Pinboard (robertogreco)
https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/public/
recent bookmarks from robertogrecoA map to being human2026-07-13T10:25:41+00:00
https://www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/mac-barnett-make-believe-childrens-literature/
robertogrecoaliciasimba macbarnett books children literature 2026 reading howweread childrensliterature childrensbooks humanities art human humanness awe meaningmaking engagement attention howtolive life living education learning howwelearn teaching howweteachhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:5f0073bfbe65/Public Pedagogies Institute | Interconnecting public, learning and research2026-07-13T10:18:15+00:00
https://www.publicpedagogies.org/
robertogrecocontexts collectives action pedagogy informal learning public teaching howwelearn howweteach education lcproject openstudioprojecthttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:97b95a0fca5a/My University Students Cheat. I Don’t Blame Them. - Macleans.ca2026-07-02T02:26:32+00:00
https://macleans.ca/society/my-university-students-cheat-i-dont-blame-them/
robertogrecojacobshelly highered highereducation academia education universities colleges grades grading assessment ethics cheating pedagogy ai artificialintelligence culture behavior ideas humanities gradeinflation memorization recall writing howwewrite howwelearn learning teaching howweteach economics motivation technology integrity academicintegrity societyhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:c1abc1e9db1d/The Algorithmic Order2026-06-27T06:22:48+00:00
https://2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/the-algorithmic-order/
robertogrecoaudreywatters 2026 edtech technology education schools schooling standardizedtesting testing coding natashasinger google chromebooks politics policy high-stakestesting rossweiner nclb educationreform reform teaching curriculum learning howwelearn howweteach pedagogy democracy technocracy australia uk us canada texasideology californianideology fredturner secularism christianity whitesupremacy surveillance military extraction extractivism texas bible individualism libertarianism neoliberalism mooc moocs quinnslobodian bentarnoff muskism fordism elonmusk henryford spacex starlink southafrica business society capitalism sciencefiction scifi futurism ailiteracy literacy ai artificialintelligence benwilliamson arjunappadurai theobaker stanford universities colleges highereducation highered academia lmsacasas emilybender nannainue language anthropomorphization socialmedia moralpanic regulation deregulationhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:dc6b54329945/Opinion | The ‘No Child Left Behind’ Nostalgia Is Delusional - The New York Times2026-06-27T06:13:44+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/22/opinion/schools-testing-accountability.html
robertogrecoFor a generation, the reform coalition took its validation from economists and accountability metrics, while treating parents, students and communities as mere functionaries rather than partners in a shared civic enterprise.
Taking their priorities seriously would mean broadening what we expect from the classroom. Schools should put what students can do on equal footing with what they know, embedding real skills in academic learning rather than leaving them to chance or sequencing them to later in life. Schools should reconnect with the communities they serve, so young people learn through and about the places where they live. And they should reanimate the character-forming, developmental mission a pluralistic democracy requires.
Federal policy has an essential role to play in public education: protecting civil rights, funding quality data and research, and encouraging promising practices to spread. But the formative mission cannot be mandated by Washington. Belonging, the foundation of both learning and civic commitment, is relational and starts local; it cannot be standardized or scaled, but must be cultivated by schools that are responsive to the communities they serve.
It’s not a fully-fleshed out vision for education, to be sure, but it does gesture at something quite different from the technocratic one that schools have spent the last few decades delivering -- and delivering via education technology, via a machinery that shapes the form and increasingly the content, the curricula and the pedagogy. Funny, for all the invocation of "the future of education" from ed-tech evangelists and testing companies and politicians, they're almost always talking about the past, or at least about much older narratives of what that future might look like. (And in doing so, they ignore that computers have been ubiquitous in classrooms for a very very long time now.)"]]]>rosswiener education schools schooling nclb 2026 audrey watters policy schoolreform reform civilrights technocracy pedagogy curriculum edtech teaching howweteach democracy belonging civics pluralism academics learning howwelearnhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:b31695b25cce/Opinion | No, American schools aren't failing2026-06-25T08:13:56+00:00
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/22/opinion/american-schools-failure-myth-scores/
robertogrecofreddiedeboer 2026 us schools schooling policy politics reading howweread math mathematics education pedagogy pisa oecd germany norway connecticut arizona newzealand poverty finland comparison cleveland baltimore detroit westvirginia teaching howweteach teacherunions privatization charters charterschools vouchershttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:4de0f95b2291/Tied Up in Knots - by Jennifer Berkshire2026-06-12T13:35:02+00:00
https://educationwars.substack.com/p/tied-up-in-knots
robertogrecoeducation reform edreform democrats 2026 us jenniferberkshire policy schools schooling privatization voucehers donaldtrump charleskoch christiannationalism politics mattbarnum barackobama mattamahan arneduncan commoncore mississippi mississippimiracle publiceducation publicschools chedrickgreen schoolchoice michigan southernsurge unions labor teaching howweteach teachers michaelhartney rahmemanuel mattyglesias jorgeelorza gregabbott ginahinojosa edtech tylerkingkade moderates centrism centrists tuckercarlson collegeforall caitlindrey republicans colleges universities highered highereducation academiahttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:fcebe9f57544/Opinioni | Educare è un atto politico | Corriere.it2026-06-09T07:15:18+00:00
https://www.corriere.it/opinioni/26_maggio_22/educare-e-un-atto-politico-8a22c14f-d58c-4a60-b3cf-807949c16xlk.shtml
robertogrecoschools schooling education democracy francescoprofumo 2026 politics reggioemilia society covilsociety civics politicaleducation polarization war fragmentization cohesion complexity difference differences diveristy conflict dialog citizens publicspace socialmedia reactionaries reflection simplification purpose inequality collaboration respect community inclusion inclusivity pedagogy howweteach teaching lorismalaguzzi ai artificialintelligence empathy criticalthinking cooperation responsibility culturalcriticism culture socialcohesionhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:0e68dd3bd533/The Lower Frequencies2026-06-07T01:23:52+00:00
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2470045
robertogrecovia:javierarbona ethnicstudies universityofcalifornia ucsd donaldtrump education highered highereducation academia colleges universities teaching howweteach learning howwelearn ucla keithmiyake repression resistance btwerner ucregents hannahappel zoéhamstead anniemcclanahan annamarkowitz carrascocardona markkleiman tracienoriego lizjackson schools schooling liberatoryeducation thomasharvey zionism israel palestine marcywinogradhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:31138a17a947/At What Cost?2026-06-05T09:42:43+00:00
https://2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/at-what-cost/
robertogreco2026 audreywatters education edtech schools schooling lms ai artificialintelligence popeleoxiv randiweingarten screentime teaching howweteach persistence friction cognition children openai microsoft technology criticalthinking andrewcantarutti productivity efficiency optimization labor work learning howwelearn googleclassroom timothyburke addiction socialmedia attention attentioneconomy meta resistance offline edzitron lizkrieger meghano'gieblyn universities colleges highered highereducation noralacour csu californiastateuniversity writing howwewrite toddfeathers benwilliamson scientism neuroscience translation policy tedchiang kieranhealy lmsacasas care caring grading lessonplanning communicationhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:b2995e194099/The Slow Work of Becoming - by Jeppe Klitgaard Stricker2026-06-05T09:35:25+00:00
https://jeppestricker.substack.com/p/the-slow-work-of-becoming
robertogrecojeppeklitgaardstricker 2026 slow generativeai genai ai artificialintelligence jstor pedagogy teaching howweteach education learning howwelearn attention attentioneconomy becoming responsibility knowledge optimization highered highereducation colleges universities criticalthinkinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:cb4c0ab18e79/The Right Tool for the Right Hands - by Andrew Cantarutti2026-06-05T09:33:09+00:00
https://walledgardenedu.substack.com/p/the-right-tool-for-the-right-hands
robertogrecoandrewcantarutti education learning howwlearn teaching howweteach tools 20206 google clasroom edtech lms efficiency productivity administration gradebooks software communication lessonplanning ai artificialintelligence assessment grammarly quillbot writing howwewreite research audiobooks attention coding design productionhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:82ebda45e0d2/The EdTech Backlash Is Here, and It's Just Getting Started2026-06-05T09:30:28+00:00
https://jacobin.com/2026/05/educational-technology-children-learning-iready
robertogrecoedtech education technology schools schooling noradelacour 2026 teaching howweteach learning howeelearn frictionlessness personalization chromebooks lausd siliconvalley friction howwelearn googlehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:70d97659f97d/‘Teachers Are Going to Hate It’: How Social Media Apps Hooked Teens at School - The New York Times2026-06-05T05:37:40+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/social-media-schools.html
robertogrecosocialmedia addiction children youth teens siliconvalley bigtech attention schools schooling education howweteach teaching distraction jennifervalentino-devries snapchat meta facebook instagram tiktok google chromebooks ethics psychology adolescence bytedance edtech manipulation youtube screentimehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:ecd893a3d377/California’s Public Universities Went All in on A.I. Now They’re Tearing Themselves Apart. - The New York Times2026-06-01T22:24:19+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/magazine/ai-university-college-california.html
robertogrecocsu california californiastateuniversity 2026 education highered highereducation colleges universities academia howweteach teaching pedagogy ai artificialintelligencehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:c1d554168849/Moral Panic, Moral Imagination2026-05-30T23:13:37+00:00
https://2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/moral-panic-moral-imagination/
robertogreco“places the dignity of work and of workers at the forefront of its reflection; affirms the right to a fair wage for oneself and one’s family; recognizes that persons have a fundamental value that takes precedence over capital and profit; defends private property along with its indispensable societal role; esteems workers’ associations; and proposes forms of cooperation between the different components of society as an alternative to the mentality of class struggle.”
