grocery store has a million possibilities and I know that I will be influenced by a thousand different advertising decisions that others have made to ensure I buy their product. There are no such competing priorities or mysterious options when I turn to a sink of dirty dishes. Each dish passes through my hands going from one state to another. It is transformed in the time I take with it, which is not something I can say for every email I send or errand I run. I am not typically changed by the experience. But, these dishes are. They are clean. And, I know this because I am the one that is doing it. I am the one ushering them to a new state, ready to fulfill their purpose once again.

Washing dishes by hand, also affords me one more thing that I so desperately need: time with myself while not looking at a screen. Because the dishes require a certain level of care and attention, I am forced to look away from the shiny object in my pocket. Because I have to cover my hands in soap and water, there is no room for electronic devices in the mix. It is, with the possible exception of cooking and eating food with my family, one of the only times in my day where I don’t even have that option. It is glorious. For 30-60 minutes of every morning, I have removed the ever-present visual stimulus. My thoughts are my own as I work to remove the bit of ketchup on the plate or milk from the bottom of the glass.

And sometimes, during the best dish washing sessions, I can even be inspired. I have listened to books that have made me change the way I think about oppression and societal hierarchy. I have listened to podcasts that have brought me out of the doldrums I was feeling or made me cry for the sheer beauty of collective humanity. I have also listened to my own thoughts and had important realizations about my marriage and my own happiness.

Washing the dishes by hand is a “life hack.” It gives me far more than clean cups and plates. It gives me a better day, every day.

I live in Colorado, and when it snows, it is incredible. These huge fluffy flakes come down and start to accumulate almost immediately. They create a effortless blanket on my miniature lawn, my postage stamp driveway, and my too small sidewalk (mostly it just functions as a curb to designate the difference between the road and the driveway). It covers everything, elegant and undisturbed.

But, this is where the magic of the south facing house comes in. Because of our altitude and the number of sunny days in suburban Denver, the sun will start to sublimate the snow from the moment it rises. So long as I don’t drive over it or walk through it, the snow is most often gone from my driveway by 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon. This includes snowfalls of more than 6 inches in an evening and sunny days where the temperature is below freezing.

It is an incredible gift that I take full advantage of. Often, I have boasted that I have never shoveled my driveway in the 13 years that I have lived here. This may sound crazy to those of you who live on the east coast or in a “snow belt” like I did growing up where the cold weather would pick up moisture from the lake and “dump” huge piles upon your house.

And yet, there are those who are not content to let me hold on to this little bit of magical grace. On the rare occurrence that it is not a sunny day after a large storm, the snow does not disappear and we are left with the white blanket for multiple days. And sometimes, as people walk through the snow, those footprints will turn to ice.

One such occurrence was last week, when it took 5 whole days for the snow on my driveway to melt. During this time period, I patiently waited for the sun to work its magic, but it was too cold and the sun was too often playing peekaboo with the clouds.

It was during this time that I received a letter, presumably from one of my neighbors:

This letter certainly had the desired effect. I dutifully got out my shovel (a yard shovel, because I don’t own a snow shovel, as I am really committed to the bit about the magical sun) and got the icy-snow off of the sidewalk that measures less than two feet across. It took less than 10 minutes.

The issue is that I don’t really know how to feel about this letter.

This neighbor is not being mean. They did not accuse me of trying to make them fall or of targeting them specifically. They were simply asking me to be a “good neighbor.”

But then my brain started doing somersaults when I turned to think about this neighborhood and what it takes to be a “good neighbor.” To be a good neighbor here, you have to do the following:

• Enshrine in HOA bylaws that Black Lives Matter flags are banned but all others are perfectly fine.
• Throw shade at all those who chose to send their kids to the new neighborhood school when the boundaries change.
• Leave dogs outside to bark at one another for hours on end. And then call and complaining about “the other people’s” dogs to anyone who will listen.
• Make it prohibitively hard to update your home by creating a committee of homeowners to review improvement requests that only has a single (unmotivated) member, for months on end.
• Disparage the cars being parked on the street to the point of having them ticketed and removed.

Being a “good neighbor” can mean a lot of things, but it requires that you live in a “neighborhood.”

It requires that you respect the difference among you. It takes an understanding of what might be going on for an individual who, for whatever reason, chooses to not shovel their driveway. It may be that they are physically unable. It may be that they find the numerous trails 100 yards outside of our tiny neighborhood to be far superior to the small sidewalks within it. It may be that they have been having a hard week and would prefer to let inessential things go.

And yet, it may all just be a fiction that I am telling myself in order to get out of contributing in such a small way to others. Why should I make my own issues with the neighborhood into everyone else’s. Perhaps I should just suck it up and shovel the sidewalk.

I’ll let you judge for yourself.

This is what my driveway looked like this morning at 8:29:

This is what it looked like at 2:50 this afternoon:

Why would you want to interrupt this magic?

I set up my first bank account with Wells Fargo when I arrived for college in Colorado during the fall in 2001. It was in the local Safeway branch that was within walking distance from The University of Denver. It was convenient-ish to go down the street and get money out for the weekend. What really got the hooks in, though, was when I met my wife. She too had a Wells Fargo account and we just ended up merging all of the finances.

We opened business accounts and savings accounts. We took out a loan to pay for our badly needed new windows. We used these accounts for incredibly boring reasons and to do impressively mundane things like paying our mortgage and paying off student debt.

But, yesterday we quit doing even that. I went into a branch near my house and closed down every account that we had with Wells Fargo. After 21 years, we no longer have a need for them.

And, as I received the “close out” checks and signed the digital paperwork, I used my phone as my Digital ID (which is one of the more incredible things about Colorado). I then deposited those checks with my phone into our last checking account in existence (at Key). Then I went to get a coffee, using my watch to pay for it.

While I sipped that coffee, I read that Apple is enabling anyone to become a merchant and to receive payment just by tapping their phones together. For a while now, you have been able to send and receive money on your phone. Services like Venmo, Cash App, or Apple Pay Cash have become absolutely pervasive. So much so, that it seems odd in any situation that requires a “routing number” or a even a physical card.

So, am I a Bank now?

The things I used to need Wells Fargo for when I was 18 hardly seem to matter. Cash is almost nonexistent in my life, such that ATMs feel like a novelty. I have not written a check in years and I’m pretty sure my kids will never write one. All of my bills are paid online (even if I hate the little fees that some folks still think are appropriate). I pay people back with Venmo. I pay for services with Cash App. My phone provides more functionality and a higher level of service than a bank branch, and there are no minimum balances to worry about or weird transfer setups that are required in order to have a specific type of account that gives better interest rates. (This was an actual process we had to do for years at Wells Fargo, in which we had to create a monthly recurring $100 transfer back and forth between two business accounts.)

I still do very boring things with my money. I buy groceries. I pay off debt. I try to make good decisions about my credit. But, I have opened my very last bank account. And if I wanted to, I could manage everything from my phone (including getting paid with direct deposit.) I am convinced this is a good thing. It is progress for me, and for the rest of us for whom going into a bank is an incredible hassle. It is better to have the tools for commerce at my fingertips.

Just this week, I donated to political candidates who are advocating for equity via text. I gave money to a student who wrote something I found essential. I paid for a digital gaming service that gave my children a weekend of joy. This was all from my phone and without any friction whatsoever. These too are boring things to do with money, but I’m pretty sure they are fundamentally changing our relationship to our devices, to corporations, and to each other. Hopefully for the better.

[Caveat: All of the above is coming from a incredible place of privilege. I am well aware that many parts of the country still rely upon cash. I also know that being “unbanked” is a huge issue for folks who cannot establish credit or get loans. I am attempting to comment on the current state of my own personal banking needs and these observations are likely not widely representative of all generations, races, or socioeconomic levels. However, I believe that these advances in technology and practice have the potential to provide banking, credit development, and other services in a far more democratized fashion than previous eras. I hope this is leading us to a better and more equatable place with money, but I have certainly been wrong before.]

And yet, I now find the concept of Mastery to be severely lacking.

Why should we strive to master concepts or disciplines in the same way that others might master human beings (you know, slavery)? Why should we encourage children to pursue mastery when that word implies a singular feat, a destination to be reached by competing with and dominating others. There is no final state of learning. You will never become the master of math or reading (or basketball, for that matter). You can only continue on your path, one distinct from every other.

And it isn’t just the word, its definition, or its origin that I am struggling with. When you look up all of the other words you might replace it with, you realize just how gendered and fraught the whole endeavor is:

We should not seek to be “Big Daddy’s” of our learning or the “owner” of all knowledge. As educators and leaders, it is not for us to be the opposite of our “pupils.” We are on the same journey, and it isn’t triangle shaped with the “Archetypes” at the top and everyone else who is striving to climb a fictional ladder to be installed as the final “champion” of education.

I believe we are experiencing the golden age of learning. We have access to everything we need to authentically make progress in any pursuit we like. This is happening every day with Youtube mechanics, Wikipedia scholars, and Medium storytellers and journalists. We just lack the words to adequately describe the process of moving from a lack of knowledge to a significant amount of expertise and understanding.

Furthermore, we lack the language to differentiate between those “doing their own research” and those who are applying the scientific methods (or other rigorous frameworks to establish objectivity and validity). If we claim “expertise” or “mastery,” we are claiming a high ground, no matter how rocky the footing is. If we continue to build our educational systems (including those employed within organizations in the guise of Professional Development) based upon those who have developed Mastery, we are setting ourselves up to be disappointed. We will never get there. We will always find ourselves fighting against hierarchy and gatekeeping because our language makes it so.

If there is one Master, then the rest of us are servants. At least until we can be Masters ourselves. This dichotomous language doesn’t serve us well. So, I would like to propose a change.

Inquiry is the new Mastery.

If we frame the spectrum from Naïveté to Inquiry, there is no final state. Inquiry goes on forever. Inquirers thirst for information and can always find more. While Masters dictate truth, Inquirers make meaning from the world around them. Inquiry serves us far better in a world where there are far too many sources to ever know the whole story. The authentic quest for learning is is the goal, not Mastery of some fictional ideal.

Better yet, Inquiry is actually possible, whereas Mastery is always out of our reach. Even the most incredibly talented individuals experience “imposter syndrome,” but no one is ever done learning. Orienting our systems toward inquiry and becoming better at learning over time is the best tool we have for combating misinformation and skepticism for well-established research methods.

So, whenever you find yourself advocating for Mastery, please take a pause. It is likely that you want Inquiry. You want to be a passionate inquirer, an experienced inquirer, an open inquirer. You want others to inquire with you, as teammates, colleagues, or friends. You don’t want to be Masters over them. You want them to go on the voyage with you.

By changing our language we may just be able to start inviting others into our world, not as subjects which must pay fealty, but as inquiry companions. To get us started, maybe we should all post the universal sign to indicate our movement away from Mastery: Inquire Within.

They were no longer civil servants who spent a great deal of money to join a profession with very little monetary upside. Teaching was no longer a vocation to which people heed the call but rather a dead-end job of last resort. Teachers were not kind. They did not care for, or even teach, your children. Rather, they were a liability, a parasite leaching off of the perfection of your kids for a paycheck. 

At least that is what you would think if you only read the Facebook comments.

In particular, the comments that were so well highlighted by Nick Covington, an History teacher from Iowa, in a debate about whether to put cameras in every classroom of a school for the expressed reason of “seeing what our children are being taught.”

This thread struck such a chord with me because it seems so foreign and such a drastic departure from the discourse that I was a part of as a teacher in the first decade of this century. And yet, it follows directly from the rhetoric of fear that has been pervasive in many other areas of our lives, from politics to healthcare. 

