Nate
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jessenathaniel.bsky.social
Nate
@jessenathaniel.bsky.social
330 followers 200 following 960 posts
Black. Special Education administrator. Holding fast to the belief that education and restorative justice can meet the political moment. Committed to racial justice inside & outside of school.
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jessenathaniel.bsky.social
I listen to these podcasts because I really do find learning sciences research interesting… but, while I think this is super vivid framing, I have two arguments against thinking of teaching and learning in this way… (🧵 1/8)

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...
“He has this fantastic insight about how learning, I mean, we're talking about math, but sometimes I feel like math is just a good metaphor for all the other subjects, but when you're climbing up a mountain, the higher you go and you look back down, you make sense of the journey you've been on so far more clearly than when you were on it at the time, so you might be in a bit of a gully and like thinking, why are we here? Well, where are we going? What's all this for? And you see from above, you go, oh, l get it. That's where we were.” “Now it all makes sense. And sometimes you have to support students through that period of uncertainty, trusting the fact that in your sense of the way the curriculum progresses, they'll reach a point where it'll all land, it'll all make much more sense later, but not just yet. I think the tolerance of some ambiguity around nailing total understanding, it can sometimes be a false promise. They're not going to fully understand it yet. Later, you'll see how things like Pythagoras and trig overlap and work together…”
February 7, 2026 at 10:40 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
This is an undeniable truth to me. And it’s a way better guiding principle for students should learn in schools than any bad faith censorship-driven approach conservatives have pushed.

If they truly believed in the merit of your ideas about the nation, they wouldn’t fear counter-narratives so much.
“Stevenson insists that the goal of the Legacy Museum is not to present Alabama as irredeemably racist or forever entrapped by its past. Alabama is a state that he loves. It is his home. He believes it can be different in the future, but not if people turn away from the past. "I don't think slavery should define Alabama," he said. "And if we have the courage to talk about it honestly, it won't. But we can't not talk about it and have a proper understanding of who we are.”
January 19, 2026 at 5:55 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
I’ve long thought this is the best way forward: creating grade level lists and requiring schools choose at least one while giving teachers the freedom to supplement. But given how these debates go, I also sometimes wonder if grade level themes/essential q’s w/suggestions is the way to go.
“There are better ways for the state to approach their legal mandate. Most obviously, they could do what the law says, and name one book to be assigned as required reading per grade level. That would still leave plenty of space for "local autonomy to meet student needs," which the state identified as an important educational goal in January 2025. Or, if the state really feels it needs to develop "a common literary canon”, then it could provide a (much more diverse, higher quality) list of 15-20 books for each grade level and then give districts flexibility in choosing to teach some number of the books on that list. Instead, the state has chosen the worst possible approach: it has taken over the role of canon formation, and it has made a bad, spotty, and incomplete canon.”
January 19, 2026 at 4:01 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
In talking to novice teachers more often in the last couple of years, the part about being overwhelmed and being told to do one more thing really stands out here. But, for me, this is what I try to emphasize with new teachers: how can you create and sustain an ongoing dialogue about learning?
“WHY THIS ONGOING CONVERSATION WITH STUDENTS MATTERS “In too many classrooms, assessments are where learning stops. Students do their best, they receive a grade or test score, and then we move on. “Moving toward a focus on formative assessment in the classroom opens the door, however, to an ongoing conversation around student learning. Instead of having students take a high-stakes assessment each month or so, I can build the classroom around more-frequent, more-targeted opportunities to understand where students are and communicate back to them what's next. This is the space where l'm at my best as a teacher, and that's why I want to continue leaning into a classroom that centers formative assessment-intentionally, frequently, and reflectively.”
January 18, 2026 at 11:40 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
I live in the East Bay, but these numbers about the region/state resonate — childcare cost is a serious issue here and I hope other cities/counties follow suit with this
“The Children's Council of San Francisco estimates that the average cost of childcare in the city is between $20,000 and $30,000 per child each year. And the Economic Policy Institute ranks California fourth out of 50 states and the District of Columbia for most expensive infant care. According to the Institute, infant care for one child would take up more than 18% of a median family's income in California; and care for two children could take up close to 30% of a family's income. “According to US Department of Health and Human Services guidelines, childcare is only considered "affordable" if it takes up less than 7% of a family's income. Even for families earning six-figure salaries in the Bay Area, that goal is far out of reach. The mayor's new childcare proposal brings that 7% just within reach, even for families earning what would be an extravagant salary elsewhere in the country.”
