A happy book says: I'm so proud you chose me as your holiday read! I can't wait to start entertaining you! A smiling drink says: And I'm right here! Ready to keep you cool and refreshed while you read! A gleeful phone adds: Yay! So great! How about we kick things off with a load of the same old rubbish you always look at, plus some gloomy news and mavbe a few emails from work!! Hours later... The drink and book lie untouched. The phone is out of view but a bubble reads: Scroll Scroll Scroll Scroll Scroll The book says “I hate that guy.”

My cartoons for this week’s @theguardian.com books
#holiday #vacation #reading

The blank pages at the back of books are for you to tear out and eat

I love this. I always struggled with History in HS and beyond given the way it was taught as you described. Even as a beginning social studies teacher decades ago, I lacked this kind of insight. Thank you for making History accessible to new scholars.

Historians - as you think about the new semester, consider this first-day exercise as a way to get conversation going about what historians *actually* do, and the context within which we do it. catherinedenial.org/blog/uncateg...

Imagine if all of the hours and hours and hours that are going to be spent by teachers developing these tools was spent reading books written by experts about education, pedagogy, their discipline, psychology. We live in a world that behaves as though books don’t exist. Surely that can’t go badly.

The two examples of tools that have been developed: one is for relationships with colleagues and the other is for disciplinary problems. IOW, the kinds of things that require very careful human thought and emotion and should not be handed to a machine known for bias and errors.

". “A chatbot is only as knowledgeable as what you teach it, and so you have to keep either feeding it information or practicing the outcome you want,”
We keep feeding the machine and expecting the outcomes to serve us but that is illusory. It produces probable strings of text, not meaning.

Everyone thinks you’re paranoid until you’re right. Feels like March 2020 all over again.

The White House announced a new health data tracking system. How would it work? President Donald Trump's announcement of a new private health tracking system to help patients access their health records and monitor wellness is raising a host of privacy concerns.

Deleted my data from 🍎 Health and will be completely off my watch by Monday.
#MyBodyMyData

Wise.

So frustrating to see the way in which systems at every level have chosen to embrace increased surveillance as a net positive. To push back on this stance often means being treated as a hysterical exception/troublemaker.

I got laughed at for learning analytics concerns throughout my doctoral program and for llm generated surveillance concerns a decade or more before it, and the responses have always been “the students don’t care” and never “why are we doing it?”

YouTube video by ImPulsTanz Tao Ye / TAO Dance Theater (CN) – "16" & "17"

I had the tremendous privilege to watch the TAO Dance Theater perform last night and I've never seen anything like it! The trailer can hardly do it justice but provides a taste. If you have the opportunity, absolutely make time to see them!

youtu.be/m3vORTXTVdY

Breaking News: Hot Girl Summer Concerningly Hotter every Summer

I don't doubt some find "AI" useful - for work, for cheating assignments, for self-help, for massive government malfeasance, whatever - but it's also a shitshow for education in many ways so do respect and not dismiss our concerns please. A few examples:

Bending The Arc August 2025 Back in the saddle! Well, the carousel has turned a few more times and many of us find ourselves back in our starting positions, prepared to embark on the next ride of a school year. How do you fee…

I wish I had time and space to also consider this aspect in the latest Bending the Arc but there will always be a next time. bendingthearcnewsletter.blog/2025/08/07/b...

Schools are using AI to spy on students and some are getting arrested for misinterpreted jokes and private conversations “Is this the America we live in?” said one parent. “And it was this stupid, stupid technology that is just going through picking up random words and not looking at context.”

While so much focus on AI in education relates to gen AI, AI-powered surveillance platforms are another significant threat. More tech in school systems easily becomes a recipe for more invasive policing of students online and off.

fortune.com/2025/08/07/s...

Hooray for this important book!!

💀

Some good news!

Schools are using AI to spy on students and some are getting arrested for misinterpreted jokes and private conversations “Is this the America we live in?” said one parent. “And it was this stupid, stupid technology that is just going through picking up random words and not looking at context.”

Cool. Cool cool cool.

I want to say something smart about the legacy of coloniality and inescapability of carceral logics but it’s too early on a Saturday and you already know it.

fortune.com/2025/08/07/s...

You can, in fact, just decide to start a thing. I do it all of the time and it's a good way to execute ideas rather to just critique others' ideas. Critique by doing as Michelangelo said. Critique by DOING.

I realize broad science-literacy problems cannot generally be solved just by shoving more facts at people but I really wish more people understood that the entire purpose and mechanism of a vaccine is to educate your OWN immune system, making it about the most "natural" medical intervention possible

Thank you! I'm sure I will thank myself later that I invested the time and focus.

Bending The Arc August 2025 Back in the saddle! Well, the carousel has turned a few more times and many of us find ourselves back in our starting positions, prepared to embark on the next ride of a school year. How do you fee…

Got it done.
bendingthearcnewsletter.blog/2025/08/07/b...

This—and, it gives them the ability to control it without paying or respecting the people who produced the expertise.

Whew! This book was the very best way to wrap up my summer! The page turner I didn't know I was craving.
#CreativeRage

A great mentor text.

He really is exceptionally good at this.

Support PrisonCulture's Giving Circle This is PrisonCulture's Giving Circle. Instead of monetizing my newsletter on Substack, I am setting up a giving circle for any one who would like to support the newsletter. ALL funds will be donated ...

It's a real blessing to be able to collective care in this way. ko-fi.com/prisonculture