Human dignity – the word “dignity” appears over one hundred times in this latest encyclical – is undermined by the ongoing exploitations of capitalism; and it is increasingly threatened by the acceleration of technologies, particularly “AI” which
“promises to boost productivity by taking over mundane tasks, [but] frequently forces workers to adapt to the speed and demands of machines, rather than machines being designed to support those who work. As a result, contrary to the advertised benefits of AI, current approaches to technology can paradoxically de-skill workers, subject them to automated surveillance and relegate them to rigid and repetitive tasks. The need to keep up with the pace of technology can erode workers’ sense of agency and stifle the innovative abilities they are expected to bring to their work.”
With a remarkable apology for the Church’s role in colonialism, the Pope links the violence of slavery and human trafficking in the past to the violence of slavery and human trafficking today and the threats of new forms of slavery in the future – “a decisive test for the ethical discernment of AI and digital transformation,” particularly as new technologies curb human freedoms, intellectually and bodily. “Without this ethical and humanizing reflection, the growing power of digital systems could lead us toward new atrocities that are no less shameful than those of the past that we now deplore, while we continue to present ourselves as ‘advanced’ and ‘civilized’ societies.”
To avoid this future – to avoid the reduction of everyone to objects, to eschew the tech industry’s valorization of efficiency and extraction, to end its demands to control all aspects of our lives – it is imperative that we build systems that are “centered on the human person and not solely on performance,” the Pope argues. He’s speaking here specifically of how we push back on automation and technology in the workplace, but I think this is absolutely relevant to education as well. Teachers’ working conditions are, as the union saying goes, students’ learning conditions; but I think we need to see students as doing work too – important intellectual work of their own, work that also matters for minds and souls and bodies and futures and freedom. Both teachers and students deserve dignity and care; both deserve systems that are human and humane; both deserve systems that are not mechanistic and exploitative as almost every single piece of education technology that’s flooded classrooms most certainly is.
And I’d add here too that students – children and adult students like – deserve systems that do not view them solely or even primarily as vulnerable and weaker beings in need of protection. When children are described as “precious treasure,” as the Magifica Humanitas does, it is too easy then to cast them as the objects of education and to deny their agency, their inquiry, their rights."]]>audreywatters ai artificialintelligence moralpanic edtech technology luddism neoluddism neoluddites luddites 2026 magnificahumanitas popeleoxiv popeleoxiii douglasadams panic catholicchurch catholicism slavery colonialism colonization rerumnovarum dignity humanism human humans humanity society work labor workers capitalism education teaching howweteach learning howwelearn schools schooling colleges universities highered highereducation academia agency humanrights automation humandignity encyclicals enslavementhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:adc0c3f703ec/Do Chatbots Really Belong in Schools? with Tom Mullaney - YouTube2026-05-29T07:21:45+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqZZIdp0_TY
robertogrecogenerativeai parismarx tommullaney chatbots ai artificialintelligence genai education schools schooling pedagogy children emilybender timnitgebru agi artificialgeneralintelligence singularitarianism singularity edtech google microsoft influence googleclassroom lms canvas pandemic covid-19 coronavirus criticalthinking training highered highereducation colleges universities jobtraining self-advocacy iste chatgpt personalization personalizedlearning individualizedlearning individualization society screentime laptops teaching howweteach learning howwelearn socialization llms skepticism stochasticparrots eliza cuttingedge fomo teachers innovation chromebooks resistance datacenters robotaxis avshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:6cd6eac41b38/The Surveillance Classroom - by Andrew Cantarutti2026-05-27T07:45:20+00:00
https://walledgardenedu.substack.com/p/the-surveillance-classroom
robertogrecoandrewcantarutti 2026 surveillance pedagogy teaching howweteach schools schooling ralphwaldoemerson ai artificialintelligence data emotionalsurveillance focuspocus morphcast engagement attention lisafeldmanbarrett neuroscience integrity learning howwelearn cthinguyen onorao'neill trust control honesty relationships care exchange observation compliance democracy governance government civicshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:7c6af47609f8/Raj Chetty's Just-So Stories - Freddie deBoer2026-05-26T23:47:52+00:00
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/raj-chettys-just-so-stories
robertogrecofreddiedeboer rajchetty teaching howweteach pedagogy education schools schooling us 2026 economics policy valueadded barackobama outcomes standardizedtesting testing jonathanchait lindadarling-hammond jesserothstein hisd houston measurement michellerhee evamoskowitz mattyglesias arneduncan socialjustice teachershttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:89fac66fa660/Is There Room for Enmity in the A.I. Classroom? - Front Porch Republic2026-05-22T08:21:03+00:00
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2026/05/is-there-room-for-enmity-in-the-a-i-classroom/
robertogrecochoose courses that will challenge you, even unsettle you. Don’t accept being coddled. When you choose to engage in debates, please have the intellectual curiosity to explore the topic in depth, have the intellectual honesty to recognize the merits of arguments of the opposing side, admit to the weaknesses in your own viewpoint, and have the intellectual humility to admit when you don’t know and wish to learn more.
Sound advice, but woefully incomplete in the current context.
LLMs are already capable of exploring topics and weighing arguments with students, not to mention structuring personal goals and offering encouragement. (“Let’s dive in!”) Thus, Watkins’s vision of “struggle,” construed as a matter of personal choice and individual self-improvement, is easily reconciled with the quantification and benchmarks of artificial intelligence.
Loathing (like love) operates quite differently, creating meaning through human relationships, in which willfulness, idiosyncrasy, and feelings preclude quantification or smooth standardization. By heightening emotion, hatred deepens the personhood of both teachers and students.
Of course, feelings of hatred spring from many sources and encompass many shades of meaning. Some students nurse petty grudges to avoid responsibility for their own wrongdoing. Others perceive condescension from their teachers and repay it in kind. Some rankle at teachers with strong personalities and worldviews. Others feel the stirring of metaphysical revolt, objecting to the very existence of injustice, suffering, and constraint in the classroom or the world at large.
Uniting all these types of hatred are their mimetic effects on the student. Strong feelings bind the individual to the object of disdain, whose attributes he internalizes and mirrors (if only in negation). Thus, every type of hatred is educational insofar as it holds the student’s attention and shapes his character.