I felt so strongly, that I felt compelled to respond. Not to poke fun at the outlandishness, but rather to delve into what is really being asked for and seeing if these words can stand on their own when they are taken out of the toxic cesspool that are Facebook parent groups:

This is the clearest indication that many parents do not know how to navigate the publicly available curriculum of their schools. The information about which books are being taught, which textbooks are being purchased, and which teaching resources are being utilized is not a secret. In fact, the vast majority of these decisions are made at a district level and are available via open records requests. The need for cameras is entirely misplaced, given the wealth of opportunity that is afforded to parents for engaging with the transparent way that public schools have to make purchases and provide records.

This seems like an innocent enough statement, as we have come to believe in the proliferation of “body cams” for police officers as a true asset for public awareness and accountability of bad actors among them. And yet, this would require us to see students as (potential) criminals, and I find it hard to believe that parents want their students to be thought of in that way.

The issue is that Cameras do not discriminate. They will pick up hate speech from everyone. They pick up the vulnerable moments of kindness from all. They will pick up the mistakes of every single fifth grader who hasn’t figured out the boundaries of acceptable behavior. They will pick up the machinations of an ill-informed teen who is bullying a classmate for their differences (politically, socioeconomically, racially). It is a statement of belief that all behavior should be policed. And the results of that are that all children will be prosecuted for their transgressions, not just the adults that you think are “doing harm.” And yes, that includes your children. Read this statement another way, “If your children have nothing to hide, they will hide nothing.” When your kids are the ones under suspicion, how much do you want cameras in the classroom?

It is obvious from this statement that this individual does not trust teachers, but what is less obvious is she also do not trust her children (or the children of the other parents in this Facebook group). If she trusted her children, she would not worry about multiple viewpoints in the classroom. She would know that her children would be able to critically evaluate “woken, leftist or progressive beliefs” and reject them as inferior ideologies. Instead, she sees her hold on her children’s minds as so tenuous that even the mention of equity in a classroom will somehow turn them away from an “america first” perspective.

So, I have to wonder, is this belief system so fragile, so uneasy and ill-conceived, that it will all crumble if it is presented with an opposing viewpoint? If “progressive beliefs” are that powerful and persuasive, it is a marvel that any other viewpoints have survived in the face of them.

As for the respect argument, I would love to probe into what it would take to “earn” this woman’s respect. Does she want each of her children’s teachers to share lesson plans with her for approval? Does she want the teachers to take a loyalty oath to her way of thinking? Or, perhaps it would be better for the teachers to simply have the vague threat of being fired perpetually hang over them because of cameras in the classroom. That would certainly earn her respect, right?

Or, is it rather, that she is afraid that her children will learn to think for themselves and question the things that she has taught in her home? She would certainly see that as disrespectful! And that kind of disrespect is something that she will not stand for. Her children are her own. They are not independent thinkers. They are not capable of making their own decisions. They do not deserve respect. Oh wait…

My only response to such thinking is this:

Surveillance is not inevitable.

It is a choice that we make each day. It is a stance that we take in our public and private spaces as to whether or not we actually want all of our lives to be recorded and available to others to parse through and find objection with. We do not need to “suck it up and deal with it.” We should fight the invasion of our privacy, and think critically about any time that we invite surveillance into our lives (Ring doorbells, etc.). We should question the need for more data and inform others whenever data is being collected because it isn’t just what is being done today with these recordings. Today they exist as simple video files on a hard drive somewhere. But, what would happen if you had trillions of video files that could be used to train machine learning in order to “spot suspicious behavior” or “determine intent” before actions occur? This is not about what these cameras are capable of in this moment, it is what these cameras allow for in the future.

We are definitely at a crossroads in our discourse about the education of our children. From clandestine board meetings to remove employees with a lifetime of service to debates about whether or not our history can be taught in our schools, this is not an easy time for teachers to care deeply for our kids. These are important conversations, and ones we should be having. But, let’s do it in the open. Let’s not hide behind private Facebook groups where we can whip each other up into a frenzy. Let us have good-faith arguments about our educational standards and the scope and sequence of our curricula. But, let’s root it in the agency that kids have over their own lives. They are the ultimate beneficiaries (or casualties) of our decisions, so let’s make sure they are rooted in the hard-fought history of the last 50 years and not just the last 50 months.

Also, don’t put cameras in classrooms, please! It is a terrible idea.

Teenagers are a construct that has propelled popular culture forward for 100 years. But, prior to the end of the first World War, they mostly didn’t exist. It wasn’t that somehow people skipped from age 12 to 20, but rather that there was no pause between childhood and adulthood before the advent of child labor laws and the progressive political movements that supported them. In 1900, children (10-15) made up nearly twenty percent of the work force. A generation later, this was seen as an affront to the family and to the normal progress of young people.

In 2014, Director Matt Wolf made a film from the perspective of these individuals who had magically been transformed into “Teenagers.” He did so by looking at existing archival footage (and the stories that surround them) of Teenagers in The United States, England, and Germany:

Within these vignettes of newly minted “Teens,” the movie explores the rise of political and social power for students around the world. It shows how seductive night life was (thus, flappers) and how much the Nazi’s (and to a lesser extent, the communists) relied upon the zeal of young people to affirm their ambitions. As the youth started to see themselves as the inevitable future of the world, it was clear that they wanted to be a part of something big. And Fascism was about the biggest and newest thing you could find in the late 1920s and early ’30s.

In the beginning, Fascism was a form of rebellion. It was going against the established world order. Fascists were the underdog class, trying to come to power. Their ideas were not yet mainstream, and for a generation of kids for whom rebellion was a rite of passage, fascism felt like a logical extension.

One such German teenager describes her plight this way, “parents complained about the unemployment and poverty, but they didn’t do a think. [I] wanted action. So, [I] joined the Hitler youth. My mother expected to be unquestioning and obedient, like the maids. But, I rebelled. I wanted to be different – to escape from my narrow childish life… to be allowed to belong to a community which embraced the whole youth of the nation.”

And yet, once the fascists (Adults) were in power and the kids fully realized what fascism meant, once they saw the hate and the death that came along with imposing a racial and ideological hierarchy, teenagers no longer flocked to it. Their culture-setting rebellion shifted to asking for more freedom and more opportunities for expression.

So much so that by 1945, the teenagers of that era wrote their own “Teen-Age Bill of Rights,” which states that Teenagers should have the following:

• The right to let childhood be forgotten
• The right to a “Say” about his own life.
• The right to make mistakes to find out for himself.
• The right to have rules explained, not imposed.
• The right to have fun and companions.
• The right to question ideas.
• The right to be at the romantic age.
• The right to a fair chance and opportunity.
• The right to struggle toward his own philosophy of life.
• The right to professional help whenever necessary.

These statements (in particular the right to question ideas and struggle toward your own philosophy) is how I know that Fascism will never truly be “cool,” at least not for very long. While hatred and bigotry may be interesting for a season, it is the teenage propensity to question ideas and construct their own theories about the world that will never let it become the dominant philosophy.

So long as we never return to putting children to work in large numbers, there will always be a class of people with enough time and attention to rebel against the current political “prevailing wisdom.” And if we should ever again find ourselves on the brink of war, we should turn to the youth of the world (the ones who will actually fight that war) and they will help pull us back from the precipice.

While it is emphatically true that children are the future, it is the teenagers who are the arbiters of what that future will actually be. And somehow, the fleeting interests of youth are a lot more reassuring than the entrenched opinions of the old right now.

“Forgiveness is not a hot tub time machine. Forgiveness brings about a new reality.”

We cannot go back in time to before we caused others trauma. We cannot undo what is already done. We are still the same person who made the mistake. We don’t get a do-over, and we do not get to cover it up as if nothing happened.

And when I ask for forgiveness, I am not asking for those impossibilities to occur. Instead, I am asking for those who I have wronged to co-create a future in which we are both equal stakeholders. When that forgiveness is granted, the new reality that I am presented with is infinitely better than the one that came before.

It feels simple. And yet, it is so incredibly hard. To ask. And to forgive.

Which is why it was some kind of beautiful coincidence that I was also introduced to a simple way to facilitate such a conversation this week. Via a LunchClub meeting (a free networking service that I have used to meet over 90 incredible human beings during the pandemic), I was introduced to Victoria Yeung. Through her Canadian consulting firm, Nonsequitur, she and her co-founder have built out a series of notecards that are “fill-in-the-blank” versions of apologies:

Along with their incredible Apology Guide workflow, this kind of simplified version of asking for forgiveness makes me think that there is hope for us all to bring about a new reality, together. So, how might we use this process? How might we bring about new Political realities? Or, new Marital realities? Or, new realities for religious tolerance? Or, perhaps, just a new reality for the divided neighborhoods and communities we inhabit in 2022.

MAGA could apologize for assuming that only their votes should count. Leftists could apologize for impugning hard working police that are trying to bring about social justice from within a racist system. Christians could apologize for demonizing all other religions. Average Israelis could apologize to average Palestinians for their oppressive policies.

I fully recognize that it isn’t that simple, and that having a notecard doesn’t guarantee that forgiveness happens. And yet, when faced with the alternative, a world in which we only move further apart from one another, forgiveness is the only way forward. I wish that we would choose it more often.

In November of 2010, I became the first ever Online Community Manager for Edmodo. I was the 13th employee at a startup that was barely two years old. It was my first remote position, and also my first role outside of public education. This is how I framed it to those I left behind in the Douglas County School District:

In the past 7 years in Douglas County, both as a Teacher and as the Online Learning and Technology Resource Specialist I have been supported and fulfilled in my work. In fact, I can’t imagine a better way to have started my working life. From a very young age I wanted to be a teacher, and I always said that I would only leave the classroom in order to create change on a larger scale. Once I was in a district position created to do just that, I promised I would only leave Douglas County if my vision for online communities led me to something that was bigger than any district. I believe that I have found that thing. 

It was certainly “bigger” than my role in a school district or in the classroom. It is true that in my role at Edmodo, I worked with thousands of teachers across hundreds of schools. I brought “the good news” about social learning networks and hybrid learning pedagogies to schools that had never experienced it. In other words, it was an exciting time to be an “Influencer” at a company on the forefront of educational innovation.

I stayed less than a year.

Now, this happened for a lot of reasons. I struggled in a remote position at a time where the best tools for team communication were group Skype chats. I chafed in a role with an overly “attentive” supervisor. The health insurance situation at a startup is rough, and my COBRA plan for keeping Kaiser as my family’s insurance provider capped out at 12-16 months. But, none of that really mattered in the end. I left Edmodo because I wasn’t happy.

I wasn’t happy because my theory of change was intensely flawed. I believed that by increasing the scale in which I was creating change was directly proportional to my own sense of purpose and happiness. I believed that by reaching thousands of teachers (and through their classrooms, tens of thousands of students), I would be serving a greater purpose. I would be introducing new learning modalities and opportunities for collaboration that I had experienced in my own classroom, but there was something lost in the pursuit of that goal.

Scale is a seductive myth.

It is a myth because the things I learned in my own classroom, cobbling together a set of tools that worked for my students specifically was not the same as learning from a single platform that is ready-made for ”digital education.” It is seductive because you can talk yourself into the idea that by getting everyone on board with Edmodo, Google Classroom, Moodle, Schoology, Canvas, Blackboard, or any number of other tools, you are doing something fundamentally “Good for Kids.”

“Creating change on a larger scale” is only possible if you don’t care what kind of change you are creating. And, I did care about the kind of change I was making, and not all of that change was for the better. The change I made in creating Edmodo’s first online “Help Center” was to ensure that teachers became advocates for a product instead of a practice. The change I made in getting whole schools and districts to move their classrooms into Edmodo was to help create an environment where the classroom is never missing from the students’ lives, whether that classroom is a positive and supportive place or not.