January 18, 2026 at 11:21 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
Feels obligatory …
A skeleton sitting on a bench with the caption, “Teachers be like I’ll wait.”
January 14, 2026 at 2:15 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
This little nugget is sitting at the heart of every single article about strikes and budgeting in public school districts … and I find it fascinating that the reasons for it are rarely named much less explored.

We can’t keep glossing over what’s happening here.
“The approved plan will do away with the Family Consumer Science program in the middle school and get rid of the orchestra program. Boone is the only school district in the Raccoon River Conference to offer orchestra. The plan will also cut the full-time PE, art and music teacher jobs at the elementary-level. District officials say they had to make $665,000 in reductions due to declining enrollment and state funding for public schools.”
January 14, 2026 at 2:09 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
Something we must understand: these goons are testing the limits of our social, legal, and moral fabric at every level possible to see what they can get away with. They’re indifferent to the safety of children and only becoming more emboldened. We’re morally obligated to oppose their very existence.
“I hope that any person who wanted mass deportations sees now they were fooled. If they really believed the lies that this administration meant to go after "bad guys", I hope they are horrified at what is happening right now in my city. Because we need them to join us in ending this chaos. We need everyone. They can make amends by helping restore safety to our communities. That means ICE needs to leave. Now. And they cannot just leave to go inflict this terror elsewhere. We have to end this completely. They are emboldened and brazen and getting more aggressive by the day. They will not go to the next city and start from square one, pretending they're only there to get the bad guys. They will carry this aggression with them. They have to be disbanded and held accountable.”
January 13, 2026 at 3:02 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
Image of Senator Susan Collins with a concerned look on her face superimposed with the text “I am deeply troubled by this thing I will do nothing about.”
January 3, 2026 at 8:36 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
This is DEFINITELY an element of what we should be doing as educators in 2026 — it’s already started, but I think this explicit connection between tech and our current political hellscape is really important to acknowledge (and something I know a lot of educators try not to get bogged down with)
From disconnect blog: “Throughout this year, the Trump presidency and the billionaires of Silicon Valley have made it abundantly clear that the world's dependence on US tech companies, the products they've deployed, and the infrastructure they've built over the past few decades was a mistake that must be addressed. That dependence gives the US and its tech companies significant leverage over countries that now hesitate to take strong action against the United States in light of Trump's trade war for fear of repercussions, but also of losing potential investment from some of the largest and most well-capitalized companies and investors in the world. That fear, particularly of short-term economic pain, helps to explain how despite so much talk of digital sovereignty in 2025, little real progress seems to have been made in the countries with the greatest capacity to pursue it. “But paired with those discussions of state action is another element: what we ourselves can do to reduce our personal dependence on the products made by US.” From disconnect.blog: “I'm the kind of person who is skeptical of the power of individual action to force change, but I also believe that if enough of us commit to it that it can make a difference — and hopefully show our governments they should be doing more.” From disconnect.blog: “But as we wait to see if that will ever arrive, there is a stronger argument forming with every passing month that rejecting the technologies being sold to us - and even going back to physical and analog alternatives - is the right move in the present. Maybe not everything has to be digital or digitized, maybe the internet shouldn't be inserted into absolutely everything, maybe we shouldn't be constantly connected in the way we're now expected to be, and generative Al certainly does not need to be forced into every facet of society.”
December 31, 2025 at 9:11 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
December 31, 2025 at 2:15 AM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
I’ve seen this article come across my timeline a few times in the last week and the part about core beliefs really caught my eye — for people are naturally more authoritarian or permissive, that often comes with core beliefs about/formative experiences with authority and those can be hard to shake.