The trouble is that not all these lessons are equally educational or necessarily salutary. To set oneself against another can spur achievement (as in athletic rivalries) but, if one is not careful, it can also lead to what the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche calls ressentiment: an unworthy type of envy, insecurity, and conformity that debases the individual as it tears others down. That is why Nietzsche urges students to choose their enemies carefully, noting that “the most spiritual human beings” will test themselves only against life’s “most formidable weapons.”
One need not agree with every aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy to grant the point. We all need someone to pitch our deepest aspirations against, someone we can both respect and pointedly reject as we chart our own course. It is in this sense that “the man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends,” Nietzsche writes. “One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil.”
To help students strive toward selfhood, the teacher must embody authority—not only communicating information but personifying standards of wisdom, taste, and morals—and must do so knowing that pupils will chafe not only at the lessons but at the teacher herself. Yet, she cannot simply play the foil, pull punches, or abdicate responsibility for the struggle. To become the bearer of student hatred—to stand as an obstacle for the next generation to overcome—is a tragic aspect of teaching, but there is nothing to do but to press on in sincerity and faith.
Unfortunately, both the rhetoric and reality of teachers’ authority have been in decline for a long time. By bifurcating knowledge and value, LLMs now threaten to dissolve this authority entirely. The teacher can no longer be the master of content or technique, while the algorithm cannot embody truth, culture, or human excellence. LLMs already provide students with detailed (sometimes problematic) feedback, but as Abeba Birhane points out, “There is nothing at stake for a generative AI model. It cannot feel a sense of loss, embarrassment, accomplishment or care towards a student, as human teachers do.” An algorithm cannot feel the pangs of doubt or resolve, and for the same reason it cannot elicit existential scorn or hatred. Students know that a machine’s praise or censure rings hollow. They cannot define themselves in opposition to an LLM, and why should they want to?
In Being and Time (1927), Martin Heidegger argues that the modern individual (Dasein) “stands in subjection to Others.” Worse, they are not even “definite Others” but an anonymous amalgam of social conventions: a “dictatorship of the ‘they.’” It is hard to read Heidegger’s diagnosis without thinking about LLMs. In today’s world, he writes, anonymous authority
prescribes what can and may be ventured, it keeps watch over everything exceptional that thrusts itself to the fore. Every kind of priority gets noiselessly suppressed. Overnight, everything that is primordial gets glossed over as something that has long been well known. Everything gained by a struggle becomes just something to be manipulated. Every secret loses its force. This case of averageness reveals in turn an essential tendency … which we call the ‘levelling down’ of all possibilities of Being…. The ‘they’ is there alongside everywhere, but in such a manner that it has always stolen away whenever Dasein presses for a decision. Yet because the ‘they’ presents every judgment and decision as its own, it deprives the particular Dasein of its answerability.
LLMs stifle self-realization because, while they seem ubiquitous and almost omniscient, they also deprive students of any answerable or embodied authority, trapping them instead in a web of probability, generalization, and disembodied “expertise.” Subjection is in some ways intrinsic to education, part of a broader project of discipline and formation, but it must be experienced concretely, in relationship to “definite Others.”
Hannah Arendt warns that as technology expands, it becomes less likely “that man will encounter anything in the world around him that is not man-made and hence is not, in the last analysis, he himself in a different disguise.” Drawing from Heidegger, she underscores the danger of this eerie echo chamber. It is only through encounters with reality (not artificiality) that one becomes truly human. Consciousness begins not in the familiarity and sameness of one’s own mind but in confrontation with an unpredictable, inflexible entity outside the self—whether Nature, God, or (for our purposes) a recalcitrant teacher.
LLMs merely masquerade as the Other. Aggregated and amorphous, designed for fluidity and user satisfaction, they are artificial in the fullest sense of the word. When students engage with an LLM, they are literally talking to no one. How much classroom time should be occupied with such activities? What lessons should they replace?
However one responds to those questions, the answers have nothing to do with processing speed, safety guardrails, or other technical matters. They are fundamentally questions about how we conceive of humanity and whether we are committed to its formation and perpetuation. If we hope to prevent “cognitive atrophy” in our students, if we hope to awaken them to existential meaning, we have to invest in teachers worthy of their attention, their respect, and, sometimes, their hate."]]>campbellfrankscribner 2026 ai artificialintelligence teaching howweteach education llms affirmation love morality walterong idenitity opposition friction disagreement marcwatkins loathing humility nietzche ressentiment envy insecurity conformity authority selfhood identity wisdom taste morals sincerity faith algorithms loss embarrassment heidegger others self-realization probability generalization disembodiment discipline formation nature god cognitiveatrophy answerability dasein perspective viewpoint struggle learning howwelearn injustice suffering hate constraint negation humanity humanism cognition hannaharendt consciousness abebabirhane aisycophancy self knowledge schooling humandevelopment revolt revulsionhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:fbf3b60776ef/Publication Praxis Zine Pedagogy Within and Against the Academy - YouTube2026-05-20T06:11:43+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yHDTgcYqaI
robertogrecozines academy undercommons 2026 pegagogy highered highereducation academia colleges universities diy praxis markallen brandonbandy frankiegutierrez kaylaromberger zinemaking teaching howweteach learning alexlukashttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:897d8af5f50e/After OpenAI (Vandal Live at Wake Forest Humanities Institute)2026-05-14T04:33:50+00:00
https://theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/afteropenai?triedRedirect=true
robertogrecoopenai chatgpt anthropic mattseybold dereklee michaelaappeltova nisrinerahal barrytrachtenberg jeffbills-solomon deanfrnaco amandagengler 2026 emilybender timnitgebru tressiemcmillancottom micheldecerteau virginiadignum ronanfarrow andrewmarantz karenhao andyhines edhirsch tylerjohnston matthewkirschenbaum ritaraely christophernewfield brittparis annpettifor danielroher charlietyrell erichayot johnwarner jacobsilverman nichsrnicek bentarnoff mckenziewark media journalism reporting ipos opeanai samaltman spacex xai grok agiu artificialintelligence artificialgeneralintelligence suchirbalaji bigtech darioamodei microsoft alphabet oracle meta blackrock google liquidity finance wallstreet aibubble aihype speculation llms singularitarianism singularity humanextinction larryellison alexkarp china writing howwewrite text literature environment humanrights armsrace datacenters palantir us resources institutions anxiety anger futility nihilism highered highereducation colleges and universities reading howweread literachttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:69c20805dd99/Spring 2026: AI in the Corporate University | AAUP2026-05-07T05:58:57+00:00
https://www.aaup.org/issue/spring-2026
robertogrecoai artificialintelligence highered highereducation academia universities colleges 2026 via:javierarbona danielgreene criticalthinking pedagogy education csu class marthalincoln marthakenney daidkinsella justinezhang shreyachowdhary nathankim troyswanson brittparis rebeccareynolds jonathanrees richardhester debrarosenthal kellyhand lisapinleycovert terrycarter dan-elpadillaperalta michaelferguson kellybenjamin glenncolby johndabentley seanrudolph anitalevy trendtmcdonald austinrhea austerity academicfreedom climatechange globalwarming climate administration howweteach teaching californiastateuniversity californiahttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:85ec3cb710f1/Classroom Cope - by Anastasia Berg - The Point’s Substack2026-05-06T05:46:39+00:00
https://thepointmag.substack.com/p/classroom-cope
robertogrecoanastasiaberg howweread howwewrite ai artificialintelligence technology attention pedagogy learning howwelearn classrooms writing teaching howweteach educationhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:38f307e22b2f/Broken Record2026-05-05T14:20:10+00:00
https://2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/broken-record/
robertogrecoaudreywatters edtech robertjaylifton 2026 amandamontell lms benwilliamson academia education highered highereducation financialization wil.i.am ai artificialintelligence teaching howweteach pedagogy tutoring chatbots history fanaticism jillbarshay christophercox eugenics siliconvalley technology janusrose charlottakronblad algorithms johnherrman schools schooling marcandreessen jenniferberkshirehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:f5958257762d/The Secret History of Canvas LMS, Corporate Raiders, & The Chatbot Bubble (Vandal Live at UVU)2026-04-29T05:31:59+00:00