The purpose of my work is not generic. It is not to build better general purpose tools or to make learning better in the abstract. The purpose of my work is to learn as much as I can in the time that I have, and to make the spaces I inhabit a more connected, equitable, and inclusive place for others to do their learning. As it turns out, there is no single product or organization who does that. But in 2010, I didn’t know that yet.

In 2010, I believed that change was sufficient. I believed that if we only got enough people to move away from worksheets and paper-based textbooks and move toward online communities all of our education systems would get magically better. Hint: they did not. That is why I left. It is why I have yet to join another company or organization who believes they are going to “transform education at scale” without first doing the deep work of understanding the impact that the transformation will have on others.

And that is also why I took a good long look at another educator who just this week has made the decision to leave a prominent role in public education in order to “make pedagogy a conversation that defies its usual container” (if that quote doesn’t make sense to you, I highly recommend reading Sean’s full post). He is making his own decisions for his own reasons. I cannot judge him, as I have made very similar decisions for very similar reasons.

And yet, it is my sincere hope that the kind of change that Sean Michael Morris ends up creating at Course Hero is the kind of specific change that he actually believes in. I deeply enjoyed (most of) the people I worked with at Edmodo. I loved being able to see into dozens of classrooms a day and talk with teachers from around the world. I am even proud of the work I did to empower teachers and students to be better collaborators and creators in their classrooms. But, I do not believe in Edmodo any more than I believe in Apple. And, I absolutely do not believe in indiscriminate change.

If, as is suspected from at least a few “opinion havers” online, Sean’s role at Course Hero does not align with the values he has written about for years (student ownership of learning, skepticism for surveillance edtech, etc.), I fully expect him to move on just as I did from Edmodo. I expect that he will take everything that he learns from Course Hero and become even better at advocating for the kind of change that I know he deeply believes in and passionately fights for.

Full Disclosure: I was directly responsible for choosing Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel to keynote the leadership strand for the Innovative Education Colorado Annual Conference in 2019. I did this because I read An Urgency of Teachers, and I wanted others to know of their work in writing such an essential book for modern educators.

Feeling safe is a privilege. Not everyone does.

I don’t fear for my life in the way that many Ukrainians are just waiting for Russia to rein down upon them. I don’t worry about domestic abuse or being tracked by a jealous spouse. I don’t fear others around me as I walk or run down the streets of my neighborhood. I am not even a little concerned that my windows will get smashed out of my car while it is parked.

In fact, I have almost nothing to fear from others in my safe little existence. And so, what are my responsibilities to others as I traverse the world unmolested?

Late last week I heard a quote that traces back to Lilla Watson (an aboriginal/human rights activist from Australia in the 1970s and 80s) that resonated deeply and presents an answer to this question:

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

I believe that my liberation is not the same as my relative safety. I am not free, until others can feel the kind of safety I feel as I walk into a mall as a white man. I am not fully liberated until others are not tracked and policed with black-box technology. And, my responsibility to others is to ensure that my safety doesn’t make other people less safe.

By retreating from the city-center of Denver, I am taking my resources and my attention away from the spaces where safety is not assured. But, I can also bring those issues (of scarcity, of institutional racism, of poverty-induced crime, and of mental health needs) to my own environment. I can speak about and amplify the voices of those who are working to create the kind of safety I feel.

And, get this, I am willing to feel less safe. Because my feelings, at the end of the day, do not matter. I am not less safe for having a more diverse world. I am not less safe because traditionally excluded individuals becomes more included in circles of power and influence. I am not less safe when more of the population has access to the basic rights of health care, education, and a economic opportunity.

And conversely, I am not willing to feel more safe by ignoring the oppression of others (or, actively working toward it). My safety is bound up with the safety of those who do not already have it. And, yours is too.

In 2005, it didn’t seem all that controversial to me to include stories of the holocaust in the curriculum. The Book Thief had just come out and was a flying off of the library shelves in our school. The only thing that ever made my students uncomfortable about the book were the brief scenes of naked (Mouse) bodies during the scenes in Auschwitz. This seemed like a pretty normal reaction, given how uncomfortable most 7th/8th graders are with their own bodies. The book worked well within our interdisciplinary curriculum (the Social Studies teacher and I would make sure we were integrating our lessons together so that the historical context of the Holocaust was understood as they read the book).

But, here is the most important part: The Kids Learned. A lot.

That is what is missing from a lot of the conversation around Maus being banned by a school district in Tennessee. The kids learn from this book. They weren’t just looking at the pictures or learning about the history of the systematic extinction of the Jews. Instead, the middle schoolers took the graphic novel as a serious literary work of non-fiction. They did textual analysis and justified their thinking with images and quotes from the book. They also learned empathy and how to spot power dynamics in speech. In short, they were students, reading a book to understand themselves and the world around them.

But, you don’t have to take my word for it. In a rare moment of future-proofing, I had my students share some of their thinking about the book on Slideshare, which somehow still exists in 2022. These were my instructions for the assignment in the third year of teaching the book to my classes:

Frame analysis:

• Describe- Describe the frame in detail. Make sure you find even the smallest pieces of information that are hiding within the illustration.
• Explain- Explain the meaning of each of the objects and details in this frame. What do these things symbolize or represent? Why does the author use this image instead of another one? What message is the author trying to convey through this frame?
• Expand- Show how this frame and its different meanings relate to the rest of the book or to your own life.

These are some of their responses that I found most relevant for the current debate about this book. As you look at them, remember, if this book were banned in my school district, these students would have missed out on this learning. And I ask you, what is worth that?

When I read these passages from my former 7th and 8th grade students, I know just what we are giving up by banning these books and encouraging censorship in our classrooms. This is what is at stake, and while I know that there is no “sacred text” that should be taught in every classroom, this should always be an option for students. Our kids are smart enough, empathetic enough, and mature enough to handle these important issues. We should not be afraid to let them do so.

COVID and Vaccination politics are making for some very strange communication coming from my children’s school district, Littleton Public Schools. This week, every parent with at least one student in the district received a notice that Littleton was discontinuing the use of school buildings as community vaccination clinics. On the face of it, it seems reasonable enough. The school district can decide what it wants to do with its buildings during non-school hours (3-7 PM). And yet, the reason for this change is anything but reasonable.

According to the letter sent by the district superintendent on January 25, 2022, the issue arose when the district learned “the State of Colorado does not require minors to be accompanied by a parent or guardian as long as parental consent is collected and shared prior to the appointment through the vaccine provider’s online scheduling system.” This means that students could sign up online for a vaccine and mark that they have parental consent, even though they might not. They could then receive the vaccine without the parents ever being involved.

And, as it turns out, a few of them did just that. The access to a potentially life-saving vaccine was too much for some parents, though. They were ”outraged” when their children exercised free will and circumvented the intent of the system in order to get vaccinated. But, the parents were not outraged at their children for making this decision. Instead, the ire of the anti-vaccination parents was directed at the school district for providing access to the clinic.

The situation was further complicated by the fact that this flawed vaccination procedure was ”uncovered” by a couple of students who posed as older than they were and/or falsified written parental consent and then captured the process on camera. It was a deliberate attempt to eliminate the clinic, as they knew that the “outrage” would soon follow.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

We can’t have a fully vaccinated public because we are afraid of providing access to it for all who want it for fear of upsetting those who do not. We can’t embrace personal responsibility because we believe that the actions taken by an individual do not matter, only the actions of an institution that followed their own procedures. We can’t take a stand for public health or collective action as a school district because we fear the impact it will have on the reputation of the district.

This is all done ”for the kids.” It is in their name that both the inclusion of the clinic at a school building, and ultimately the removal of that clinic were done. But, how can it be both? How can it be “for the kids” if we are simply teaching them that the way to get rid of something you don’t like is to create a “fake outrage” amongst those who are already outraged at the science of vaccination? How can it be ”for the kids” when everyone in the district receives a letter that we care more about the feelings of a few parents than we do about letting kids make informed decisions about their own health.

I believe that this kind of communication sets a dangerous precedent. Clearly, the district felt as though they had no choice. They cannot be seen to support students getting around parental consent. They cannot be seen to advocate for kids not listening to their parents. And so, the precedent is clear. My children’s school district does not stand by the science or information literacy that they are teaching. They do not stand by the students who need a way to circumvent the ill-informed opinions of their parents. And ultimately, the school district communicated to one and all that the people with the power to change things are the ones who lie and then are offended by what those lies allow.

I am disappointed with the decision to close down this clinic. But, I am even more disappointed with why the decision was made. It was ostensibly made “for the kids,” and yet, it feels to me like it really was “for the parents.” When we make decisions about public health and public education with outraged parents as the only stakeholder, we are doing it wrong.

The Victorian era (and the Regency era that preceded) is fascinating to me. It was a time of great change, and of great reckoning for entrenched ideas of class and gender. It was a time in which marriage and the unions of property and status were major concerns (at least for wealthy white people who were powerful enough to have many popular stories written about them). It also established many of our notions of romantic love and feminine virtue. It is the original era that we rail against when we speak about progress, but also the one we turn to for the best hint about how things can change quickly (for the better).

I find myself turning to this era, again and again, in books, tv shows, and movies. I turn to it so that I may escape current events that feel unmoored from what I had believed were the foundations of our society. I also turn to it to help understand the last time that ”the modern world” intruded into the private lives of all people and fundamentally changed what was possible. The internal combustion engine, communication tools like the phonograph and telegraph, and more efficient textile manufacturing provided access to the kind of life that was only possible for the very rich in previous generations. This new opportunity presented a challenge to the established order that had to be worked through via gradually (excruciatingly so, in some cases) providing more rights for everyone with this new access.

I find so much resonance with our current time. We have had the great revolution of access once again (or maybe everything is just a continuation of the access the printing press gave), but we have yet to fully work through what it means for how we relate to one another. When everyone has equal access, how do the power structures need to change to match? When we can all have up to the minute fashion and technology, what need have we for the rules that were established when we did not?

There are lessons to be found within our art about the start of the last great shift toward democratization and away from rigid class and gender roles. I aim to find them. So, this is my tour through the media that I have come back to again and again (watching Pride and Prejudice (2005) a dozen times in the last year alone). It is what I have learned through the stories of unrequited love and unspoken truth:

