Rishm Najm

“Teaching is a creative profession, not a delivery system. Great teachers do [pass on information], but what great teachers also do is mentor, stimulate, provoke, engage.” —Sir Ken Robinson

Not even a week ago, horrifying new body cam footage showed Americans how 13 prison guards beat a handcuffed man to death

If anyone looking for a feel good charming read to cozy up to Hwang Bo-Reum’s “Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop” has all the elements to give cozy feels:quaint bookshop, imperfect lovable characters & unlikely group of friends. Bonus element of look into life of everyday people in Korea. #booksky

Trump sides with Elon Musk in MAGA immigration feud over visas for skilled workers President-elect says he has always liked H-1B visas, despite moving to restrict them in first term in office, as ‘America First’ rages against immigration

Trump sides with Elon Musk in MAGA immigration feud over H-1B visas
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Hope you enjoy them as much as I did:)

Ice Candy Man (also named Cracking India) was about the brutal partition of the Indian subcontinent after the British left, from the point of view of a little girl. It was turned into a movie called “Earth.”

The Crow Eaters is a hilarious but insightful book that delves into the contentious relationship between a Parsi/Zoroastrian man & his mother in law. Growing up in Lahore, I knew so little about this remarkable, absolutely vibrant yet sadly dwindling community. Am so much better for having read it.

“I feel if there’s one little thing I could do it’s to make people realise we are not worthless. Because we inhabit a country which is seen by Western eyes as primitive & fundamentalist only…we are a rich mixture of all sorts of forces as well & our lives are very much worth living.” #booksky

RIP Bapsi Sidwha. She was & is by far my favorite Pakistani novelist, The Crow Eaters & Ice Candy Man remaining two books that impact me to this day. One of the most powerful quotes from her, that I absolutely internalized as an educationist in Pakistan is this:

DC at dusk

There were parts that were so hard to read but it is definitely a book that has stayed with me.

Students should study the humanities not because it makes them better workers but because it rips you open and breaks your brain and changes everything you thought you knew. I *promise* you this. I *promise* it has this ability, no matter how smart you think you are. I have seen it countless times.

#BookChallenge

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you.
One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order.
No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky #BookChallenge #Books 💙📚
Day 19:

Photo of Rosa Parks

It's been 69 years since Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat — a protest for justice that sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and changed the course of U.S. history.
 
We must continue to honor her legacy by fighting inequality, oppression, and injustice in all its forms.

2-Minute Read. The Research Is In: We Drastically Underestimate the Importance of Brain Breaks. By Youki Terada. Illustration of a brain with arms and legs, reclining and reading a book.

We tend to think of "brain breaks" as downtime, but a 2021 study says they're "just as important as practice in learning a new skill.” 🧠

🧵 1/11

Have seen this as an elementary educator multiple times. Phonics teaching is incredibly important—it can’t be minimized. But nor can high interest & contextual reading.

If the barrier is gaps in basic alphabetic code knowledge, target this.

If the barrier is blending words, target this.

If decoding is fine but the barrier is dysfluency, target this.

Identifying and addressing individual needs will *always outperform general strategies on the basis of labels.

The reality is that dyslexia simply means relatively extreme difficulties with learning to recognise and/or spell words.

The remediation of these difficulties should work in exact the same way for those with and without a diagnosis: identify the barriers to reading development and address them.

>>

#BookChallenge

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you.
One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order.
No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky #BookChallenge #Books 💙📚
Day 18:

BREAKING: Amnesty Concludes Israel Is Committing Genocide “We will look back and say, ‘Why did we not do more earlier?” Amnesty's director tells Zeteo.

NEW: Human rights organization Amnesty International has released a 296-page report concluding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The group joins Holocaust historians, United Nations experts, and a growing number of nations worldwide in doing so.

Are you a teacher?
Did you know that 2 pupils in every class of 30 are likely to have Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) ?
Never heard of DLD? This FREE leaflet explains what DLD is and shares some support strategies to use in class. #devlangdis

www.moorhouseinstitute.com/dld-resources/

#BookChallenge

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you.
One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order.
No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky #BookChallenge #Books #bapsisidhwa💙📚
Day 17:

Bloomberg Says RFK Jr. Would Be ‘Beyond Dangerous’ as Health Secretary Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and a public health advocate, is asking Senate Republicans to persuade President-elect Donald J. Trump to “rethink” Kennedy’s nomination.

"Parents who have been swayed by vaccine skepticism love their children and want to protect them, and we need leaders who will help them do that, not conspiracy theorists who will scare them into decisions that will put their children at risk of disease" www.nytimes.com/2024/12/03/u...

#SUDAN: The situation is beyond chaotic. Patients & medical staff are leaving the camp and trying to run for their lives. Our @msf.ca hospital is now empty, with the last three ICU patients - still dependent on oxygen - evacuated under dangerous conditions. #TalkAboutSudan #AidSky #MSF

Language teachers, this is an important truth we have to confront about our teaching too
#langchat

One of our leading magazines, which most members of Congress, reported that the Trump nominee for Defense Secretary chanted ‘ Kill all Muslims!’ and I haven’t seen loads of (any?) elected Dems condemn him for it yet.

It’s almost as if… Islamophobia has been normalized in DC.

#BookChallenge

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you.
One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order.
No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky #BookChallenge #Books 💙📚
Day 16:

Bar chart showing that acts of clemency are fairly common in the final months of a president's term. The chart is based on a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Chart: Acts of clemency in the final months of a president's term have been fairly common www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...