https://theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/historyofcanvas
robertogrecocanvas lms canvaslms history edtech universities colleges highereducation highered 2026 mattseybold christaalbrecht-crane angiemckinnoncarter chilermoore kkr chatobots ai artificialintelligence enshittificaiton privateequity vc venturecapital dataharvesting chatgpt openai emilybvender alexhanna timnitgebru leebruno brianburrough johnhelyar brettchristophers jessearmstrong sofiabarnett plagiarism academia teaching howweteach education michellechihara joshcoates sonelcutler corydoctrorow matthewgault andyhines thomashitton christophernewfield tomnichols mnichellekassorla roxanamarachi lawrencequill megwalter johnwarenr marcwatkins brianwhitmer technology humanities tecnhnofeudalism utah siliconvalley data via:javierarbonahttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:0a89bd39039d/Learning? Yes, of course. Education? No thanks.2026-04-26T08:05:02+00:00
https://patrickfarenga.substack.com/p/learning-yes-of-course-education
robertogrecoIn 1982, a British interviewer asked John Holt how he defined the word “education.” He responded: “It’s not a word I personally use. … The word “education” is a word much used, and different people mean different things by it. But on the whole, it seems to me what most people mean by “education” has got some ideas built into it or contains certain assumptions, and one of them is that learning is an activity which is separate from the rest of life and done best of all when we are not doing anything else and best of all in places where nothing else is done–learning places, places especially constructed for learning. Another assumption is that education is a designed process in which some people do things to other people or get other people to do things which will presumably be for their own good. Education means that some A is doing something to somebody else B. I guess that, basically, is what most people understand education to be about” The interviewer pressed John further: “Very well, but what is your definition?” John replied: “I don’t know of any definition of it that would seem to me to be acceptable. I wrote a book called Instead of Education, and what I mean by this is instead of this designed process which is carried on in specially constructed places under various kinds of bribe and threat. I don’t know what single word I’d put [in its place]. I would talk about a process in which we become more informed, intelligent, curious, competent, skillful, aware by our interaction with the world around us, because of the mainstream of life, so to speak. In other words, I learn a great deal, but I do it in the process of living, working, playing, being with friends. There is no division in my life between learning, work, play, etc. These things are all one. I don’t have a word which I could easily put in the place of “education,” unless it might be “living.”3
Children and adults have lived and learned successfully in the flow of community and family life throughout human history without compulsory schooling. We know that people who are talented or knowledgeable can share their wisdom with others in a variety of settings, not just in special places reserved for professional teaching and learning. But our laws, customs, and mind sets have been directed away from our heritage of learning towards the regime of instruction.
John Holt’s book Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better provides not just an analysis of the limits of schooling but also examples of other places, institutions, people, and experiences that exist or could be created for children and adults to learn and grow throughout their lives. What also makes this book interesting is how it ends with a call for people to take their children out of school and teach them in their homes and local communities if the schools are not helping their children. This statement led people from around the world who were already teaching their own children to contact John, and this became the impetus for him to found Growing Without Schooling magazine in 1977.
John was certainly influenced by Illich’s work and book Deschooling Society (Harper & Row, 1971) and he moved his own work from theory to practice when he founded Growing Without Schooling magazine in 1977. 49 years have passed since GWS was founded and homeschooling has grown from the 25,000 estimate John used in 1981 to an estimate of 3.5 million children taught at home in the United States in 2026.4 John hoped school, like a business seeing it’s sales decline, would alter its course and let families that want to use school on an as-needed basis to do so.
Holt wrote about children learning in their communities, in play, sports, projects, and theatrical efforts, from neighbors, friends, and family, and places like the Peckham Center in London—a combined medical research and health support program with a lively community center/cafeteria/gymnasium for working class adults and children. Rather than try to incorporate these and other ideas that expand what education can be, our government and school policymakers continue to double down on the existing structure: more tests, more instruction, and more after-school tutoring to make sure students stay focused on task.
One thing most school administrators and teachers agree upon is that children need more time in school, which became terribly clear during the pandemic. Few educators thought to provide children with social or learning opportunities outdoors during the pandemic, in a schoolyard or public park. Instead they decided to keep students glued to their computer screens while they were being marched through the school curriculum in their homes. This shows how devotion to theories of education subsume common sense about what engenders learning, self-esteem, and social activity, which are entwined.
I’m reminded about all this due to a provocative education policy paper I read in NORRAG, the Global Education Center of the Geneva Graduate Institute: Fighting Against Education: No Alternatives Within the Educated Mind. The authors are united as “Le Goliard: A collective, nomadic, de-professionalized intellectual who wanders erratically on the fringes of dominant certainties and institutions.” It is a strong polemic, as these quotes show:"]]>johnholt education learning howwelearn children society deschooling unschooling ivanillich 2026 plagiarism highered highereducation academia colleges universities schools schooling admission inequality deymoursarason change instruction pedagogy howweteach teaching bronsonalcott asneil mariamontessori rudolphsteiner aaronfalbel institutions adults life living community covid-19 coronavirus pandemic growingwithoutschooling play sports projects self-esteem social patfarenga gwshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:616aa987c7a9/What Will It Take to Get A.I. Out of Schools? | The New Yorker2026-04-26T00:45:03+00:00
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/progress-report/what-will-it-take-to-get-ai-out-of-schools
robertogrecojessicawinter 2026 ai artificialintelligence edtech education schools schooling chromebooks gemini teaching howweteach google chatgpt openai anthropic cluade llms chatbots criticalthinking learning howwelearn cognition mitchprinstein amandabickerstaff drewbent audreywatters bfskinner technology randiweingarten amira naveedhasan magicschool miatheresapate lausd albertocarvalho privacy katebrody melaniatrump donaldtrump maryhelenimmordino-yang amazon shantanusinhahttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:ef772cb69fca/Opinion | You Can’t Game Your Way to a Real Education - The New York Times2026-04-19T20:37:59+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/opinion/schools-edtech-laptops-games-learning.html
robertogrecoteaching howweteach gamification videogames gaming games 2026 schools schooling pedagogy mollyworthen digitalnatives learning. howwelearn reading howweread neuroscience jaredcooneyhorvath digital kahoot curriculum denisechampney emilycherkin technology edtech skylercarr commoncore reasoning criticalthinking algorithms ambiguity writing howwewritehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:47bbb8ea065d/The School Reformer "Accountability Era" Narrative Simply Does Not Add Up2026-04-18T22:31:35+00:00
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-school-reformer-accountability
robertogrecopisa education policy us schools schooling accountability finland netherlands freddiedeboer belgium canada australia standardizedtesting pedagogy teaching howweteach oecd europe japan southkorea korea singapore taiwan humanity humanism economics culture history comparison naep nclb davidberliner reform schoolreform poverty commoncore curriculum equity inequality sanfrancisco algebra standardization standards rttt florida ohio texas arizona louisiana indiana mississippi essa 2015 2026 socialjustice mattyglesias jonathanchaithttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:59d7e5c1063b/RIP Khanmigo & Edtech Industry Dreams of AI Tutors2026-04-16T04:08:35+00:00
https://danmeyer.substack.com/p/rip-khanmigo-and-edtech-industry
robertogrecodanmeyer salmankhan khanacademy khanmigo edtech education automation chatbots ai artificialintelligence humanism humanity salkhan teaching howweteach pedagogy laurenceholt kristendicerbo mattbarnumhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:7c87144e5212/What Happened After a Teacher Ditched Screens - The Atlantic2026-04-11T06:21:23+00:00
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/teachers-screens-edtech-students/686681/