• Pride and Prejudice (2005) – The very human drama of fighting for love despite family and societal obligation comes through in this adaptation. In one of my favorite scenes, Lizzie (played by Keira Knightly) is looking around at Pemberley manor (Mr. Darcy’s home) and she comes to a marble sculpture of Mr. Darcy amongst all of the priceless works of art in his collection. Even with all of the weight of history surrounding her, she is able to understand that her life is not cold and calculating. It is not marble, perfectly sculpted. She can walk amongst it and pull someone who is ”made of stone” into the real world, conjuring him into existence as an act of love. This transition from the ”asthetic perfection” of the ideal to the very real choices that we have to make as humans is something we must do now. We are not striving for a perfect collection that is dead and uninfluenced by modern life. Instead, we are striving for the living and breathing version of ourselves, making hard decisions and making progress.
• Pride and Prejudice (1995, Mini-series) – This is, by most estimations, the most enduring version of this story. For me, though, it all boils down to a single scene in which Lizzie is walking from her home to the nearby manor inhabited by Mr. Bingley while her sister, Jane, is ill and recovering . In this version, as in all faithful renditions, she walks through the rainy countryside and shows up to Netherfield covered in mud on her shoes and dress. This is the first time you truly can see the difference and shades of wealth that exist in Victorian-era England. The mud on Elizabeth’s feet are met with disdain by Mr. Bingley’s sister. She is declared “almost wild” and therefore not fit for polite society. It is this ”wildness” that fascinates me. The idea that there is any one way to be or one ideal for a woman (or man) lest you be considered “wild” is the struggle we are going through right now (and perhaps, ever since the Victorian era). We are no longer called ”wild,” though. We are now called ”liberal” or ”woke” or any other number of things that scream out ”other!” I think that Lizzie’s muddy shoes are worth a closer look. To me, they show the independent confidence that our current moment requires.
• Pride and Prejudice (1980, Mini-series) – In this edition, I tend to focus on the many conversations that directly reference the sending and receiving of correspondence. As it is the dominant form of communication during the Victorian era (and every other era prior to innovations like the telegraph), the letters they read and discuss feel like they are standing in for whole people. There is no anonymity nor is there any attempt to hide from the implications of these letters. It is a way to bring the humanity of other households into your own. We could learn a lot from this. The weight of the words informing of Mr. Wickham’s treachery is fully felt by all involved, even though it is only through one of Jane’s letters. And yet, even when we have hard proof of wrongdoing in signed testimony and correspondence between two of the offending parties, many can still not find a way to believe their truth. We should learn to respect the written word, but the truth of it, and the lies.
• Pride and Prejudice (1940) – This interpretation of the Austen novel is not worth watching, save one lesson that I found compelling. In this version, Mr. Wickham is not punished in any way for his impropriety. He is not contrite, nor does he learn anything from having eloped without the intention of marriage with Lizzy’s youngest sister. In fact, he ends up ”rich” from an inheritance, or at least so he says. The true lesson that I took from this rendition was that our conduct must have consequence or it is meaningless. If you are able to ”get away” with any kind of behavior and come out better off on the other side, there is no incentive to live in a way that benefits others.
• Death Comes to Pemberley (2013, Mini-series) – In this addition to the original story, this extends our view into married life between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth at their Pemberley home. While the TV mini-series would have you believe that the lesson of the story is that you marry for love and never doubt those you love, I believe the true value of this story is in questioning the relationships we believe are beyond reproach. I won’t spoil the ending, as this story is relatively unknown, but suffice it to say, there is a relationship that was sacrosanct and through a series of revelations, becomes anything but. I believe it is worth looking at our heroes and those we put our trust in to see if they continue to deserve it.

As you might know, Pride and Prejudice is not the only Regency Era drama to be recorded on film. I have enjoyed each of these in turn, although I have learned slightly less from them from a modern perspective:

• Emma (2020) – I learned that kindness is not optional, especially when you are in a position of privilege and power.
• Sense and Sensibility (1996) – I learned that passion cannot be the whole of the story. Love is built over time and is reinforced with action. Passion is easily deterred, and more often, deferred.
• Sense and Sensibility (2008, Mini-series) – I learned that promises made in confidence are hardly promises at all. It is only when we are transparent with others that they become true.
• Sense and Sensibility (1981, Mini-series) – I learned that instant gratification can often come with a heavy price.

Now we come to the Victorian Age properly. While there have been many forays into this genre, the 2020s have yielded some incredible results. And in each case, a female protagonist is the one who has showed the way forward for our divided time:

• The Nevers (2021) – While there is far more magic in this show than I would otherwise enjoy in a period piece, the fact that it is predicated upon (mostly) women gaining power over men in multiple different ways. Some of them are smarter or more inventive. Others of them are stronger or larger. Others still can see into the future, although not in a way that gives away all of what comes next. This is a story about gathering those who are “different” and protecting them as they discover their unique gifts. In 6 short episodes (which may be all that ever are made), I have learned the power of building community, of working together toward a better world from in a found family. Change (and chaos, to a certain extent) are the default state for the world, and yet that does not mean that everyone wishes for that change to come. In fact, most often others will work against change and will convince themselves that they are “winning” when it does not come. But, winning does not look like the status quo. Winning looks like holding on to those you love within a community that creates new things and is open to those who are different. Winning looks like discovery and diversity, not predestination and patriarchy.
• Enola Holmes (2020) – In this extension of the Sherlock Holmes universe, his younger sister is challenged with finding her mother and avoiding “finishing school.” This is a proper mystery, but with overtly political plot points. It is set against the backdrop of the push for voting rights for the average Englishman. Enola’s mother is involved in this effort (perhaps even with violent implications for how to gain these rights), and Enola is caught quite in the middle of the conflict, figuring out how she fits within this larger whole of society. She tries on a number of different identities, ultimately deciding that she needs to embrace her full self: romantic and logical. It is this that I gained the most from. Too often we are presented with the dichotomy of feelings vs. facts. This is a false choice, and Enola hits this home by allowing the “greater good” logical argument to move her forward while still trying to pursue and protect those that she loves. We do not have to give up our feelings or forget the ties we have to our family to be able to make progress for our world.
• The Gilded Age (2022) – There has only been one episode of this promising show, but I have already found it compelling enough to include in this post. It is the story of old money vs. new money in 1882 New York City. But, the story is told almost exclusively from the perspective of the women who perpetuate stereotypes and seek to push past them. There is a New Money wife and mother who is trying to break into the social circles of the best New York families. There is a poor young woman (due to her father’s mismanagement of money) who goes to live with two rich aunts and who befriends a black woman on the voyage to the city. This friend has a storyline her in own right, staying on with the “rich aunts” as a secretary for the matriarch. There is class struggle between the servants and the aristocracy. There is even a very rich secretly gay couple that touches upon presidential politics in the 1800s. This mosaic is not fully in focus after only a single episode, but the ground work is laid to see our own timeline through the drama onscreen. I believe the show is entirely about the concept of Gatekeeping. The rich aunts are gatekeepers for the old families, even though they wish to have the liquid cash of the newly moneyed families. The white servants are gatekeepers for the new black employee, even though they know she has skills (penmanship and command of the English language) that they do not. The protagonist is a gatekeeper of her own feelings and wishes to be a part of the modern city life, even though she is being urged to take part by many of the ancillary characters. It makes me question what I am gatekeeping from myself and others. But, gatekeeping has a reason to exist, even if the reasons are hardly ever valid. We gatekeep in order to preserve our power. We gatekeep to keep continuity with the past or with our perception of how “things should be.” We gatekeep so that we can protect ourselves from hurt. As I was watching the show, I kept asking myself, “who am I gatekeeping, and why am I doing it?” My children, my colleagues, my spouse, myself?! Yes. Now, on to discovering “why.”

Clearly, my viewing habits are not objectively “cool.” Victorian and Regency era stories (steampunk-style notwithstanding) are well trodden territory. The multiple versions of the same story are testament to that. And yet, I am convinced we have not learned everything we can from these narratives. And that is why I keep on returning to them, again and again.

In the beginning of the (current) pandemic, Kara and I decided to fundamentally change our living room. We decided to put away “the play room,” an ever expanding set of toys that were shoved into a 8 x 4 Kallax. This was an acknowledgement that our children were no longer playing with blocks or puzzles or klip klops. It was also an acceptance that we were ill-equipped to actually spend a significant time in our home that wasn’t about entertaining children. Up until 2020, most of the independent “adulting” we accomplished was outside of the home. We would go for a night out, a dinner or happy hour, sans children. It didn’t require us to change our home. It didn’t challenge the status quo that our house was focused upon the important work of parenting.

But in those first months of staying home, we knew that marble runs or manga tiles were not the only possibilities in our home. So, what should we do with our living room? What kind of “living” should we be doing in this newly re-found space? Listening to vinyl and sitting in mid-century modern chairs, of course!

So, I threw myself into researching the best record players, amps, speakers and wireless listening solutions that we could afford (which, as you might imagine, did not mean getting the best that money can buy). After a few weeks of waffling, I decided on the following:

• U-turn Audio’s Orbit Custom turntable – Blue – Cue lever, Acrylic platter, Ortofon 2M Red
• Magni Headphone Amp
• Mani Phono Preamp
• Maze 99 Classics Headphones
• Unison Wireless Pre-amp (DTS Play-Fi and Airplay 1)
• Crescendo X (Wireless Speaker)

All of this new equipment promised to provide hours of blissful music listening. This was my endgame, the best options that could completely redefine the front room of our home to feel as though adults lived here. These choices would usher in a space filled with music, a shared space for all kinds of relaxation, contemplation, and conversation.

As you might imagine, it didn’t quite pan out that way.

I thought that my exhaustive research into all of the various tools for bringing vinyl listening into the 2020s. Alas, it did not. As it turns out, synchronous wireless playback of analog audio to multiple speakers around my house is not as easy as dropping the needle. Multiple times, Kara tried to put on a record and gave up because getting the speakers to “wake up” became nearly impossible. Sure, I could come in and fix the issue (wifi, audio syncing, power, etc.), but that didn’t mean that it was any easier to use the next time around.

I thought that buying all of the vinyl I had coveted for years, including a large foray into collecting Vinyl Moon music discovery records, would make me want to play that music more than just streaming any song on Apple Music directly into my brain via AirPods Pro. As it turns out, looking at the beautiful cover art is not a decent substitute for having the release that came out a few hours ago ready and waiting for your eager ears.

I thought that getting “the best” equipment would lead to the best experience for my family. But a year and a half later, the headphones are downstairs with my work setup, the headphone amp having only been used a handful of times. After guaranteeing that Play-fi would be the most universal wireless protocol (across multiple different vendors), I am left fiddling with routers and add/removing speakers every time I want to enjoy those sweet scratches and pops of a spinning record.

The thing I promised my family, a room for listening, was based upon the promises that I was making to myself that I could simplify things enough to make them easy to use. And, I was basing those promises upon the promises of Meze, SCHIIT, Martin Logan, and U-turn Audio that their equipment would come together into a single cohesive system. Those promises didn’t pan out, and neither did the ones I made to myself.

I could never make things simple, because things aren’t simple.

Saying that you want a space for doing great things is not the same as actually making great things. Instead of a space built exclusively for listening, we have made a space for working from home, unwrapping presents, making art, making important Pokemon trades, having deep and enduring conversations, and dozens of other purposes that never would have fit into a “room for adults.” While we were clearly ready to get rid of the “play room” with its chunky puzzles and hundreds of matchbox cars, we were not ready to give up on putting together puzzles of our own design.

Sometimes the most important promises that I have made are the ones that I cannot possibly keep. It is only in my failure to do so that I have found the real promise of what is possible.

It is a great wonder to me that Popcorn ceilings still exist. They have never been particularly attractive, even when every ceiling was covered with this polystyrene concoction. My particular Popcorn ceiling is good for dampening the noise from my three children and covering over whatever cosmetic imperfections would otherwise be there. And yet, if we (or anyone else) were building this house today, there is a 0% chance that we would resort to a Popcorn ceiling, even though the vast majority of my life has been under the watchful eye of this texture. In my parent’s house, I slept a foot or two below my own personal Popcorn batch in a lofted bed for years. Perhaps it is the familiarity that has bred this brand of contempt.

Or, perhaps it is just how much our current version collects things in all of its nooks and crannies. It is like the english muffin of our ceiling has been spread with dust, with particular care wherever there is an edge, a comparison corner where the popcorn meets a relatively smooth modern wall. Those are the places where our ceiling is the darkest. It is calling attention to the past, to the neglect of this tired aesthetic choice. But, it isn’t just dirt that our ceiling attracts. Our ceiling collects sticky toys, also known as Mochi’s. It doesn’t collect them for a few moments or even a weekend. Rather, these toys, once captured by the ceiling, are stuck for good. One such toy, a dingy white seal, has been on the ceiling for nearly a year.

You see, the Popcorn doesn’t care that you want the toy back. Even though you are ready to move on, to get back to the new games and play that you have planned, the Popcorn is not. It will hold on to your toy and to the dust and to anything else that is absentmindedly thrown at it. It was here before you and your toys. It will be here long after.

Our past choices watch over us, just like Popcorn ceilings, unflinching in their static indifference to our current decisions. They will collect the detritus of our movements, the dead cells of our daily dreams. And our past will take more too, like our idle moments of play with toys that do little more than distract. Our past does not care; it will take all of our machinations and look down on us, just waiting to consume more.

