Andrew Simmons

Been doing this with my students (earnestly, candidly) for years.

Have Teachers Reached App Overload? Educators are overwhelmed by an avalanche of tools. The solution isn’t zero tech, but the question of balance is critical.

Last week, I wrote for @edutopia.org about teachers coping with too many software licenses for products that feel inconsistently useful, weaving my own experiences into a reported piece.

Curious how many district-level positions are being cut...

6. Race to the Top Updating the flow chart...

Five years ago, I wrote about several students adding the image of an ape to a presentation about Black history (related to a unit on Kindred). The kids characterized it as a subversive "joke" and claimed, ironically, given the context, not to get why it was perceived as racist.

I hope your children are okay!

48. You Can Get With This, or You Can Get With That The weekend crystallizes for teens a binary choice: bridge distance and take up the mantle of all-American solidarity or join the goons…

In #48 of my newsletter about teaching high school in a depraved newsletter, with reflection on Minnesota and a trip down memory lane, I consider the allure of apathy for teens and express some optimism. Solidarity is the only path for the grievously disaffected!

A short story about a NYT mag story profiling a therapist who coaches AI bots in the 2030s through a reckoning with the tough times they experienced in their mid-2020s childhood is just there, waiting to be written..

47. Processin' Revising the country, its history, one's self, and an essay...

I used #47 of my poorly optimized newsletter to reflect on a country trying to edit itself and its history as my students edit their writing and selves. From Minneapolis to national parks to 1984 to the writing process…

Also studying American cinema and postmodernism. We’ve got quite a text here.

One interesting bit is the usage of Grammarly to simply “clean up” writing. Grammarly has a generative AI feature that changes entire documents with a click: “make it confident,” “make it persuasive,” etc. Students can use this and feel authentic unlike when they put prompts into chat gpt…

46. From Kyoto, On Drugs: A Maybe-Book Stirs How any class can make better communicators, planners, problem-solvers, and community members through journalism…

For #46 of my boutique newsletter dedicated to teaching English to teens in dark times, I share a medication-scrambled thought-vomit from Thanksgiving vacation: the next book for educators I just might write.

I had that reaction to the joint-in-mouth selfie on the couch as his kid goes off to fight fascism. Too perfect.

Both red fern and bridge in fourth grade for this guy. Along with “a taste of blackberries.” And Roots, the whole TV series! In class!

45. This Ain't No Golf Course, This Ain't No Boardroom My high school chemistry teacher, a whistle-blower's portrayal in Michael Mann's classic film The Insider, and one science class lesson I haven't sort of forgotten...

For #45, I wrote about good learning, iffy teaching, and my high school chem teacher...

They pretend that sentiment does not exist but view every slightly wishy-washy likely-R voter as this unlearned kingmaker to be soothed like a fussy baby.

Watching this was fascinating after having Wigand for high school chemistry.

A very bad recent diagnosis, a sudden authentic spiritual awakening, and/or a decision to pack everything/everyone along for the trip…

I’ve found that high school students (I teach) often don’t even perceive AI use in brainstorming/writing process as inauthentic, because the app extension is in the document advising them, because they see it as an extension of the self.

When this man writes, I just hear the porter from Macbeth hissing “equivocator” over and over.

Also: an elderly man pushing a wheelchair on a quiet tree-shrouded street with evidence of bike use and public transit. What is that code for?

Seems like it’s time for the 82nd Airborne to come deal with farm-to-table cuisine and the inevitable products of drug wars and public health failures.

Tackling the Question of Character Development in the Classroom Using texts, projects, and classroom policies, some English teachers encourage self-reflection and teach social responsibility.

Nothing is more fun (as a journalist) than (as a teacher) getting to speak with bright, reflective, serious educators about their work. I find journalistic curiosity and teaching practice satiated, two birds, one stone, and so forth.

44. Look, It's a Fascist! No, It's an Antifascist! Wait, I Think It's the Abyss! Hi, we’re called False Witness, and we came to play some jams for you. Bear with us! This next song is called…

I quoted you in my education newsletter…

The Articles must be protected at all costs. We have to write and share them. Together. On the same page. America is made up of many Articles. Some I like, some I don’t. But I’ll defend your right to Article to the death. Our Articles sit together in the pews of the Times. Along with our Pods.

44. Look, It's a Fascist! No, It's an Antifascist! Wait, I Think It's the Abyss! Hi, we’re called False Witness, and we came to play some jams for you. Bear with us! This next song is called…

For #44, a lit teacher angle on last week… what a month to start The Stranger…

In addition to providing therapy and companionship!

My sense, as a teacher and observer, is that a lot of young people are simultaneously lonely/sad, fairly privileged, desensitized to depictions of suffering, perma-distracted, and very very bored. "Recreational nihilism" is accurate and may in fact appear in my upcoming unit on The Stranger....

Have heard majoring in lit and theory doesn't prep one for conventional adult triumph but it helps when motivation for political violence can come from a closed loop of endlessly self-referential and ultimately post-ideological signs steps removed from meaning anyone not surfing said loop can infer.

As a teacher I've been increasingly concerned about teens (boys, mostly) growing disinterested in the exploration of worlds via literature and, through such boards and social media, participating in the construction of a fictitious world of forces and figures that they can superimpose over our own.