Andy Charrier.
@acharrier.bsky.social
Author of www.TeenSuperpower.com
K-12 technology, art, photography, lefty politics, and dad to Attax the Therapy Husky.
K-12 technology, art, photography, lefty politics, and dad to Attax the Therapy Husky.
Power rarely recognizes peace walks as legitimate until after they’ve changed history.
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open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
A Stray Dog Is Leading 19 Monks to D.C. Your Students Are Already Watching.
The viral Walk for Peace is a real-time lesson in nonviolent resistance—and a blueprint for your own school walk
open.substack.com
January 12, 2026 at 2:31 PM
Power rarely recognizes peace walks as legitimate until after they’ve changed history.
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
The discomfort white people are feeling right now—the horror at ICE raids, the sense of powerlessness before Trump’s consolidated power, the grief over what’s being lost—risks becoming exactly what both thinkers warned against.
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Your Discomfort Isn’t Solidarity
What Hannah Arendt and Malcolm X understood about the limits of white empathy—and why it matters right now
open.substack.com
January 8, 2026 at 9:20 PM
The discomfort white people are feeling right now—the horror at ICE raids, the sense of powerlessness before Trump’s consolidated power, the grief over what’s being lost—risks becoming exactly what both thinkers warned against.
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
When your student says “I have brain rot,” what they mean is “my attention has been hijacked and I can feel it happening but I can’t make it stop.” open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
“Brain Rot” Isn’t a Tech Problem. It’s a Justice Problem.
Billion-dollar companies design platforms to be addictive. We respond by telling teenagers to have more self-control. If that sounds backwards to you, your students already noticed.
open.substack.com
January 5, 2026 at 1:56 PM
When your student says “I have brain rot,” what they mean is “my attention has been hijacked and I can feel it happening but I can’t make it stop.” open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Framing this as “kids these days can’t focus” lets Silicon Valley off the hook. Student attention is being extracted and sold. That’s not a discipline problem. That’s capitalism.
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open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Your Students Aren't Distracted. They're Being Robbed.
New research proves teachers were right about phone bans. Now here's how to protect your classroom from a $1 trillion industry built on stealing student attention.
open.substack.com
January 1, 2026 at 7:58 PM
Framing this as “kids these days can’t focus” lets Silicon Valley off the hook. Student attention is being extracted and sold. That’s not a discipline problem. That’s capitalism.
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Here’s what most textbooks erase: Helen Keller didn’t just overcome disability. She analyzed it. And what she discovered led her to dedicate her life to dismantling the economic system she believed created most disabilities in the first place. #historyteacher open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Helen Keller Called Rockefeller a Monster. Teach That Tomorrow.
The socialist labor organizer your curriculum hid behind "miracle worker" sentimentality
open.substack.com
December 30, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Here’s what most textbooks erase: Helen Keller didn’t just overcome disability. She analyzed it. And what she discovered led her to dedicate her life to dismantling the economic system she believed created most disabilities in the first place. #historyteacher open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Your students are drowning in this pattern. Fake quotes from resistance leaders. Historical figures claimed by movements they’d have opposed. The language of justice inverted to defend injustice.
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open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Sophie Scholl Died Fighting Nazis. Now the Far Right Claims Her Name.
Teaching students to recognize when resistance gets weaponized against itself
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December 29, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Your students are drowning in this pattern. Fake quotes from resistance leaders. Historical figures claimed by movements they’d have opposed. The language of justice inverted to defend injustice.
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
If “real artist” has historically required certain credentials, training, or abilities, who does that definition protect?
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open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
The Art World Took 41 Years to See a Disabled Artist. That’s the Story.
Nnena Kalu makes sculptures from VHS tapes and bubble wrap. She just won Britain’s biggest art prize. The art world is acting surprised.
open.substack.com
December 28, 2025 at 3:13 PM
If “real artist” has historically required certain credentials, training, or abilities, who does that definition protect?