To be clear, you can scrape the Popcorn away. You can, through great effort, get rid of the dust and the Mochi’s that have amassed over the years. You can start fresh, by facing the past up close, and making the decision, again and again, to scratch at the layers of what you thought were good decisions. It takes work to remove what was. There is no easy way to remove the all-consuming Popcorn. It must be done by hand.

Are your hands up to the task? Or, do you prefer to look at the sticky toys and dirty corners that get worse by the day?

I do a lot of driving. Not because I particularly love it or because any one trip is all that important, but because I have so many point B’s in my life. Point A is our home, as it should be. I start here and branch off into a dozen mundane activities throughout the day. From picking up tampons at Target to taking my children to their numerous activities (Basketball, Gymnastics, Chess Club, Soccer, Volunteer work at the nature center, etc.), these short trips could be an annoyance or a hindrance to me getting things done. And yet, I don’t see them this way.

I don’t get mad about having to take another trip to the store to return things we bought online. I don’t throw up my hands in exasperation when there is yet another “pick up order” for something we couldn’t remember to grab the day prior. These trips are opportunities for conversation. In the best case scenario, I have a child or two in tow. And on these short trips, I will pick the lock that is seemingly always affixed to their minds and intentions. It is on the trip to Kaiser for medication that I will hear about how my oldest really feels about their friends. It is on the trip home from soccer practice that we will get to discuss what my middle child is most looking forward to in attending their chosen high school. It is during the trip to Dairy Queen that I find out why Chess is so fascinating to my youngest.

These car conversations with my children are also combined with the dozen conversations I have with myself whenever I make these voyages alone. It is on these trips that I will figure out what I want to do with my life or what I truly believe about current events. I challenge myself with others’ conversations in the form of Podcasting’s knack for creating para-social relationships, ensuring that my mind does not get stuck in thinking about the same mundane things that are the actual intent of the trip.

Because the destination is, after all, never the best part. Sure, I want to get my kids to their “sportsball” practice. I want to pick up the umpteenth grocery run or household item. I want to make family’s life that much easier because of a simple drive to and from, from A to B.

But, I am a better father because of the conversations that stir the air of our compact Mazda SUV.

Our car rides let me have the kitchen table conversations that would otherwise never occur, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

(Even if I do have to go out for the 7th time a single day, just so we have some milk for cereal the next day.)

There are two such films that I have found to be incredibly helpful in this moment of perceived stalemate regarding voting rights in the US. They are companions to one another: Despotism and Democracy. While both of these films certainly show their age in terms of many social norms (1946 did not seem to acknowledge the vital role of women in democracy, for example), they lean heavily on widely accepted social science and historical precedent for inspiration. They also accomplish their aim of informing the public as to how Democracy flourishes and how it dies. So much so, that I think it is time that we remember the lessons from 1946 about why our democracy is in such grave danger in 2022.

In both of these movies, the central thesis is that all communities (or nations) are on a sliding scale from Democracy to Despotism:

Where your community lands on this spectrum are dependent upon four key attributes, which have scales of their own:

I would like to reframe these scales as a series of questions that have really helped me to think about what kind of society we are currently living within:

1. Is the respect you have for others restricted to those in “your group” (however you define that), or is that respect widely shared with the whole community?
2. Is the power (to lead, to work, to learn, to make decisions) in your community shared widely or is it concentrated in the hands of a relative few?
3. Are all people in your community able to accrue wealth and live in economic prosperity or is that privilege reserved for only those who already have wealth?
4. Is the content that your community has access to carefully controlled (by algorithms, by gatekeepers, by political parties, etc) and is that information automatically accepted as truth? Or, do you and your community regularly engage in critical evaluation of the content you consume, providing you with “unbiased” access to the truth?

Based upon your answers to those questions, you may see the signs of Democracy:

And when you ask those questions of your community, you may find that the conditions for Democracy are present or absent:

At the moment, I see the sliding scales moving toward despotism. I see respect only being offered to those we agree with. I see power being concentrated in the hands of those who are deemed to be “real Americans.” I see economic prosperity concentrating more and more in the hands of the wealthy. And, I see information being controlled by both algorithms and a strong distrust for anything that doesn’t fit into an already existing world view.

But it isn’t too late to swing the pendulum back the other way. It isn’t too late to respect others or to create systems that share power and economic prosperity. It isn’t too late to remove the algorithms from your information diet and add sources that you don’t always agree with. But, to do this, we must learn from our past. We must listen urgently to those Americans who had just fought a World War in an attempt to beat back the Despots who sought to control them. We won then, but it may be different this time…

So please, for the sake of the country (and the world), I implore you, listen:

The night used to hold so much promise. It held the potential of my unthought thoughts and ideas unrealized. I remember getting into my first car (mid 90’s Geo Prism) and just driving around in the late night hours over the long brick road in my hometown and wondering openly at the darkness. “The Moon is a Folded Napkin,” I would say as I considered all of the metaphors for what is possible without the sun glaring down and exposing all of blatantly unrealistic ideas I had as a teenager.

But, the night doesn’t do this so much anymore.

The night is about escape now. It is about trying to distract myself from what the day holds. It is about my constant battle between the short-form content that endlessly scrolls upward in a smooth never ending procession of banality and the long-form stories full of weighty ideas that I want to embrace and be a part of. It is about feeling inadequate as a father and husband and son. It is about wanting to quiet all of the loud noises of my life and trying to, for just a moment, feel at peace.

As I try to hold off going to sleep for just a little longer, I fall victim to thinking that this is all that there is. I tell myself, “you are too tired” or “you deserve to rest.” And while I am tired, the transition into night does not make it so. I may deserve to rest, but it isn’t because I worked too hard during the day. I do not lay brick and I do not fix cars. I work and I parent and I try to make meaning for others during the day, but the night has become simply a refuge from all of it.

The night feels like a blanket that suffocates with its safety. It is a procrastination tactic, a way to believe that the days are infinite even as I waste another few hours before trudging up to bed. Most of all, though, the night is solitary. It is about me and my own insecurities for not making enough progress or giving in to my worst instincts of inaction.

The dark expanse of night is what I long for, and also what I dread, most.

And yet, when the day comes, all is forgotten. The opportunity for a great beginning is there, and most of the time, I take it. But, waiting just behind the day’s glow of fulfilled promises and getting stuff done are the night’s moments of sure defeat. I wish it were not so. I wish the night didn’t feel like a cancer on my existence, eating away at what I am capable of.

Maybe this will change. Knowing that the night was not always like this helps a little. For now, I will hold on to the day, and survive the night.

I used a PC laptop in college. It initially ran Windows Millennium Edition (considered by many to be the worst Windows release), but was later upgraded to Windows XP. I typed academic papers on this computer. I read Karl’s Corner (Weezer news) on it too. And even though I am not proud of it now, I downloaded (many) MP3s and Movies on Gnutella. Oh, and I made my own music with a (pirated) copy of Cool Edit Pro.

With a microphone I didn’t really know how to use and almost 0 privacy in my dorm room, I recorded at least two albums worth of music. The first was all of my folk-rock-indie-punk ballads that had lots of harmonies and inscrutable lyrics. The second was my attempt at music for a film, which consisted of playing a single guitar or keyboard track and then layering as many other tracks on top as possible. Sometimes, I even liked how they turned out!

While I could reflect upon how each song came to be and what they are actually about, I believe that (for the most part) music should stand on its own as a testament to the time in which it was made. So, here is the beating heart of my 18-21 year old self:

224 days ago, during their annual WWDC keynote, Apple announced a feature that almost no one will use. It is called Universal Control, and it will allow you to share the use of the same mouse and keyboard across your Mac and iPad (at the same time). Beyond that, it will also let you “push through” the edge of the display on your Mac and have the cursor show up on the iPad, as if by magic. The reason why no one will use it is two-fold. First, most folks don’t use an iPad alongside a Mac (let alone have access to modern enough versions of both that it is possible). For most purposes, you don’t need an iPad when you are working on a Mac. Second, the sharing the input across multiple devices is already a well established (and extremely niche) category of solutions. The tool, whether in software or hardware, is called a KVM switch. So, most people that want to do this, already have found a solution. I currently use Keypad for just this purpose.

And yet, nearly every day since June 7 of 2021, I have checked the beta releases of MacOS for this singular feature. Whenever a new beta drops, I rush to Twitter to see if there is any news on Universal Control being a part of the release. Inevitably, there are folks reporting on it, but sparingly few. There have been a couple of times that I thought it was coming, or was partially enabled by hacking together a few options that Apple accidentally available. But, no version that has shipped thus far has never looked as buttery smooth as the original demo, so I am still waiting with bated breath for its official release.

So, why am I obsessed with this obscure feature that so few will use?

Because I will use it, every day. It is the way that I want to work, always. I also believe it represents a large part of how we all will work in the future.

I imagine a future in which:

• Wherever you look and whatever whatever you focus upon, your devices/surfaces/objects will understand this attention and will allow you to interact with the given tool without having to choose a corresponding set of input devices or ways of interacting. It will be contextually aware both of you as the user and of all of the other devices/surface/objects around, and you will be able to seamlessly transition to anything you focus upon next without having to think about it.
• Any device can become an input device. Your phone can be an input for your TV. Your watch can be an input for your phone or computer. And likely, your voice can be an input for all of them.
• Screens will have different form factors (touch and large, small, pocketable, rugged, etc.) but they will all run enough of the same code to bend to whatever purpose you dream up. You will get to decide what is on those screens and what input methods are most important for them. The file system will be shared, as will your private data (across the devices, not with others). Your clipboard, and your revision history will be shared too.
• Any screens that you put next to one another will create more real estate for your work and play. There will be no “second screens.” Rather, you will be able to choose your “Screen Suite.” The phone you hold in your hand will know what tv show you are watching and the documents you are working on, and you will be able to pull content between all of them.

In this version of our future, your attention is the only thing that will determine what (and how many) screens will be connected. You will determine how you want to “control” the screens, whether that includes a keyboard and mouse or not. But, for this to become our future, Universal Control needs to become our present.

So, Apple, please release this feature already!

The three-point-shot has always been my favorite thing about basketball. While some folks go in for the dunk or the “sick moves” of those who dominate under the basket, I can’t get enough of those long shots that have a devastating effect on opponents because there is no way to combat a 3 pointer other than with scoring one of your own. No matter how good you are at driving down the court and dutifully putting 2 points on the scoreboard, you will still fall behind when your opponent pulls up from behind the three-point line and rattles off another 3 points.

Last night, I watched the Denver Nuggets score 69 points off of their 3-point shooting alone. They went down the court 23 times and put on a clinic for how to get it done from Behind the Arc. This was a game against LeBron James and his Lakers. The Nuggets ended up winning the game 133-96.

Why does this matter?

In many ways it doesn’t. It was one game, and it didn’t decide anything important about the standings or the playoffs. Beyond that, it is just a basketball game. The world does not begin or end based upon the 23 times that a player got a ball through a hole from a far distance.

But, there is one reason it matters to me.

It was the only basketball game I have ever attended by myself. I hurried to the game after having gotten dinner for my family, after doing a few errands, and after attending my youngest son’s own basketball game. It was a solitary experience that I enjoyed immensely. As it turns out, walking around an enormous arena without having the responsibility for or worry about the needs of those I love is kinda nice. I just had to watch the game, to eat a slice of pizza and some kettle corn. At one point, I even did a lap, walking further than I needed to because I didn’t have to worry about getting back to the seats or taking someone to the bathroom. Even in the midst a pandemic surge of cases, I felt at ease inside my mask.

