Thomas Dixon

Front cover of book; civilian men queuing to become soldiers

Delighted to see that my book Joining Up is published today, a mere 11 years after I started writing it. You can read it for free here: doi.org/10.7765/9781...
@manchesterup.bsky.social

🙏Thank you for your response. I don’t know if I am autistic or not but online tests and reading around the subject (and family connections) make me think I probably am. I love that Eliot quote and had never made the connection before.

Yes. We are all different. Autistic people don’t have a monopoly on getting overloaded. I think that shift happens in autistic experiences too though? Sensory overstimulation leads to mental and physical shutdown / exhaustion. I might be misunderstanding you though. 😇

Thank you 🙏. Yes definitely a rollercoaster. 🎢
Proper break …plus planning … yes! Whole new year group and curriculum to prepare for. Looking forward to it. 😎

Just completed my first year as a teacher. Year 6… so dominated by SATs. I knew it would be hard work - and emotionally challenging- and it was! Topped off by planning and running the leavers’ service. 😭😊. Am in day 3 of recovery plan. Sofa. Cups of tea. Cricket on TV. In September - Year 4! 😎

And it occurs to me that this description is perhaps evocative of the autistic experience of hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli, and the resulting feeling of emotional overwhelm.

I wonder if others have made this connection? [2/2]

Just thinking about that famous Eliot quote from Middlemarch: ""If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence." [1/2]

Just completed my first year as a teacher. Year 6… so dominated by SATs. I knew it would be hard work - and emotionally challenging- and it was! Topped off by planning and running the leavers’ service. 😭😊. Am in day 3 of recovery plan. Sofa. Cups of tea. Cricket on TV. In September - Year 4! 😎

pen drawing of a man in a neat suit looking very clever with his large forehead, pen in hand, and slightly hautain expression. The text reads "It's best when the reader sees the workings of the brain but not the face"

WHOA! Open access publication of a lot of the drawings from Johan Huizinga! Some beautiful historical imagination as well as this "It's best when the reader sees the workings of the brain but not the face" (as the owner of a very expressive face: yup) books.ugp.rug.nl/ugp/catalog/... #HoeraHuizing!

A kid gave me a card this year that said I'd made them like history. Made my week. Honestly if you want to make a teacher happy just do a nice card.
Don't buy me anything.

I adored this kind of making when I was a child. My kids adored this kind of making when they were young.

Hours and hours of fun. 😊

bsky.app/profile/darr...

when Italian PM Vittorio Orlando burst into tears during a meeting at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 his fellow statesmen were apparently rather embarrassed and discombobulated. Is there no specific diplomatic protocol for tears, I wonder?

Thank you! Would make a nice epitaph. "Here lies Thomas Dixon. He owned tears". 😇

Cover of Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears

I expect you're wondering whether other leading politicians have shed tears in the House of Commons before - and more generally about the history of crying in British culture, and what it means.
Good news - there is a book all about it! bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Very proud of this - created for Year 6 this week - as part of our focus on Magritte in Art this term. It's an automatic Magritte-style painting generator. At the touch of a button it gives you 3 motifs and a suggested title!

Very proud of this - created for Year 6 this week - as part of our focus on Magritte in Art this term. It's an automatic Magritte-style painting generator. At the touch of a button it gives you 3 motifs and a suggested title!

📢 Check out the programme of the Second Conference of the Society for the Study of Medieval Emotions, which will take place in St Andrews on 26-27 June 2025. 👇

Herald of a Restless World How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People

Guess what!? My biography of Henri Bergson will be available in paperback NEXT WEEK (June 19th)! John Banville called it "the most intellectually stimulating book I read this year" and the NYT called it "lively and deft". Get your copy here (or don't I'm not a cop): linktr.ee/eherring

Distractions consume more learning time than we tend to think.

Here's the lowdown:

↓

Sketch of a crow made with pastel and acrylic on toned paper.

Sketch of a crow

Pastel and acrylic
5x7

#art #birds #nature #illustration

Mind-clearing pre-SATs-week morning walk.

Low morning sun with rays refracting on pond and trees

Good morning all

This and the Paper 1 equivalent are so helpful for revision and practice. Thank you!

NEW: The SATS reasoning paper is now live for everyone!

Massive thanks to my members that made it possible. It simply wouldn't exist without you.

mathsbot.com/primary/reas...

Sunlit bluebells in woodlands

Good morning all!
Things getting intense in Year 6 as SATs hurtle towards us. 4 more teaching days to go. Morning walk in bluebell woods is a great antidote. 😇

🙏

Sunday Feature - Margaret Are You Grieving? A Cultural History of Weeping - BBC Sounds Thomas Dixon explores the history of weeping as an aesthetic response to works of art.

A cultural history of weeping - my first foray into radio, in 2013 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Is Love an Emotion? Tina Turner asked "What's love but a second-hand emotion?" But is it an emotion at all?

Is Love an Emotion? | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-...

Is Love an Emotion? Tina Turner asked "What's love but a second-hand emotion?" But is it an emotion at all?

Is Love an Emotion? | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-...

Beautiful walk to Godrevy Lighthouse today.