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
This story intersects everything we teach about justice: whose labor gets recognized, how communities respond when institutions abandon them, and what solidarity costs. #education #historyteacher open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
When the Government Abandoned a Community, Lesbians Stepped In
The untold story of the Blood Sisters and how solidarity works when institutions fail
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December 19, 2025 at 5:24 PM
This story intersects everything we teach about justice: whose labor gets recognized, how communities respond when institutions abandon them, and what solidarity costs. #education #historyteacher open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
The tools we’ve handed students to read are training their brains to skim. #teaching #reading #education
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open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Tech Companies Profit When Your Students Can't Focus
Inside the shallowing hypothesis—and how to fight back
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December 19, 2025 at 3:08 PM
The tools we’ve handed students to read are training their brains to skim. #teaching #reading #education
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open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Your students think scientific discovery is a meritocracy? Show them Eunice Foote. #historyteacher #science open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
She Discovered Climate Change. History Erased Her Name.
In 1856, Eunice Foote proved CO2 heats the planet. A man got the credit—and a moon crater. Here's what your textbooks won't tell you.
open.substack.com
December 18, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Your students think scientific discovery is a meritocracy? Show them Eunice Foote. #historyteacher #science open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Teach students to ask whose faces appear in religious art and you’re teaching them to question who decides what “normal” looks like.
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open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Who Gets to Be Holy? How One Laundromat Changed What Sacred Looks Like
In 1967, Rose Waldon’s face became the Black Madonna—and reminded a congregation that divinity doesn’t require white skin.
open.substack.com
December 16, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Teach students to ask whose faces appear in religious art and you’re teaching them to question who decides what “normal” looks like.
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
The history of Black Girl Scout troops teaches something textbooks usually hide: when institutions refuse, creating your own version isn’t just resistance—it’s a declaration that legitimacy doesn’t require official permission. #HistoryTeacher #HistoryEducation
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open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
The Black Girl Scouts Who Made Their Own Uniforms
When institutions refuse to count you, you don't wait for permission—you create your own. A century of Black Girl Scouts building belonging.
open.substack.com
December 11, 2025 at 7:27 PM
The history of Black Girl Scout troops teaches something textbooks usually hide: when institutions refuse, creating your own version isn’t just resistance—it’s a declaration that legitimacy doesn’t require official permission. #HistoryTeacher #HistoryEducation
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
In 1947—seven years before Brown v. Board of Education—five Mexican American families in Orange County, California won a federal case declaring school segregation unconstitutional. Most students never learn this. Most teachers never teach it. open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
The Mendez Family Won School Desegregation in 1947. California Is More Segregated Than Ever.
The civil rights case your curriculum erased—and what it reveals about how inequality actually works
open.substack.com
December 11, 2025 at 7:23 PM
In 1947—seven years before Brown v. Board of Education—five Mexican American families in Orange County, California won a federal case declaring school segregation unconstitutional. Most students never learn this. Most teachers never teach it. open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Derbyshire’s story offers teachers a powerful case study in how innovation gets remembered—and who gets erased from that memory.
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The Woman Who Made the Future Sound Like the Future
Teaching innovation, erasure, and resistance through the story of Delia Derbyshire and the birth of electronic music
open.substack.com
December 11, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Derbyshire’s story offers teachers a powerful case study in how innovation gets remembered—and who gets erased from that memory.
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
What do you do when the rules are unfair—and everyone around you is following them?
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Your Textbook Teaches Korematsu Like It's History. The Court Didn't Overturn It Until 2018.
Fred Korematsu's "crime" was existing in California while Japanese American. The Supreme Court said that was constitutional—and they suppressed evidence to prove it.
open.substack.com
December 10, 2025 at 6:49 PM
What do you do when the rules are unfair—and everyone around you is following them?
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Book banning isn’t a recent phenomenon driven by anxious parents. It’s a direct descendant of anti-literacy slave codes—laws that made it a crime to teach Black people to read. The system didn’t disappear after 1865. It adapted.
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Book Bans Are Slave Codes. The Paper Trail Goes Back 285 Years.
How anti-literacy laws became school board votes—and why Jennie Proctor's pine torch still matters
open.substack.com
December 9, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Book banning isn’t a recent phenomenon driven by anxious parents. It’s a direct descendant of anti-literacy slave codes—laws that made it a crime to teach Black people to read. The system didn’t disappear after 1865. It adapted.