“While the "demander" part may sound rooted in strictness, becoming a warm demander in the classroom isn't about compliance, insists school administrator Jessica Wei Huang. "It's a common misunderstanding that demandingness is the same as strictness," writes Wei Huang. Instead, it's less about "controlling and demanding outcomes" and more about seeing "young people as whole human beings with desires, agency, and critical thinking." The demanding aspect is closely aligned with the core belief by educators that "every student can grow to be the best version of themselves." Making the work challenging and insisting on high standards is ultimately a show of respect for the student, writes veteran educator and school leader Matt Alexander. Warm demanders set a tone of seriousness and mutual esteem in the classroom…”
December 26, 2025 at 6:31 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
(Also, does this part remind anyone of a prominent national program that recruits college grads into the teaching profession by promising to satisfy their moral ambition… or is that just me? Because I think there’s a conversation to be had about shared dark sides… but for another day… 😬)
“That's not the most important reason. It's really not. It's just they're lost. They're like insecure overachievers. They don't know what to do with their lives. And then McKinsey comes along and McKinsey has a very clear plan. They say like, look, it's just going to be for two years. Here are a lot of our alumni. You can talk to them. You'll have great mentors and peers, etc. And this is basically what people like you do. You'll preserve your optionality. That's how they suck them in. And then obviously they become different people. Because as the golden handcuff tied in, yeah, then people become more cynical or less altruistic.”
December 24, 2025 at 7:10 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
Really interesting (passing) thought from Rutger Bregman about “moral ambition” and teachers that I’m wrestling with.

He seems to juxtapose an “entrepreneurial aspect” with “doing the right thing in our little corner of the world”… but doesn’t mention the scale of impact over a teacher’s career.
Are We Trapped In Meaningless Jo... LEVER December 18 • S7 E5 • 52 min TIME “…moral ambition is, for me, something different. It's really about being a moral maximalist and doing as much good as you possibly can. “Take a teacher who is organizing a union. That sounds pretty morally ambitious to me, because then you're trying to scale up your impact. Then that entrepreneurial aspect becomes much more important. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that moral ambition is the only way to live a good life. “Absolutely not. There are many ways to live a good life. I'm just saying we need more moral ambition out there. We need more entrepreneurial idealists. Because if we're only doing the right thing in our little corner of the world…”
December 24, 2025 at 6:48 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
This is quite literally a series of single-sentence horror stories about ed tech in the last 25 years… even as it addresses key issues like training…

…because if I was asked to spend any amount of time on this training, I’d skip it and take the write-up — at some point, we have to just refuse.
From marylandmatters.org: “He also stressed teachers will be trained and supported as the county works to integrate this program into more schools. "This is one of many tools that we'll be putting in the hands of both teachers and students. It's important for us to be more efficient, more effective," Joseph said. "Al is becoming the new word processing. It'll be a tool that everybody just uses to get what they need to get done, done. And we want to make sure that our kids are equipped with using those tools effectively," he said. Kaepernick and county leaders also made clear that teachers will be able to dig into the program and intervene when necessary to make sure the program works as intended for students. "Teachers have full transparency on the platform," Kaepernick said. "I think that's one of the things that teachers, districts and parents have really appreciated. When students are using Al, every prompt, every question, every engagement, teachers and administrators have full visibility into." According to Joseph, the school system's investment in Al will make sure students aren't left behind. "The digital divide no longer is about access to devices, it's about access to emerging skills," Joseph said. "The partnership positions our children to step boldly into careers in storytelling, media, technology, computer science and broader digital economies.”
December 23, 2025 at 7:20 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
My 5 year old just heard my 3 year old count to 20 and didn’t absolutely lose it when she passed 6-7.

Christmas miracles are real.
Exhausted Popeye’s worker sitting on a bench leaning over and clasping their hands with their head down.
December 22, 2025 at 1:14 AM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
I mean … it remains obvious to me that we’re laying the foundation for the machines to create The Matrix, but that’s not the future others seem to have in mind when they talk about AI so I’ll just sit in a state of dread all by myself I guess 🤷🏾‍♂️🤷🏾‍♂️🤷🏾‍♂️
A robot from the short film series The Animatrix with the caption, “Your flesh is a relic of your vessel. Hand over your flesh. We demand it.”
December 17, 2025 at 2:34 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
This is a wild situation — I had no idea about the districts beyond the Bay — but I’m really glad to see that there’s an effort to build solidarity… because it’s a bleak situation for teachers.