This is not how I would want to attend all games, but for this moment, it was what I wanted (maybe needed). Every once in a while, I have to prove to myself that I am enough. That there is enough joy from a moment with myself (and with thousands of strangers) to cover me in a warm blanket of experience. It is not the same as sitting at home and watching Youtube. It is being in the world and knowing that you are a part of it. It is looking out at all that can be created when we all agree on a few things:

1. To gain entry, we must commit to keeping one another safe. (Being fully vaccinated and proving it to one another.)
2. We will wait for our turn. (In line, or on the bench.)
3. We will play by the rules. (A foul is a foul is a foul.)
4. The three-point line is a cheat code that is available to us all.

I took my own “three pointer” last night. I did not do the expected thing, the layup of going on an outing with others. I did not drive down the lane, and dunk the ball with my children or a friend. Not because I don’t enjoy that, but because I needed this. I needed to stop just past the half-court line and throw up a low-percentage shot, and as it sailed through the air, everything slowed down. It slowed down long enough for me to look around and enjoy the moment. And then it went through the hoop, and it felt like I had won, like I had done something worthwhile. For myself.

And then I saw the Nuggets pull the same incredible feat: 23 times.

Every other Wednesday for two years, I called together a group of disaffected youth to write and talk and think together. We would move desks into a little huddle, allowing the kid who could solve Rubix cubes with one hand to perform when she wasn’t writing. We would share poems and short stories and art of all different kinds. And sometimes the kids would just talk. They mostly didn’t come because they wanted to write new words or to be inspired by a teacher who was clearly trying to get a new generation of punk kids to like him. They would come because they had something to say about their existence, something that many other kids and adults in their lives were not interested in (or perhaps capable of) hearing.

And, we would listen.

We listened so hard that we started to hear the resonant song of self-expression. We heard it throughout not only the kids who were brave enough to join Writing Club, but also those who wished they were. We started seeking out those voices and trying to amplify them to the whole school. So much so that we made a Zine: Cracking Voices.

This is how I announced it over the PA (caution: the cringe is strong with this one) –

“Hello. You know that moment that you want to say something. You start to say it and then your voice does a little hiccup. Whether you are talking to your new hottie or just speaking in class, odds are that your voice has cracked or broken or fallen completely to pieces just at the moment that you need it most. Well, as the writing club sponsor, I would like to put those moments on a pedestal. Declare that they are the most beautiful of all. And in the spirit of bringing the most incidental moments of your adolescent lives to the forefront, I would like to introduce a new literary zine for Cresthill this year: Cracking Voices.

Cracking Voices is a place to publish all of your thoughtful and Cresthill students. So, if you write stories or poems, submit them. If you take photographs or draw pictures, submit them. And if you have random bits of twine, you can give us those too. I’m not saying that they will get in Cracking Voices, but we will take them in to consideration. This week and next, Cracking Voices representatives (aka The Writing Club) will be coming in to your Language Arts classes and talking to you more about this cool opportunity to get your voice heard. They will also be placing discreetly decorated boxes in your Language Arts rooms for you to submit from. In keeping with the tradition of not wanting to be remembered for each crack in your voice, all submissions should be anonymous. We will judge your works based upon merit and not who submitted them. The zine will be published in the last few weeks of school, and anyone who wants one will be able to pick one up. I hope to see your words and images in print this year. Submit to Cracking Voices.”

This invitation was met with the typical mix of excitement and apathy that middle schoolers are perfectly calibrated to produce. One participant said this of our little group, “The people in writing club are understanding. Nothing is too weird, no imagination too big to not find a home in the writing club.”

So, for those two years, we made some deeply important work (and relationships). Not important because it was particularly good. Rather, it was important because it made meaning for those dozen or so students who needed it most.

In an effort to try and make some kind of meaning for a new cadre of would-be writers and thinkers, here are the best prompts from the Writing Club at Cresthill Middle School circa 2005-2006:

• Blowing it way out of proportion. – A short writing exercise that asks you to take a small issue and make a big deal out of it.
• Brutal Honesty – Write to tell someone off or get something off of your chest.
• Character-driven writing – 5 mini-prompts to help develop characters in interesting ways. My favorite was writing a story with an inanimate object as the main character.
• Fully Flippant – I was trying to bring back “Flippant” as a concept to folks who had likely never heard the word. The prompt is to create a scenario for a character (or themselves) to be Flippant.
• Strange Half-Thoughts for Writing – 5 different prompts that really were just to get ideas flowing. My favorite was the “reverse pathetic fallacy” in which you had to write a story with the character’s mood and the weather being entirely out of sync.
• Hope is Useless – This prompt asks folks to consider what can be learned from a disparaging outlook. This is super good for those kids who do not naturally have a positive disposition.
• Idea-based Writing – This is the alternative to the character-driven writing prompts. This one is all about writing to an idea; no characters necessary.
• Location writing – This was an effort help folks understand setting on a deeper level. The prompt is to simply list all of the settings that a story could take place in. Sometimes making a list is a lot easier than writing a story.
• In Cups of Coffee – This writing exercise is about choosing new ways of measuring your life (a la the musical “Rent”). The goal is to determine what kind of character would measure their life in “dishwasher cycles” or “speeding tickets.”
• Quote Re-writing – The goal of this exercise is to rewrite famous quotes to better fit your perspective.
• Splayed Out on a Table – Feeling vulnerable in your writing is really difficult. This exercise is about getting better at it by, “Splaying yourself or something in your writing means showing it completely in the objective light of the operating room.”
• Stand in the Place where you live – An exercise to explore your daily haunts through writing.
• The Three Minute Interview – This was a really fun prompt that asks you to interview someone with some extensive restrictions on what you are able to ask about. You then have to write story about the person you interviewed, but only about the things you couldn’t ask.
• Writing Braille – This one is all about descriptive writing. The goal is to write with such beautiful imagery that anyone (including those who cannot see) can visualize your story.
• Chain Reaction – In this writing exercise, you are tasked with connecting two seemingly different events with a single plot/story.
• Dialogue: The Stuff of Champions – This prompt focuses on your ability to write dialogue for a given situation and character traits. It is meant to be used as a challenge to get outside of the characters that you would normally write about.
• Driving Themselves to Distraction – This one is all about planting details that can “distract” your reader and get them thinking.
• The Point of Performance – This was a series of prompts that focused upon getting your writing to the point where someone else could read it. It was about writing confidently and allowing your written words to speak for you.
• Rescuing an Idea – Rescue is a powerful concept for understanding vulnerability and interdependence. This prompt asks you to consider yourself as the rescuer or the one being rescued in your writing.
• I’ve Got Rhythm – This exercise is about the rhythm of the words that you write. In it, you are challenged to write in a specific cadence.
• The Discarded Travel Guide – This prompt asks you to write the story of a discarded item that you have found by the side of the road.
• The Toughest Thing to Talk About – There are some topics that are incredibly difficult to write about. This writing exercise asks to tackle at least one of them.
• Use it wisely – You are given a set of objects (like, a dead rat or glue stick) and you must write about how those objects were used to do something incredible (like, scaling a 40-story building or winning the Nobel peace prize).
• Writing Crutches – In this very “meta” exercise, you are asked to consider the genres, words/phrases, themes, and images that you rely upon too heavily, forming your “writing crutches.” This one is all about how you can avoid those in your writing in order to expand your writing repertoire.

It is my sincerest hope that some of these writing ideas from 15 years ago can help to inspire those who are in need of inspiration. Or, at the very least that they come in handy for a future teacher out there who is looking for a quick lesson plan idea.

A huge amount of my life has been spent in the effort to create digital files of one sort or another. There are absolutely images, videos, and text files. But far more numerous are the inscrutable file formats of the web. There are xml files that can be rendered in thousands of ways. There are php and css files that determine what content on the web looks like. A quick look through my Google Drive(s) or my Dropbox or even my external hard drives that have my high school essays will show the thousands of cycles of excitement, creation, and abandonment that I have embarked on throughout my 38 years.

And yet, whenever I look back, I get overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of what has been created. All of it is my “digital footprint,” and yet I can barely make out the shoe size.

Yesterday, I read through lesson plans that were the most important thing in the world as I was creating them. I also dug into the abandoned archive of old student WordPress installations. They were so valuable for a few short moments, and now they form a graveyard of files that serve no purpose.

I always imagined that at some point, I would have time to reflect upon all of my contributions and finally come to a conclusion, a verdict for what it all meant. I would take a look at the word documents and low-res videos and the truth of it would be apparent. I would learn the lessons of being a teacher, a husband, a father, and a human being living in a digital age.

Rather, I look upon the sheer ton of created works that I have amassed, terabytes of them scattered across the world on servers that quietly hum away in some remote city, and I only see obituaries to former selves that never panned out. I see the things that might have been far more than what sill might be. These files represent the doors that are no longer open to me.

And perhaps it is only fitting that I create a final resting place for these ideas, these former selves. Just as we malign (or, perhaps celebrate) every time that Google shuts down one of their products (245 at last count), it might be worthwhile to become my own archivist and perform an autopsy on the projects in my own life that didn’t quite make it. Learning from these files by officially burying them in my Digital Graveyard may be the only way to fully know what they meant and why they had value in the first place.

Otherwise, they are just the detritus of my digital existence, ready to be deleted and forgotten. I would much rather pay my respects to those former ideas, creations, and selves.

Last week, a former student reached out to me via an Instagram DM. To be clear, this is a student that I taught in 2007. He is a first year teacher in New York City, and was hoping to get some advice (and to catch up too!). It is incredible to me that after all of these years, he would reach out to me, his 8th grade Language Arts teacher. While I found it incredibly flattering, I also found it concerning that he might not have encountered any other teachers in high school that resonated with him or had as much concern for him as a human.

It has always been my contention that the vast majority of teachers care deeply for their students. And yet, for some kids, the experience of learning from (and with) a passionate and adept teacher is rare. And upon speaking to this former student on a video call last night, I could tell that he was looking to connect with his students and be that “rare” person in the lives of those he serves within his AP US History classes.

So, as we talked, he asked for advice and recommendations for how to engage students while ensuring the rigor of the AP coursework was maintained. Having not been in the classroom for over a decade, I was not sure what authority I should still have for making pedagogical suggestions. I have not taught during a pandemic. I have not taught high school (unless you count the few months I spent at East High School as a student teacher). And yet, I told him that I would try to pull together a reading list.

Here is what I came up with:

• https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781118076828 – Building School 2.0
• https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781596672284 – Professional Learning In The Digital Age
• https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781483344126 – Focus on Teaching
• https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781595580740 – Other People’s Children
• https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781475840414 – Digital and Media Literacy in the Age of the Internet
• https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780415908085 – Teaching to Transgress
• https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781955604000 – Twenty Things to Do with a Computer Forward 50

However, this former student of mine asked what the modern version of “wikispaces” was (which we had used extensively when I taught his class in 2007). After thinking about it for a few minutes, I thought that the most innovative work I had seen done with modern tools were efforts to create active learning opportunities using Slack, Discord, Instagram, and TikTok. So, after our call, I started looking to see if that was true. And it is. All of the examples below are from searching for 20 minutes on TikTok. Innovative teaching and learning has continued throughout the pandemic. And (some of) it looks like this:

• Hank Green goes at the top of any educational TikTok list.
• The ultimate AP US History Notes – A student created set of notes that I literally had to pause the video and type in the long URL to access via Google Drive.
• Steve Heimler – Primarily a YouTuber, but does some great #APUSH content. Like talking about DBQs.
• AP US History as Tailor Swift Albums.
• The Notorious APUSH king.
• Making fun of voting rights in a completely accurate way. He claims to be “better than your history teacher,” and in some of these videos, I totally agree.
• Another take on voting rights.
• The entire #APUSH hashtag on TikTok (with 6.6 Million views).
• More history teachers getting into the action.
• And even more.
• And one more.
• What students think of the Treaty of Versailles

While I don’t claim to have all of the answers for his teaching needs, it was a wonderful experience to get to know this version of my former student. He is an incredible adult and is doing wonderful things for children. I could not be more proud that he decided to teach.