robertogrecojennyanderson edtech 2026 teaching howweteach technology schools schooling education chromebooks companionship struggle learning howwelearn pedagogyhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:3a5351884f5d/Unfolding the Deleuze Seminars: Experimental Pedagogy, Philosophy, and Politics inside Deleuze's Classroom (with Charles J. Stivale) - YouTube2026-04-06T00:15:54+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5buUquvf1I
robertogrecoacidhorizon deleuze 2026 charlesstivale boblangan teaching howweteach pedagogy philosophy politics highered highereducation academia colleges universities gillesdeleuze spinoza pierrebourdieu foucault michelfoucaulthttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:5356e79014f9/Miseducative Experiences2026-04-05T05:38:11+00:00
https://2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/miseducative-experiences/
robertogrecoaudreywatters 2026 maryoliver life living online internet taylorlorenz screentime socialmedia ai artificialintelligence jonathanhaidt christopherferguson videogames games gaming regulation siliconvalley power media moralpanic moralpanics influence newmedia addiction johndewey children teens youth education experience attention teaching learning howweteach howwelearn policy edtech chromebooks computers computinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:de9495051bd0/Why Swedish Schools Are Bringing Back Books2026-04-02T05:38:06+00:00
https://undark.org/2026/04/01/sweden-schools-books/
robertogrecosweden schools schooling education 2026 joshuacohen howweread howwewrite reading writing books analog digital paper technology textbooks screens digitallearning learning howeelearn us policy openai microsoft google ai artificialintelligence digitalfluency chatbots memory readingcomprehension pandemic covid-19 coronavirus computers computing tablets ipad jaredcooneyhorvath jonathanhaidt pamkastner literacy lindafälth teaching howweteach pedagogy naominbaron linguistics edtech distraction attentionhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:fe20b5013955/When People Say They Want to Send Their Kid to a Good School, They Usually Mean Schools Without "Bad Kids"2026-03-24T20:43:27+00:00
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/when-people-say-they-want-good-schools
robertogrecoschools schooling parenting 2026 freddiedeboer education robertpondiscio learning howwelearn successacademy charters charterschools selectivity publicschools exclusivity privateschools zoning exclusion nclb geofreycanada harlemchildrenszone teaching howweteach pedagogy disruption behavior children jonathanchait segregation desegregation society inequality admissions demographics policyhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:da158314f581/What People Want From Our Schools Has Never Been Accomplished, Anywhere, Ever2026-03-13T05:14:57+00:00
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/what-people-want-from-our-schools
robertogrecoeducation schools schooling society 2026 history germany france netherlands finland us china equality inequality economics plato europe oecd children chidlhood horacemann johndewey curriculum pedagogy howweteach teaching learning howwelearn hierarchy civilrightsmovement anationatrisk nclb selectiviy charterschools charters sat testing standardizedtesting southkorea israel academics conscription aptitude compulsory labor work unionization unions brucespringsteen nafta gatt vrettonwoods mexico vietnam ronaldreagan barackobama lobbyists lobbying policy politics corporations corporatism democrats republicans thinktanks socialmobility freddiedeboerhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:d7136e98b930/What AI Is Teaching Us About Humanities Education2026-03-10T06:36:50+00:00
https://thedispatch.com/article/artificial-intelligence-college-essay-teachers-innovation/
robertogrecoalanjacobs writing howwwrite 2025 ai artificialintelligence chatbots education humanities llms pedagogy teaching howweteachhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:097ca7455d0e/We’re Training Students To Write Worse To Prove They’re Not Robots, And It’s Pushing Them To Use More AI | Techdirt2026-03-09T19:30:10+00:00
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/06/were-training-students-to-write-worse-to-prove-theyre-not-robots-and-its-pushing-them-to-use-more-ai/
robertogrecomikemasnick 2026 ethics ai artificialintelligence language writing howwewrite education technology dadlandmaye teaching howweteach pedagogy cobraeffect policy cheating surveillance aidetectionhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:12a6af107cc1/Mathematician Knocks School - by Patrick Farenga2026-03-04T03:08:26+00:00
https://patrickfarenga.substack.com/p/mathematician-knocks-school
robertogreco1986 unschooling education math mathematics schools schooling testing standardization standardizedtesting hasslerwhitney fredhechinger patfarenga learning howwelearn lpbenezet literacy reading howwereaf criticalthinking children algorithms teaching howweteach pedagogy rules knowledge anxiety mathanxietyhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:72de31ecfd0d/The plot to replace teachers with tech2026-02-28T17:14:52+00:00
https://unherd.com/2026/02/why-your-kid-hates-learning-apps/?edition=us
robertogrecojohnallenwooden education schools publicschools teaching howweteach schooling gamification edtech technology automation 2026 i-ready surveillance testing childten us policy standardizedtesting standardization learning howwelearn bigtech testprep tutoring coercion monotony schoolwork howwlearn sitejabber curriculumassociates lessonplanning curriculum pedagogy data datacollection nclb sciencewashing resistance research wested lobbying lausd kellysia stileeducation coppa privacy benjamincolemanhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:be4704569217/Overselling the Mississippi Miracle - by Jennifer Berkshire2026-02-27T22:37:59+00:00
https://educationwars.substack.com/p/overselling-the-mississippi-miracle
robertogrecomississippimiracle mississippi education poverty schools schooling pandemic covid-19 coronavirus 2026 jenniferberkshire us alabama reading pedagogy instruction learning howwelearn publiceducation publicschools readinginstruction teaching howweteach policy southernsurge louisiana funding propertytaxes taxes taxation nicholaskristof standards standardization corporalpunishment texas unions teachers labor work workers melissaarnoldlyon trunover economics redistribution childtaxcredit letrshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:57396a7500c3/Raymond Saunders | Hammer Museum2026-02-26T06:36:02+00:00
https://hammer.ucla.edu/now-dig-this/artists/raymond-saunders
robertogrecoraymondsaunders art conniechoi assemblage artists jazz teaching howweteach arteducation milesdavis charlieparker collage oakland pittsburgh foundobjects urbanity experience expressionism cityscapes education lifeexperiences socialnarrative struggles urban life living splendor dirtiness dissonancehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:dceb03b5b60d/Exceptional Works: Raymond Saunders | It Wasn't Easy Being a First Grader, 1979/1984 | David Zwirner2026-02-26T06:14:57+00:00
https://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2026/exceptional-works-raymond-saunders-it-wasn-t-easy-being-a-first-grader-1979-1984
robertogrecoart raymondsaunders tonimorrison 2026 artists arteducation education teaching pedagogy howweteach emilnolde balthasarvanderast kazimirmalevich joanmiró christophercook andywarhol philippearlstein melbochner pittsburgh oakland parkdayschool artmaking 2002 hayward 1961 1953 mrrobinson collage assemblagehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:9fb775206331/Raymond Saunders: Notes from LA | Los Angeles | February 24—April 25, 2026 | David Zwirner2026-02-26T06:14:43+00:00
https://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2026/raymond-saunders-notes-from-la
robertogrecoart losangeles raymondsaunders philiplinhares 1994 assemblage artists joyfeinberg arteducation education collage suzannefoley 1971 1976 sfmoma leahollman 2001 teaching howweteach pedagogy 1993 1996 tonimorrison 2011 2012 conniechoi artmaking classroom oakland pittsburgh archivinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:13e64593d198/The Broken Record2026-02-22T00:59:38+00:00
https://2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/the-broken-record/
robertogrecoaudreywatters 2026 edtech alphaschool altschool rocketship children democracy agency teaching howweteach chatbots opeanai artificialintelligence ai community optimization curiosity contemplation optimism productivity efficiency openness transparency moocs michaelpershan danmeyer emanuelmaiberg markzuckerberg reidhoffman marcandreessen learning howelearn pedagogy schools schooling samkriss roylee meta facebook cameras privacy surveillance highered highereducation colleges universities academia automation technooptimism chunginlee mooc technolgyhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:2d78fa8c2787/Highlights from Stanford's AI+Education Summit2026-02-21T21:44:00+00:00
https://danmeyer.substack.com/p/highlights-from-stanfords-aieducation
robertogrecoIn the last year or so, it’s really started to feel like we have 45 minutes together and the together part is what’s really mattering now. We can have screens involved. We can use AI. We should sometimes. But that is a human space. The classroom is taking on an almost sacred dimension for me now. It’s people gathering together to be young and human together, and grow up together, and learn to argue in a very complicated country together, and I think that is increasingly a space that education should be exploring in addition to pedagogy and content."