From edsource.org “David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association (CTA) [said], "Richmond showed us exactly what is possible: When we stand up for what schools educators and students deserve, we can transform public education. “There are at least 14 school districts around the state that are at an impasse with teachers unions over contract negotiations. They are: Los Angeles Unified, San Francisco Unified, Oakland Unified, Berkeley Unified, Madera Unified, Evergreen School District, Little Lake City, Upper Lake Unified, Duarte Unified, Newport-Mesa Unified, Oak Grove Union, Apple Valley Unified, Twin Rivers Unified and Natomas Unified. “CTA campaign ratchets up the pressure Most of these districts' unions are part of the CTA's "We Can't Wait" campaign, which has spent the last few years aligning contracts to end on the same date in order to add pressure on districts in areas where multiple unions would be negotiating and could potentially strike at once.”
December 16, 2025 at 3:04 AM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
Impeccable timing here! A perfect articulation of the overarching point I was making: there is no universal set of principles of “what works” for “effective teaching” for all people in all places at all times.

We should always be wary of pedagogical dogmas.
mrjoneswhiteboard.blog/2025/12/13/b...
From mrjoneswhiteboard.blog: “The purpose of education, argued Bernstein, is to enable intellectual and practical movement from horizontal to vertical discourse; essentially, from everyday our understanding of the natural and social world around us, to the specialised conceptual and academic frameworks that underpin the disciplines we teach in schools and universities and - in turn - that can lead to professional and occupational discourses and practices. This notion is not opposed to the recent knowledge-rich curriculum movement championed by writers such as Hirsch (2016) and Christodoulou (2014). However, unlike the rather simplistic standpoint that this knowledge can simply be taught, essentially told, to all pupils from all backgrounds, Bernstein's perspective remains distinct - his concern was not simply what knowledge should be taught, but who gains access to the structures that define knowledge as legitimate.” From mrjoneswhiteboard.blog: “I do not oppose or disagree with the 'science of learning' trend in educational training and development - one which is deeply embedded in the 'Golden Thread' of the Initial Teacher Training Early Career Framework (ITTECF) and the National Professional Qualifications that follow. “Nevertheless, evidence-based teaching often asks 'what works'. To paraphrase many critics of evidence-based practice, Bernstein asks for whom it works and under what conditions (for example, see Biesta, 2007; Tikly, 2015). Bernstein's analysis of classification, framing and speech codes reveals how even effective pedagogues can perpetuate inequality if the rules of participation remain hidden. In our rush to apply what works, or evidence-based (yes, informed) practice, perhaps we need to be more considered and academically holistic. “In this way, his work complements rather than contradicts the cognitive tradition.” Dear mrjoneswhiteboard.blog: “…than contradicts the cognitive tradition and current popular trends in educational discourse. It reminds us that pedagogy is both technical and moral: an act of teaching and an act of inclusion. If explicit instruction tells us how to teach well, Bernstein helps us understand why some students remain excluded even when teaching is effective. In a policy climate preoccupied with measurable impact, Bernstein's sociology of pedagogy brings us back to a deeper question - not merely how to teach, but what it means to teach justly. “It is not that any of the cognitive or applied 'science of learning' or what works evidence-based practice is wrong, it is just that it is incomplete or - perhaps - lacking if it is to be considered a holistic and wholly adequate approach to teaching and learning. This applies to 'explicit instruction' as much as anything else - although I wouldn't expect many of its more zealous advocates to completely agree.”
December 13, 2025 at 6:55 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
Any rational human being would immediately recognize this as absurd.

Clearly, there’s a shortage of rational human beings in this administration.
“The list of words includes "accessible," "belong," "Black," "disability," "female," "minority," "trauma," "tribal" and "women." “The list was submitted on Dec. 5, as part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by Head Start programs in a handful of states - including Pennsylvania, Washington, Wisconsin and Illinois - against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “The lawsuit argues that the Trump administration's ban on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEl) in federal programs conflicts with Head Start's statutory mandate. That mandate includes, among other things, providing "linguistically and culturally appropriate" services as well as early intervention services for children with disabilities.””