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
The Flattering Machine and AI's 'Yes-Man' Problem in Student Learning
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The Flattering Machine and AI's 'Yes-Man' Problem in Student Learning
New research reveals why chatbots struggle to challenge students' thinking—and what that means for cognitive development in K-12 classrooms
open.substack.com
December 8, 2025 at 12:55 AM
The Flattering Machine and AI's 'Yes-Man' Problem in Student Learning
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open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Walt Disney Tried to Run Over His Employees. They Won Anyway
Walt Disney Tried to Run Over His Employees. They Won Anyway
How 700 artists you’ve never heard of created Mickey Mouse, fought for screen credits, and changed creative labor forever
open.substack.com
December 5, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Walt Disney Tried to Run Over His Employees. They Won Anyway
"My Culture Is Not a Costume": The Majorette Debate Your Students Need to Understand
"My Culture Is Not a Costume": The Majorette Debate Your Students Need to Understand
When the Cardinal Divas went viral at USC, they reignited a conversation about Black traditions, underfunded HBCUs, and who owns the dance.
open.substack.com
December 4, 2025 at 1:24 AM
"My Culture Is Not a Costume": The Majorette Debate Your Students Need to Understand
In 1980, a Trans Woman Won America’s First Video Game Championship. The Industry Wrote Her Out of the Story.
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In 1980, a Trans Woman Won America’s First Video Game Championship. The Industry Wrote Her Out of the Story.
Rebecca Heineman co-founded the company behind Fallout. She died at 62, still being rediscovered.
open.substack.com
December 1, 2025 at 8:14 PM
In 1980, a Trans Woman Won America’s First Video Game Championship. The Industry Wrote Her Out of the Story.
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
When the medical system deems someone disposable, archiving becomes resistance. Alice Wong's story for educators thinking about whose voices matter—new at Prompts & Provocations.
andycharrier.substack.com/p/the-medica...
andycharrier.substack.com/p/the-medica...
The Medical System Said Alice Wong Was Disposable. Her Archive Says Otherwise.
The disability justice icon who just died at 51 spent her life proving that some bodies aren’t problems to solve—they’re stories to preserve.
open.substack.com
November 28, 2025 at 11:13 PM
When the medical system deems someone disposable, archiving becomes resistance. Alice Wong's story for educators thinking about whose voices matter—new at Prompts & Provocations.
andycharrier.substack.com/p/the-medica...
andycharrier.substack.com/p/the-medica...
📌 Hot take: Every elementary school teaches the Thanksgiving story. Zero mention that the Pilgrims weren't even part of it until 1880. New piece up on how to teach what actually happened—without ruining dinner 👇
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
The Thanksgiving Story Is Wrong. Here's How to Teach What Actually Happened
Share this with a teacher who’s ready to teach Thanksgiving differently.
open.substack.com
November 26, 2025 at 4:47 PM
📌 Hot take: Every elementary school teaches the Thanksgiving story. Zero mention that the Pilgrims weren't even part of it until 1880. New piece up on how to teach what actually happened—without ruining dinner 👇
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
When they banned Picasso and Chagall, they called it "protecting children." Sound like any school board meetings you've been to lately?
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open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
The Nazis Taught Germany to Fear Modern Art. Sound Familiar?
When they banned Picasso and Chagall, they called it "protecting children." Sound like any school board meetings you've been to lately?
open.substack.com
November 26, 2025 at 1:26 PM
When they banned Picasso and Chagall, they called it "protecting children." Sound like any school board meetings you've been to lately?
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
open.substack.com/pub/andychar...
Your classroom = where students learn to question national myths before they become “common sense”
andycharrier.substack.com/p/the-thanks...
andycharrier.substack.com/p/the-thanks...
November 24, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Your classroom = where students learn to question national myths before they become “common sense”
andycharrier.substack.com/p/the-thanks...
andycharrier.substack.com/p/the-thanks...
It's time for some more power-to-the-teachers
andycharrier.substack.com
andycharrier.substack.com
October 24, 2025 at 7:42 PM
It's time for some more power-to-the-teachers
andycharrier.substack.com
andycharrier.substack.com