...
"Look—this is more or less how the same crowd talked about MOOCs ten years ago. Copy and paste. And AI tutors will fall short of the same bar for the same reason MOOCs did: it’s humans who help humans do hard things. Ever thus. And so many of these technologies—by accident or design—fit a bell jar around the student. They put the kid into an airtight container with the technology inside and every other human outside. That’s all you need to know about their odds of success.
It’ll be another set of panelists in another ten years scratching their heads over the failure of chatbot tutors to transform K-12 education, each panelist now promising the audience that AR / VR / wearables / neural implants / et cetera will be different this time. It simply will."]]>danmeyer 2026 ai artificialintelligence edtech education schools schooling learning howwelearn teaching howweteach chatbots miriamrivera learningloss michaeltaubman llms openai khanacademy googel anthropic chatgpt cuilhermelichand creativity humanism pedagogy society johnhennessy moocs rebeccawinthrop susannaloeb neeravkingsland shantanusinha human humans learnlm moochttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:feda499f59bb/Enthralling Little Minds With Nature - by Hadden Turner2026-02-21T07:27:15+00:00
https://overthefield.substack.com/p/enthralling-little-minds-with-nature
robertogreco2026 children nature observation birds gifts attention education curiosity haddenturner naturalhistory parenting teaching howweteach modelinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:3deb9f430a2f/AI isn’t merely bad at writing. It does not and cannot write | Aeon Videos2026-02-20T05:40:29+00:00
https://aeon.co/videos/ai-isnt-merely-bad-at-writing-it-does-not-and-cannot-write
robertogrecoai artificialintelligence llms chatgpt writing howwewrite videoessays gertrudestein stephenking teaching howweteach edtech technology maxteeth language communication policy joshwithparenthesis modernism ernesthemingway fscottfitzgerald sinclairlewis thorntonwilder jamesjoyce ezrapound nonsense poetry poems decoding keatonpatti lingusitics meaning meaningmaking understanding titosantana autocomplete linguistics tenderbuttons connection human humanism humans openai literature humanexperience consciousness perception experience subjectivity humansubjectivity plagiarism mashups recombinance remixing milesdavis lcdsoundsystem media mediamixing kleptones dangermouse macglocky cubism lasmeninas picasso velázquez recombination variation thinking howwethink education humanunderstanding criticalthinking context confusion playfulness 2025 notice turingtest personhood senses sensoryperception feeling feelings logic algortihms victorhugo lesmisérables damienowens onelsaymore brainrot intention conversation barbaraehhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:906a8da3152e/SF Educators Win Protections Against AI, but Tech Expansion Continues2026-02-19T22:12:20+00:00
https://bayareacurrent.com/sf-educators-win-protections-against-ai-but-tech-expansion-continues/
robertogrecosimonbrown 2026 ai artificialintelligence teaching howweteach sfusd schools education schooling pedagogy labor work autimation marcbenioff salesforce sanfrancisco oakland uesf mariasu teannatillery amira chatgpt openaihttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:b7242235c241/'Students Are Being Treated Like Guinea Pigs:' Inside an AI-Powered Private School2026-02-18T17:54:14+00:00
https://www.404media.co/students-are-being-treated-like-guinea-pigs-inside-an-ai-powered-private-school/
robertogrecoemmanuelmaiberg alphaschool ai artificialintelligence schools schooling education children 2026 donaldtrump mackenzieprice surveillance bossware joeliemandt management remotework lindamcmahon 2hourlearning criticalthinking hype aihype aibubble llms chatbots data privacy technology edtech workflowy ixl commoncore khanacademy niceacademy ckla mcgraw-hill crossover studyreel grades grading sat inequality chatgpt curriculum instruction teaching howweteach pedagogy lessonplanning scraping copyright ip intellectualproperty textbooks albert.iohttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:8290a6904240/No, That's Not What "the Research" Says About Exam Schools2026-02-18T02:00:16+00:00
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/no-thats-not-what-the-research-says
robertogrecofreddiedeboer schools schooling education testing pedagogy teaching howweteach 2026 jessicawinter inequality giftedandtalented publicschools atilaabdulkadiroğlu joshuaangrist paragpathak meritocracy nyc examschools china selectivity standardizedtesting douglasdetterman edunihilism sociaslmobility intelligence elitism patronage data egalitarianism charterschools sat enrollment admissions us achievement gpa nepotismhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:39a977b186f3/Academia: Rigor Mortis - by Timothy Burke - Eight by Seven2026-02-16T04:01:12+00:00
https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/academia-rigor-mortis
robertogrecotimothyburke academia highered highereducation colleges universities education gradeinflation grades grading training skills knowledge globalization tests testing socialmobility society meritocracy teaching howweteach pedagogy ideology power economics love joy wisdom happiness contribution whatatters standards content ivyleague politics leadership economy signaling mentalhealth self-pity uncertainty fear anger institutions criticalthinking motivation intrinsicmotivation change outcomes expectations relationships communication presence ambitionhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:1c25d7550b4d/How much do S.F. teachers make vs. city workers? Much less. 2026-02-15T23:19:46+00:00
https://missionlocal.org/2026/02/sf-teachers-salaries-sfusd-strike/
robertogrecosfusd teachers teaching howweteach sanfrancisco sffd sfpd comparison salaries labor workhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:c8dc645eaea9/Don’t Call it a Comeback - Front Porch Republic2026-02-05T21:32:27+00:00
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2026/02/dont-call-it-a-comeback/
robertogrecoelizabethstice ai artificialintelligence academia pedagogy highered highereducation education teaching howweteach learning howwelearn colleges universities covid-19 pandemic coronavirus cheating assessment testing standardizedtesting online internet web joshuatravis innovation edtech technology chromebooks rodenyscott ferranadrià bluebooks policyhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:22c3073d3c0e/Opinion | California’s teachers can’t fix low test scores alone2026-02-04T21:33:53+00:00
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2026/02/test-scores-schools-california-teachers/
robertogrecojillstegman 2026 education schools schooling standardizedtesting testing panedmic poverty teaching howweteach policy sfusd inequality housing homelessness housingcrisis california learning howwelearn children childhoodpoverty society absenteeism covid-19 coronavirus pandemic privateschools publicschools enrollment funding revenuehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:49f8bfd19860/Justin McDaniel Found a Way to Make Students Read Again2026-01-18T00:16:41+00:00
https://www.vulture.com/article/justin-mcdaniel-existential-despair-course.html
robertogrecoreading howweread teaching howweteach education colleges universities pedagogy justinmcdaniel academia 2206 lilashapiro attention upennhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:1a8b1c7237ee/Spot the Difference2026-01-17T03:59:33+00:00
https://2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/spot-the-difference/
robertogreco“Formatting as many minds as possible, shaping people’s desires, recrafting their symbolic world, blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, and, eventually, colonizing their unconscious have become key operations in the dissemination of microfascism in the interstices of the real.” – Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics
As one of the core ideologies of computing is individualism, education technologies have served to undermine a democratic vision of schooling -- often quite explicitly through the funding of various educational initiatives by the tech industry’s wealthy investors. Powerful forces have convinced us to invest in computers, but not in one another, not in people; and we’ve dismantled democracy with a shrug -- but hey, at least the kids have Internet.
The damage to education is even more awful, even more insidious than this: the kinds of pedagogical practices that these technologies encourage -- students working alone, “at their own pace,” for starters -- have helped to undermine our shared understanding of, our shared respect for one another. The answer, these technologies insist, is in the machine, not in one another.
The machine, so the “AI” supporters now insist, is vastly superior to the human. Why learn when you can never be as fast or as shiny as a computer? Why even try? Why even practice? Why even bother?