In an effort to continue to provide support for him (and any of my other former students who became educators), please drop me a line if you think there are better books (or better modern tools) to support his growth in the field.

It is no exaggeration to say that the web is my home away from home. It is the place where all of my work gets done (Google Drive, Slack, and Email are just the starting point). It is also where the majority of my entertainment and commerce is served up (YouTube, ShopGoodwill, and Twitter). And yet, the web mostly didn’t feel mine on my phone or iPad.

On a “desktop-class browser,” you have always been able to change the way in which the web looks and works. For years, I have used Chrome Extensions, Greasemonkey scripts for Firefox, or Safari Extensions that work in my preferred browser, Safari Technology Preview. These “add-ons” to the browser have helped me to build far better workflows on the Mac without any of the headaches of Ads, Tracking, or other user-hostile actions that companies try to build into their websites.

And yet, on more mobile devices (phones and tablets) this option has mostly been absent (short of jailbreaking your device or moving to an alternative operating system, like ChromeOS). That was until iOS 15 and the launch of a unified Safari Extensions system in which the same code can be used across phone, tablet, and computer. This means that the same workflows I build on my Mac can be used on my phone and vice versa.

And this event has been an absolute game changer, it has just taken me six months to fully understand their true power. It also took me this long to realize just how much my life has changed as a result of these tools being available on the devices I use the most. So, I wanted to take an opportunity to share the Safari Extensions that have made my time on the web more joyful, more productive, and far less annoying!

• ActiveTab – While I added this extension to my workflow when Apple was testing out a new version of Tabs that made it harder to determine which tab was “active,” I have kept it as an essential part of my workflow because I find the visual cue of a subtle highlight color at the top of my active tab to be an essential bit of information for quick navigation.
• Convusic – My music streaming app of choice is Apple Music, but many folks use Spotify to share their music with me. While I love using tools like Odesli to share universal links with others, not everyone goes to that length to ensure that everyone can take advantage of their preferred music service. So, Convusic does the work for me. Whenever I am sent a Spotify link, it will automatically search Apple Music for the same song/album and open it within my app. It is a magic experience to never worry about converting from one platform to another.
• Dark Reader or Noir – I go back and forth on which of these two “dark mode for the web” extensions I like better. At the moment, I’m using Noir because the auto-detection and matching of dark colors for websites that don’t natively support dark mode is a little better. But, the way that Dark Reader handles images is more sophisticated (i.e., they don’t get inverted Google Docs in an effort to make them darker on the screen). Regardless, I love not going blind when I use the web at night. Dark mode is beautiful.
• Mapper for Safari – Google has the most effective search engine, but I have become far less interested in Google knowing where I am at all times. To avoid this level of tracking, I have to stop proactively giving them my geolocation. This means using Apple Maps instead of Google Maps. So, while I still search for locations using the excellent Google Maps search functions on the web, whenever I get directions, this extension will automatically convert the request to Apple Maps and allow me to skip the copy-and-paste dance that I was doing in order to have a privacy-focused turn-by-turn experience.
• Raindrop.io – Bookmarks are not entirely dead. While I most often just search for what I need or use the “recently viewed” auto-complete that is built in to Safari, there are many times a day that I need a specific resource that is hard to access without being saved and categorized ahead of time. I use Raindrop for all of my bookmarking needs, and it is wonderful! I love the way that it can capture notes, tags, and even custom icons without any issues. It is a full-featured app that just lives in my mobile browser now.
• StopTheMadness Mobile – Many web developers, particularly for those who make their money through advertising or data collection, are not good stewards of the open web. They will “hijack” your browser, putting banners all over the place or even disallowing you from copying text on their pages. These are all user-hostile actions that can be fixed simply by disabling the code that tracks and limits your web browsing. With this extension for example, I can navigate anywhere without worrying that the webpage knows I am looking at it (the Page Visibility API is disabled). This is a huge quality-of-life improvement, and I don’t think I would ever use the web again without it.
• Tweaks for Twitter – I no longer see Ads or Promoted Posts on Twitter. I no longer see trending topics. I do not see “who to follow.” In fact, whenever I use Twitter, I only see tweets from those who I have explicitly followed. It has radically changed how I feel about the service. Whereas, I used to get bogged down in the deluge of current events that the “what’s trending” told me were important. I now only go to Twitter to see what my little corner of the internet is up to. It is glorious.
• Vidimote for Safari – I have always watched videos at 1.5x speed or higher. This is the best way to not only control the speed of your web videos, but also to allow for better Picture-in-Picture and video playback settings. It takes the best elements of the YouTube App and provides them within the browser.
• Vinegar – Tube Cleaner – This is a pretty basic extension, but it is one that I use daily. It essentially replaces any custom video player (like the one on YouTube.com) with a vanilla HTML video experience (the native player that your device already has built-in). By doing this, it also removes ads, provides great picture-in-picture support and allows for better background playing as well.
• GoodLinks – I often cannot read all of the articles that I want to within the course of a given day, so I sometimes need to save them for later. Goodlinks is my absolutely favorite way to do this. It has the cleanest interface for reading, the best options for tagging and categorizing articles, and the most elegant syncing across all devices (including the reading progress for each article). This extension allows you to save articles from anywhere in Safari (and other apps too!).
• Wipr – This is the only ad-blocking extension I have used that actually works on the vast majority of websites that I use. It works for the news sites that I want to read as well as the random storefront that wants to sell me ever more of their wares. It also gets rid of GDPR notices and other bits of tracking and web annoyances. It is like the web got a fresh coat of paint.
• Unobstruct – I often find myself looking at a Medium article or looking at a link from Reddit and getting annoyed that an overlay of “open in app” or “sign up” shows in front of the text. It can destroy my ability to read the article entirely when I am on my phone and there are multiple competing overlays that are impossible to navigate past. Unobstruct gets rid of these overlays on all of these sites, and if you find one that it doesn’t natively support, then you “Unobstruct the page” from the share sheet and it will remove them from that site too!

Your mileage may vary with these extensions, but I have found them to be an essential part of my working and waking life. I also believe that these extensions represent only the beginning of what is possible on the mobile web. I see this as a return to what made the web so important in the early 2000s. We are once again in control of what it looks like to us and we do not have to take “the app experience” as all that we are allowed to have. The fact that I no longer see ads in the vast majority of circumstances means a less cluttered brain, and that in itself has changed my life.

I have been a fan on the Football Team from Kansas City since I met my wife in 2002. She introduced me to the wonderful world of Priest Holmes, Trent Green, and Tony Gonzalez. She introduced me to winning, as I had only known The Cleveland Browns growing up (for those of you who don’t follow football, the Browns lose more than they win). And while I had certainly been aware of the problematic use of Native Americans as props and mascots with my hometown Cleveland Indians, I mostly ignored “The Chiefs” as a racist construct.

But, there is no easy way to ignore the “Tomahawk Chop.” Its pervasive use at Arrowhead Stadium and around the league as Kansas City played their games around the league made it so you can’t get away from it. And it is truly something strange to watch tens of thousands of fans all imitating a fictional Native American war cry. Each year that fans continue to do it, it gets harder to justify the ongoing insensitivity towards fellow human beings. It seems as though the entire team (and the “Chiefs Kingdom”) is insisting that performing a chant is more important than respecting a fellow American’s culture.

And yet, I continue to be a fan. I like to watch the new crop of amazing football players do things that I never could. From Patrick Mahomes no-look passes to Travis Kelce’s yards after the catch, they are an incredibly entertaining team to watch. So much so that my family made the decision to go to one of their games. It was the last game of the season against the Denver Broncos, a team that hasn’t won against Kansas City since 2015.

From the moment that it was clear to be another Kansas City victory (this fumble and touchdown was it) the chants started. They got louder as the game ended, and they echoed around the stadium as we all walked to our cars and the light rail. It is clear from how widespread this chant is, that it means something to the people doing it. It means victory, sure, but it also means “community.” It is a way to communicate the supremacy of the team and of the fans. And that supremacy is never more felt than when those chanting are white men. They sing the loudest, likely because they have been drinking most heavily. The chant the hardest because they like to reassure one another: “we are still on top.”

The loudest voices, though, are not the ones we should be listening for.

We should listen to those most directly impacted by the use of this racist practice. The National Congress of American Indians says that “the Kansas City Chiefs… continue to profit from harmful stereotypes originated during a time when white superiority and segregation were common place… and should not be a vehicle of institutionalized racism.” They are saying to fans and to the team itself that a tradition of winning does not require a turn toward white supremacy. It does not require traditions be built and maintained in order to subjugate others.

We can just be a better football team.

And yet, I cannot as a single person, get the entire stadium to stop chanting. But, I can write a blog post. I can amplify the voices of those who need to be heard. And maybe some day soon, we can be louder than those who wish to keep racist war cries at the center of their identity. Maybe one day I can be fully proud to root for the football team from Kansas City.

I have often heard that the right time to take down holiday decorations is the first full weekend after we ring in the new year. That means that today and/or tomorrow is the exact right time for us. So, I will dutifully go down to the basement and into the crawl space. I will bring up the MANY different bins where we store the Xmas ornaments and the seemingly infinite strands of lights. And we will begin the work of putting away the past.

This past has years within it. It has the many Ugly Ornaments that we get every year, trying to outdo ourselves with each one. It contains all of the little animal ornaments that represent our family as it has grown and changed over the years (we started with two peas in a pod and this year we were 5 frogs, all with our names written in far better handwriting than I could ever muster). This past has our own childhoods represented by the pieces of plastic that have somehow made it nearly 40 years before getting lost or disintegrating.

But, we put the past away into these boxes. We put away both the good and the bad. The moments of conflict as our family becomes more and different than it was when we were just two peas in a pod. The sadness of those who have died since our first holiday as a family. We put them away.

And what do we hang in their stead? Are there decorations that we hang on the mental mantle, that represent our lives to us in little moments and memories? Yes.

As I look around my house and notice all of the things on the countertops or hanging over the banister, I know that it is all decoration. The piece of homework that is yet to be completed. The coat that has yet to be warn. The golden electric mini-tree that we illuminate whenever we have company. These are decorations that are ever present, but also ever-changing. Even the pieces of a stuffed animal that our dog has strewn about on the carpet and we have not collected enough energy to gather. This is our menagerie to the past, and even this trash is a part of it.

And we cannot take our decorations down or put them away fully. Everything we wear or put on our shelves is a testiment to who we have been and what we have wanted and hated and built and collected. We are our past, and we cannot put it away no matter how much we want to. There are not nearly enough bins to store our history. Which is why it doesn’t much matter whether I take down my Xmas tree or put away the lights. They are just the most obvious representation that time has, in fact, passed.

So, leave your tree up. Or don’t. Just know that for every ornament that you call an ornament, there are hundreds of other objects in your house that perform the same function: helping us to remember.

I remember my family. And my own history. And I will hold on to both and never put them away.

I stood outside at Fort Logan Cemetary with nearly a hundred others. It was far below freezing (hence the clothing), but I wasn’t cold. I was with those who loved her most, those who respected her work and her life. The community who gathered is one that has only grown in my estimation as I have gotten to know them further since Jamie was killed on December 4, 2021.

Love is a funny thing. It grows with commitment and support. It dies in isolation and with division. As we stood together with one another out in the cold, I could feel the love growing and surrounding us. We were not warm because we wore multiple layers. We were warm because we were gathered together in a single purpose: to remember her and support those she left behind.

We will continue to stand together: for warmth, for community, and for love.