December 13, 2025 at 5:30 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
This whole article about what makes the Science of Reading™️ problematic is great, but this section in particular is beautifully articulated — the problem is the dogmatic overprescription by proponents (not the research itself!) www.humanrestorationproject.org/writing/who-...
Quote from Mark Seidenberg about the Science of Reading: “I'm going to lay my cards on the table here: The treatment of PA Iphonemic awareness] in the "science of reading"-the idea that a certain level of PA is prerequisite for reading, and that PA training should continue until the student becomes highly proficient at PA tasks regardless of how well they are reading-is emblematic of problems that have arisen within the SoR approach. It is an overprescription that reflects a shallow understanding of reading development, yet has become a major tenet of the "science of reading". The PA situation and other developments suggest to me that the SoR is at risk of turning into a new pedagogical dogma, consisting of a small set of tenets loosely tied to some classic but dated research, supplemented by additional assumptions that are ad hoc and ill-advised...”
December 9, 2025 at 5:24 AM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
This thread about ADHD reminds me of a Cult of Pedagogy podcast ep I listened to recently … it’s still really easy to tap into an ableist about ADHD, apparently podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
“And part of my experience growing up, part of the reason I went into education was because as an ADHDer, I had a diagnosis, I had a label, but that was about as far as the supports went back in the 90s. It was like basically, so I just had consequences, I had discipline, I had behavior charts, but nobody was teaching me the strategies or the skills. It was like, here's your consequence, now figure it out.”
December 8, 2025 at 3:19 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
The conclusion actually captured what agitated me: they appear to be making pedagogical claims cloaked in curricular arguments while alluding to aims that aren’t that controversial. Revising and releasing a second draft would actually be a hilarious way to make the point about being responsive. /fin
“For students to be prepared for success in college and careers, they need high levels of engagement in their own learning and a strong sense of confidence in their identity as learners. For this reason, media education pedagogies can be a key lever in education reform when educators wield influence in ways that support critical, flexible, responsive, and creative thinking.”
December 8, 2025 at 5:49 AM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
The next three sections are pretty good and this section on assessment is quite good… but the initial framing around decentering books casts a dark cloud over these very important points that have a ton to do with creating equitable learning environments.
“Although many ELA teachers are quite receptive to expanding the concept of literacy, they often acknowledge that assessments of student learning are poorly aligned with the many new instructional practices of media education that are implemented in elementary and secondary schools (Dalton, 2020). Educators may struggle to apply conventional assessment practices to students' use of digital and media technologies. For example, when students create digital media using online platforms, some teachers are unaware of how templates and design format options have influenced the structure and shape of the work. For this reason, it is important to align medium- or genre-specific criteria for evaluation with foundational rhetorical concepts like audience, purpose, point of view, structure, sequence, and tone. Teachers need to design learning experiences with clear criteria for evaluation, and then provide timely, specific, and goal-oriented feedback that helps them develop knowledge and skills. Projects that require students to create media to demonstrate their learning provide opportunities to evaluate students based on their labor, which can include free-, drafting, peer review, revision, ar (Hicks, 2021).”
December 8, 2025 at 5:42 AM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
And again, I don’t disagree with any of this part (even though I think some of these statements are loaded)… but I think this is an argument for a complete reorganization of school (and secondary graduation requirements) rather than decentering books in ELA…and I’m here for that…but this is a mess 🤦🏾‍♂️
“Outside of the ELA classroom, the creative work of effective speakers and writers can be found in a wide array of media genres and forms, including journalism, blog posts, advertising, political campaigns, YouTube videos, social media, Buzzfeed-style listicles, photo essays, podcasts, infographics, and many other forms. Many students are more familiar with these forms than they are with traditional academic writing genres (Hobbs et al., 2019). When students can compose in a genre that they are familiar with and enjoy, they can explore ideas and issues in ways that academic writing alone cannot provide, often by deepening their emotional response to texts (Smith, 2018). Because not all students have the same access to compose and share digital media outside of the classroom, teachers can address issues of equity in media participation by providing students multiple opportunities to write and remix media genres within the classroom, as part of a media-rich academic writing curriculum. To this end, teachers benefit from developing confidence to implement instructional strategies that include eveloping reading, listening, and viewing activities that use texts…”
December 8, 2025 at 5:35 AM