Epistemic nihilism is a fundamental element of this surrender to an “AI”-assisted technofascism; but perhaps we should look at how this has been building -- has been built into -- education technologies for a much much longer time."]]>audrewatters 2026 edtech technology schools schooling change history sidneypressey ai artificialintelligence teachingmachines howweteach teaching computers computing thinking howwethink labor work nihilism achillembembe necropolitics reality microfascism technofascism fascismhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:ff0a28c3702c/In Praise of Bibliographies, by Christine Norvell (2026) - Front Porch Republic2026-01-15T20:47:16+00:00
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2026/01/in-praise-of-bibliographies/
robertogrecohowweread howwewrite reading writing bibliographies christinenorvell 2026 teaching howweteach learning howwelearn hospitality accessibility researchhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:72dc145419b3/The Walking Assembly 2026 – walk · listen · create2026-01-15T20:41:23+00:00
https://walklistencreate.org/2026/01/15/the-walking-assembly-2026/
robertogrecowalking pedagogy howwelearn learning 2026 claragarí marccaellas geeryvermeire claudiazeiske paucata mugariver lucechoules timingold ethnography accumulation erosion water cocreation knowledge knowing care method movement reciprocity hospitality morethanhuman multispecies ecology place practice naucôclea presence collective collectivism teaching attention howweteach howwlearn place-basedlearning catalonia place-basededucation land-basedlearning land-basededucationhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:39cc2dbda80d/The Empty Ritual of Schooling (Part Two) - by Patrick Farenga2026-01-12T22:10:44+00:00
https://patrickfarenga.substack.com/p/the-empty-ritual-of-schooling-part
robertogreco2026 patfarenga education schools schooling children society learning howwelearn friendship policy howweteach teaching johnmcknight johnholt janejacobs rayoldenburg augustinapaglayan politics politicalsciencehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:1d0de3350bd9/The Empty Ritual of Schooling (Part One)2026-01-12T22:08:35+00:00
https://patrickfarenga.substack.com/p/the-empty-rituals-of-schooling
robertogrecopatfarenga school schooling education children 2026 johnholt us history society policy nclb rttt essa nationatrisk 1983 1968 bilingualeducationact 1965 2001 1994 2009 2015 howwelearn learning howweteach teaching jonathanhaidt cevisoling childhood parenting politicshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:27e4075f210a/Game Theory #2: Why Schools Suck - YouTube2026-01-08T17:49:10+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS-muAuq62E
robertogrecoschools schooling education learning gametheory society china finland 2025 howwelearn schooliness motivation parenting teaching howweteach xueqinjianghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:8470555ba57f/Opinion | What a School Performance Shows Us About Japanese Education - The New York Times2026-01-05T02:27:49+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/opinion/japan-education-childhood.html
robertogrecodocumentary japan education schools schooling learning society emaryanyamazaki pedagogy culture film filmmaking 2024 teaching howweteach howwelearn parentinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:637de619d011/The Making of a Japanese | Ema Ryan Yamazaki - YouTube2026-01-05T02:23:32+00:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2o52jF4BCY
robertogrecojapan schools schooling education emaryanyamazaki film filmmaking documentary society pedagogy culture 2025 2023 2021 2020 2022 pandemic coronavirus covid-19 teaching howweteach learning howwelearn parentinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:0a7dc74f4bb2/Days Gone By2025-12-31T21:38:39+00:00
https://2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/days-gone-by/
robertogrecoIt is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it – Upton Sinclair
As the Department of Justice slowly releases more documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein, perhaps it's worth reminding people of this convicted sex offender's connection not just to artificial intelligence, but to those working in AI and ed-tech specifically. Bill Gates. Marvin Minsky. Roger Schank. Joi Ito. Whether or not these men -- or any of the men listed in Epstein's "little black book" -- were engaged in child sex trafficking is beside the point: they were willing to ignore its occurrence, willing to continue their own access to money and power and influence at the expense of the health and safety of girls.
And so it continues: the willingness of those supporting some "AI" future to overlook the real harms, the substantive exploitation, the actual violence in order to maintain their own access to money and power and influence.
It's par for the course, I suppose. Because "the big story" in "AI" doesn't necessarily involve this new generative "AI" hoopla, but rather an older, even more dangerous version of / vision for the technology: prediction, facial recognition, geolocation, surveillance, policing. "The big story" in education and "AI" isn't necessarily students using the technology to cheat themselves of learning or teachers using the technology to automate their profession away; but rather the usage of "AI" by ICE -- with the assistance of every major technology company, not just Palantir [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/business/dealbook/palantir-alex-karp-ice-trump.html ]-- to identify [https://www.404media.co/cbp-quietly-launches-face-scanning-app-for-local-cops-to-do-immigration-enforcement/ ], mis-identify [https://www.404media.co/how-a-us-citizen-was-scanned-with-ices-facial-recognition-tech/ ], harass, arrest, imprison, and deport people. Hundreds of thousands of people. People in our communities. People in and around our schools. Our neighbors. Our co-workers. Our students. Our teachers. Families. Parents. Children.
This is the story of what "AI" means in education – or part of it, at least. “AI” is central to the move towards techno-authoritarianism [https://www.authoritarian-stack.info/ ], a move that of course will target democratic institutions – institutions tasks with building knowledge and building human capacity – first.
"AI" is, after all, an endeavor undeniably intertwined with eugenics [https://bookshop.org/p/books/disabling-intelligences-legacies-of-eugenics-and-how-we-are-wrong-about-ai-rua-m-williams/b5e49f6b89f846a8?ean=9783032026644&next=t&next=t&affiliate=93920 ]. It is fundamentally a reactionary effort – despite all the rhetoric about it being future-facing – an effort inseparable from the anti-diversity initiatives undertaken throughout governments and corporations this year. "AI" is a backlash to civil rights movements, a backlash to the advancements of the past few decades that shifted (ever so slightly) the power away from white men.
You can see this in the onslaught of "AI" hype, almost entirely vocalized by men – the Sams and the Marks and the Peters and the Jasons so deeply aggrieved at having to share the stage, the mic, the platform, the workplace, the classroom, the world with women, with Black people, with queer folk, with people with disabilities, with indigenous people, with refugees, with non-English speakers, with Muslims, with anyone from the majority world. And this isn't simply a matter of representation in their datafied corpus – although that still matters. "AI" means erasure, epistemic erasure – all writing, all images, all sounds, all expression squeezed towards the middle, the mundane, the Man. AI is a silencing; "AI" is genocidal [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/30/israeli-military-big-tech ]. Its acceptance, begrudging or willful, means the normalization of this violence – of its harms to ourselves and to one another and to the environment; of its demands for efficiency and optimization; of its sing-song allure of sycophantic mediocrity at the expense of creativity, spontaneity, diversity, life.
But “let’s be clear: AI" is not the only technology being wielded right now to control bodies, to control minds, to control labor, to control knowledge. And here's where the incessant focus on "AI" -- whether it be promotion or critique -- easily serves to further impoverish our understanding of what's happening in education. Among the other important stories of 2025: the banning of books [https://thelibrariansfilm.com/ ]; the banning of cellphones in the classroom [https://www.afterbabel.com/ ]; age-restrictions on social media [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/australia-to-enforce-social-media-age-limit-of-16-with-fines-up-to-33-million ]; the re-emergence of the “standards” (and standardized testing) cadre [https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2025/10/the-david-frum-show-margaret-spellings-school-testing/684489/ ]; the digital surveillance and silencing (and firing) of professors [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/academics-professors-charlie-kirk ] for what’s on the syllabus, what’s discussed in class -- all efforts, to one degree or another, to limit access to information. To certain kinds of information, of course. To acquiesce to “AI” is to surrender to what Neil Postman so presciently called Technopoly [https://bookshop.org/p/books/technopoly-the-surrender-of-culture-to-technology-neil-postman/411fadc13061d77a?ean=9780679745402&next=t&next=t&affiliate=93920 ] – the monopolistic control of knowledge and information and media, the control of our very understanding of ourselves and the world around us, in the hands of a small handful of fascistic tech billionaires.
And look, I’ll be the first to suggest that we’d all be well-served to step away from our digital devices, to spend much much much less time on the Internet. Put your phone away while you eat and while you walk down the street, for crying out loud. “Touch grass.” Read a book. Read a book to your children. Please.