Email is simultaneously the default operating system for work and the cluttered antithesis of all productive activity. The convenience of having a single “inbox” for all of the messages that I might need is so seductive that I have subscribed to many different news resources that I regularly read. This is in addition to time reading Twitter, Apple News, and GoodLinks articles that I have saved for later (or possibly, never). I do not subscribe to these outlets because I want to distract myself from work. Rather, I have actively sought out these perspectives in the same way that I used to read blogs regularly. I want to hear from particular voices. I want to make sure that I am informed and I want that information to be intentional, not incidental. I wanted to enumerate these sources so that others can take advantage of the insights, or at least know how I am filling my morning reading time:

• Heather Cox Richardson – A friend of mine recommended this one a couple of years ago, and I read it EVERY DAY. Her way of writing relies heavily upon historical research and modern political science. While her perspective is decidedly left-of-center, her ability to communicate current events in a way that makes sense in the broader context is a welcome respite from news articles that lack all historical perspective.
• The Factual – I pay for this service to serve up the top 5 news stories of the day with a balanced set of articles to support each one. There is also a daily survey that gives me a pulse on exactly where my opinions stack up with other users of the service (short answer: I’m far more liberal than many other folks who are looking for a “balanced perspective.”). It is one of the biggest ways that I catch stories that fly under the radar in my carefully curated bubble on Twitter.
• City Cast Denver – This is the only local newsletter that I subscribe to, but it is essential reading. I get 100% of my restaurant recommendations from this daily message. I also learn what is happening in my city in a way that a local newspaper would have done in the past. However, City Cast has an obvious personality that makes it worth reading too. It includes personal anecdotes from a Denver native, a perspective that I enjoy but could never understand. Denver has changed so much in the last 40 years that only someone who has been here for that whole time can describe. It is the Colorado history that I didn’t get when I was in school because I grew up in Ohio and they didn’t teach Colorado history there. Go figure.
• Observatory: Institute for the Future of Education – This is one that I came to pretty organically. It is from Tecnologico de Monterrey and it is the only newsletter/website I know of that actually talks about progressive education that also is influenced by online and blended learning pedagogy. While this is obviously a niche interest, I really like staying up on what is happening at Innovative educational institutions around the world.
• Rewire News Group: The Fallout – Ever since Texas passed Senate Bill 8 (the EXTREMELY restrictive anti-choice “heartbeat” law that allows anyone to object to an abortion and receive damages for it) I have become far more active in learning about and fighting for reproductive rights. It will come as no surprise that this kind of reporting was not making it into my news diet enough (Men do not get algorithmically recommended these kinds of articles, so I have to seek them out).
• Tedium – While I do not read this newsletter from top to bottom, I often find the whimsical look at pop culture and technology to resonate when the topic crosses over with my own interests. The in-depth look “natural scrolling” for example was truly fascinating. The history of coupon clipping was far less so. Regardless of the topic, the writing is well researched and oftentimes hilarious.
• Press Run – I have yet to decide whether or not I enjoy partisan pandering when I seemingly agree with the majority of what a person says as well. It feels like I am falling into a trap, but a trap for what? Is it a trap where I end up learning the truth about world events, or is it a trap where I cannot tell what I true because things are so slanted to only represent part of the story? I use Press Run to help me answer that. I end up reading this newsletter to determine whether or not I believe in each plank of the democratic platform or if there are some things that I different upon. It is a great check for my own sanity whenever I dig into a claim to see if it is backed up by other sources and viewpoints as well.
• OnTech with Shira Ovide – I don’t always agree with her perspective, but I truly appreciate the way she questions the role of technology in our lives. She makes the most important elements of any story into an easy to understand narrative. She takes vague concepts like data privacy and makes them concrete and palatable on any given Monday morning. She also does the thing where you link to other articles multiple times in a single sentence so that you can see how her thinking has been informed. (For Example: “America’s cities are so reliant on cars not because we lack tech options or alternatives. It’s because we have policies that subsidize automobiles. There is free parking, zoning that separates people’s homes from work and shopping and a lack of investment in public transit, walking and cycling to make alternatives to car trips more appealing.”) It is a pleasure to view the tech world from her skeptical viewpoint.

While there are a few other newsletters that I still subscribe to, I rarely read them. They will all get purged when I do my next “great unsubscribe.” More importantly, though, I am thinking of starting back up my own newsletter. I wonder what my perspective will lend to others. Will it allow for better context or a wider world view? Or, will it simply be something to pass the time as you struggle to work up the energy to answer the far more pressing email in your inbox?

I have been watching a lot of (post-) apocalypse movies and television shows. I watch them because I find them both comforting and terrifying. Comforting because I know that our world has not actually devolved into killing one another for food or shelter. And terrifying because I see the seeds of each of the world-ending moments in my life.

Given that I am drawn to these pieces of media, I thought it might be useful to enumerate them and dig into why I find them so resonant. So, in no particular order, here are the shows and movies I’ve been watching that feature an end to the world as we know it:

• Invasion – While this one is technically about an alien invasion that brings about the apocalypse, I found that the human elements of the story (children trying to survive on their own, a soldier trying to get back home, a family just trying to survive in the face of something they don’t understand) connected deeply. Just because the world is ending doesn’t mean that we instantly become better (or much worse) people. We will still be selfish and contemplative and loving and desperate. My takeaway: I’m trying to hold on to our humanity in a moment that feels totally out of control (i.e., do we live in a democracy?).
• Station Eleven – After a deadly pandemic wipes out most of the planet’s population, a group of actors and musicians live the very small, dangerous, and intimate life of traveling performers. Also, there is a quasi-magical story book that has morphed into a prophecy for those who were born after the pandemic. While our pandemic is far more “slow rolling,” the way that society breaks down in this show points toward what is possible when the whole world shrinks into a single quarantined apartment or a few people that survived a tragedy. My takeaway: The world is always dangerous and people will create a story to help them survive. It doesn’t really matter what the story is, so long as people can hold on to it. And that is both devastating and beautiful.
• Y: The Last Man – When a sudden and unforeseen illness kills all of the men on the earth with a Y chromosome (except one, of course), the world is run by what is left of the government (the women who were in the line of succession, etc.). It is a story about how a seemingly ordinary man has to embrace (or run away from) the label of “savior of the world.” All of the women are reminded of what they have lost (and what they have gained) whenever they look around and only see themselves reflected back. My takeaway: The world order can and will be turned on its head. The real question is, what will we do once that happens? Will we stubbornly cling to what was, or will we embrace reality to create what will be?
• Finch – The earth now has a bunch of holes in its ozone layer, without which the sun becomes a fiery death ball. Finch (Tom Hanks) is trying to keep his dog safe, even as he dies from radiation exposure. To ensure the safety of his canine companion, Finch creates a sentient robot that is capable of learning and complex thought. In the end, it is more of a coming of age story for both Finch and the Robot (who chooses the name Jeff mid-film). Jeff is incredibly human in his mistakes, and the empathy I felt for him was unexpected in its depth. My takeaway: The (my) world is ending, whether slow or fast. What art am I going to make (or what legacy am I going to leave) before that happens?

Now, if I were a more topical writer, I would include Don’t Look Up in this list, but I am still trying to work out my feelings on that one. And, as the apocalypse really only happens in the last few minutes of the film, it really is a story about living in the time just before the world ends and not during or after. And for whatever reason, I feel more drawn to the aftermath, to “picking up the pieces.”

Because in some ways, it feels as though the world has already ended and we just haven’t recognized it yet. In some ways I see these stories not as foretelling the future, but as a reflection of the present. They are not warnings, but rather variations on the theme of our current reality. And when you look at them that way, they are the only stories worth paying attention to.

They are stories of survival, and right now, I am trying to survive.

I have taken more pictures in the last three weeks than I typically take in 6 months. This is because my children have been home. I take more pictures of my children than I do of anything else in existence. They are the most photographed nouns in my house. And with that comes a huge amount of joy.

I take pictures of things that I want to remember or want to share with others. The 100+ pictures I took of my children unwrapping presents or helping in the kitchen or sitting down at the table or building legos or playing basketball is testament to just how much I want to remember them. And I have shared these pictures with my partner, with my extended family, and even with Twitter.

And yet, I think the real reason I take so many pictures of my family is that they are often not with me. After (almost) three weeks of being home, my children will be headed back to their respective schools (one elementary, one middle, and one high school). While I am happy that they will be able to see their friends and I will be able to get back into a routine with work, there is a sadness there too. I am sad that I will not be able to see them in the middle of the day. I am sad that I will not be able to pop three batches of popcorn and start on a movie marathon. I am sad that I will not be pulled out of my own head for long enough to consider the immediate needs of those I love.

And there will likely be no extra pictures of them today. It is just a regular Tuesday, the kind in which my children make their own choices. And I remind myself that this is a good thing. I remind myself that them going to school will (eventually) have benefits for their lives. I know that they will be taking their own pictures, and making their own moments that need remembering.

They are real people, and these hundreds of pictures I took are testament to that. They do not capture some idyllic life that is free from conflict. Rather, they tell the story of 3 beautiful creatures En Media Res. It is the middle of their beginning, with all of the complexity and struggle that comes along with. And while I mourn for the pictures that will not be taken because they are out of the house today, I rejoice for the snapshots I have of who they were heading into 2022.

I understand them just a little bit better after this “Winter Break.” I understand myself a little bit better too. I should probably take more pictures.

I often think about persistence hunting, even though I know very little about how it actually works. I think about chasing after a large animal and through sheer perseverance over a long period of time and distance, exhaust the animal and overwhelm it, capturing it for sustenance and resources. I understand it in concept, but not in practice. I have yet to persist in anything that doesn’t allow for a significant amount of coasting off of an initial effort. You see, I’m very good at initial effort, at starting things that have no hope of continuing after the moment passes.

I have over a dozen domains purchased for projects that never materialized. Not because the ideas themselves lacked viability (well, maybe phonephriend.com), but rather that they required significant persistence that never materialized. Obviously, this is not a new story. People have started and quit things with regularity for generations. History is filled with small businesses that didn’t pan out and household projects that amounted to nothing. And yet, it is the relative success that I experienced so early in my career that made me believe that my personal history would be different.

I thought that the “Totally Wired Teacher of 2007” represented the first step in a Totally Wired path that I would be able to identify and pursue. It was to be the first large animal that I stalked and brought down. And yet, the other animals did not keep coming, or perhaps I just stopped looking for them. I thought that the feast that I experienced from 2007-2010 would feed me for the rest of my life. But, it hasn’t.

2010 was 12 years ago, and while I don’t think I fully stopped pursuing the large animals that I still see in my dreams until late 2016, I could feel myself slowing down. I could feel the persistence giving way to apathy, a feeling that I hate more than any other.

And once I stopped looking for and chasing down the big projects that produce “big wins,” it became a mystery as to how I ever did it in the first place. It sounds like so much work to wake up even earlier and work on a new project or to eliminate the distractions that are ever present. You cannot both continue running down an antelope and sit on the couch watching YouTube. You also cannot persist on behalf of someone else. You have to be able to feel your own strength as you track and run and make and pursue.

And wandering around aimlessly, hoping that a large animal will just cross your path is not a viable option. You are likely to never see one.

And yet, I can’t help but think that there is at least one more caribou or buffalo out there for me. I will just have to leave the warmth of the fire for long enough to catch its scent. I cannot build the future I want if I am unwilling to craft new tools, ones that are better equipped to capture this generation of indifferent beast. So, craft them I will.

Waking before the sun, I will start to venture further out. I will find my next animal to track, and tackle to the ground. I will continue, even when I cannot find the right one. I will not stop when the trail is lost. Because it is isn’t really lost; the trail is always there. It is I who have become lost. And it is in the search, the passionate and relentless pursuit that I will become found.

Once again, I persist.