But I’m wary of many of the efforts to curb children’s access to technology because these initiatives are, at their heart, often not about the tech (and certainly not about structural redress) but about curbing children’s access to knowledge. These are efforts at stifling children’s self-discovery – particularly around questions of gender identity – and their discovery of like-minded community.
***
"Narrative power, maybe all power, was never about flaunting the rules, yelling at a cop, making trouble – it was about knowing that, for a privileged class, there existed a hard ceiling on the consequences.
And on the heels of that realization, a converse one: I began to suspect that the principles holding up this place might not withstand as much as I first thought. That the entire edifice of equality under law and process, of fair treatment, could just as easily be set aside to reward those who belong as to punish those who don't. A hard ceiling for some, no floor for others."
– Omar El Akkad, One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This [https://bookshop.org/p/books/one-day-everyone-will-have-always-been-against-this-omar-el-akkad/4191784c40750b09?ean=9780593804148&next=t&next=t&affiliate=93920 ]
***
There’s a refrain you’ll often hear, that “the kids are alright.” I get it. It’s comforting to think that, despite all the horrors that surround them – environmental destruction, genocide, school shootings, immigration raids, anti-trans policies, economic inequality, homelessness, mental health crises, job insecurity (hell, job non-existence [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-replacing-entry-level-jobs-gen-z-careers.html ], some say) – that younger folks are good and strong and resilient. And maybe some are. Maybe some can put on a good face. They can still go through the motions. They over-schedule; they over-achieve. What choice is there, really? Right?
But what if they aren’t okay? (I mean, crikey, what if none of us grownups really are either? And I’m looking right at those of you lulled by the siren call of “AI," driving this ship straight into the rocks. But I'm looking at, I'm looking to all of us.)
A day doesn’t go by where I don’t think about my son – about my own losses, my own grief in the face of this abysmal world we have built for our children. And since this summer, barely a day has gone by when I haven’t thought about Adam Raine, the 16-year-old who died by suicide after lengthy discussions -- encouragement, even -- from ChatGPT [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/technology/chatgpt-openai-suicide.html ]. And for the past few weeks now I think about the Reiner family too, a very famous stand-in, I suppose, for all the families who have chronically mentally ill children – violent or not, adult or not, in or not in active addiction. I’d say “you have no idea what it’s like” but so many of us do. More than we care to admit, more than we care to talk about, and obviously – fucking hell – more than we care to address.
“The purpose of a system is what it does,” the cybernetician Stafford Beer famously said. It is clear to me what the purpose of “AI,” what the purpose of ed-tech is. 2025 made it oh so clear. Sure, people still like to talk about innovation and enhancement. They wave their hands around excitedly – some "think bigger!" gesture, extolling some imaginary shiny future of cognitive speed and efficiency. But the purpose of these systems is what they do. And look what they have done.
Everyone knows. Everyone sees it. Some of us try to convince ourselves otherwise. But it's right there. The purpose of the system is extraction. The purpose is obedience. The purpose is compliance. The purpose is death – death of agency and death of dignity and death of joy.
We have much work to do to make our institutions – educational and otherwise – into something else. We cannot do it chained to the technologies that are designed to stop us from ever even thinking about becoming free.
But we can do it.
***
Today’s bird is the starling, which has been called one of the worst invasive species [https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/terrestrial/vertebrates/european-starling ] in the world, brought to the US from Europe in the late nineteenth century, according to one story at least, by Eugene Schieffelin [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Schieffelin ], an ornithologist who thought it'd be neat to introduce into the US – via a release in Central Park in the case of the starling – every bird mentioned in Shakespeare's works. (Good grief, the hell men will unleash just to get you to pay attention to western literature.)
I see starlings almost every day in the park – during warmer months at least. Close up, their plumage is striking: an iridescent purple and green. Their beak is yellow. Their calls are comprised of squeaks and clicks, but they're known to mimic other birds. (Hotspur tries to teach a starling to say "Mortimer" in Henry IV, Part 1.)
Starlings are aggressive birds, attacking and displacing other species and, according to the USDA at least [https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=nwrcinvasive ], causing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to agricultural crops every year. But what happens when we mark up the world – who belongs, who belongs where – into "native" and "invader" and "alien" [https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/essay-are-starlings-really-invasive-aliens/ ]?
Starlings are "gregarious," meaning their flocks are often very large. Very very large – roosts can be comprised of over one million birds. Their swarm-like flights are called murmurations; and these are beautiful, almost musical, magical feats of coordination.
We don't know why the birds move this way; there's so much we do not know about the beings with whom we inhabit this world (although I'm sure ChatGPT, that other shiny invasive species specious, would surely tell you that it knows.)"]]>audreywatters 2025 edtech technology technofascism eugenics society donaldtrump siliconvalley samaltman openai elonmusk chatgpt automation humanism humanity sidneypressey education teaching schools howweteach learning howwelearn alanjacobs uptonsinclair billgates jeffreyepestein mit marvinminsky rogerschank joiito ice police policing terror palantir schooling colleges universities highered highereducation academia markzuckerberg meta facebook peterthiel smartphones screentime web internet online socialmedia surveillance silencing censorshipn academicfreedom billionaires oligarchy fascism knowledge omarelakkad genocide ethniccleansing palestine israel iof idf military environment schoolshootings mentalhealth labor work inecurity economics adamraine staffordbeer systems systemsthinking eugeneschieffeilin starlings birds invasivespecies authoritarianism standardization standardizedtesting standards technopoly neilpostmanhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:5e6e21c341a7/Dyslexia and the Reading Wars | The New Yorker2025-12-30T20:21:30+00:00
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/12/29/dyslexia-and-the-reading-wars
robertogrecodyslexia reading howweread education teaching pedagogy howweteach phonics decoding 2025 davidowen instructionhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:709245b8e5e4/For want of a story - by Matthew Battles2025-12-24T06:40:59+00:00
https://matthewbattles.substack.com/p/for-want-of-a-story
robertogrecomatthewbattles teaching howweteach pedagogy education highered highereducation learning howwelearn christopheralexander shopfrontschools networkedlearning paulelie pilgrimage workgroups social fellowship trust patterns apatternlanguage 2025 saraishikawa murraysilverstein presence process sharedstory story shelter intimacy uncertainty vulnerabilityhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:69ff66758f08/Four Frictions: or, How to Resist AI in Education - Public Books2025-12-23T04:00:37+00:00
https://www.publicbooks.org/four-frictions-or-how-to-resist-ai-in-education/
robertogrecosonjadrimmer christophernygren 2025 ai artificialintelligence refusal chatgpt edtech pedagogy technology teaching howweteach education resistance highered highereducation colleges universities schools academia technosolutionism bfskinner history khanacademy salkhan audreywatters via:javierarbona openai learning howwelearn 1980s humanism human friction luddism neoluddism luddites neoluddites marcwatkins cspeirce salmankhanhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:ca627ebcd3d7/AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself2025-12-15T04:54:22+00:00
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-destroying-the-university-and-learning-itself
robertogrecoronaldpurser 2025 ai artificialintelligence academia education culture chatgpt csu highered highereducation colleges universities labor teaching howwelearn learning howweteach sfsu csueastbay sonomastate openai faculty chatbots henrygiroux sheilaslaughter garyrhoades christophernewfield benjaminginsberg marthanussbaum administration administrativebloat democracy civics criticalthinking california policy economy economics marthakenney marthalincoln optimization efficieny edtech technology peterhershock neilpostman technopoly society judgement knowledge logistics curiosity discernment presence langdonwinner politics priorities cheating chegg turnitin surveillance surveillancecapitalism marcwatkins perplexity fraud chunginlee roylee tylercowen columbia neelshanmugam cluely siliconvalley ethics cognition inevitibility technodeterminism ravibellamkonda christiancollins debt studentdebt tuition ellastapleton rickarrowood chatversity davidgraeber bullshijobs bullshitdegrees credentials credentialism siyarajpurohit phttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:fb94f9625692/