Reflection

In my thinking, and writing, I attempt to avoid categorization. Yet deliberate eclecticism detracts from blog stats and Klout scores. O well

Deep learning is about transgressing borders erected by tradition and complacency. But one must first become cognizant of said borders

I just finished War and Peace the other night. . . well, decided I was finished, there are 2 epilogues and I realized the 2nd was completely unnecessary so I stopped there. The book is powerful, and gripping. I was captivated the entire time. And to think I put it down 20 yrs ago

This is a thread about War and Peace, and also my father's death. And maybe other things, I don't know, I'm grieving. Something about the power of books often so blithely dismissed as too old or outdated. 1/n

I thought of this description when I spoke with my father on the phone the next night for what I did not yet know would be the final time. He didn't want to talk, so my mother talk most of the time. When he did speak, he sounded distant, weary, and I later thought of this passage

"...but it was obvious that he failed to understand, not because he lacked the power to do so but because he understood something else; something the living did not and could not understand; and which wholly occupied his mind."

"In his words, his tone, and especially in that calm, almost antagonistic look could be felt an estrangement from everything belonging to this world, terrible in one who is alive. Evidently only with an effort did he understand anything living; . . . "

because I thought it was boring! I just didn't give it a chance. Anyway, there's those scenes with Prince Andrew as he is dying, and Natasha and Princess Mary realize that he is dying because he becomes distant. . .

Not quite sure what this thread was really about, but there it is. I feel a bit better.

War and Peace gave me an lens for a deeper understanding of real life. That's what great books do. I encourage you to pick it up and read it, in case you have been thinking it was too this or too that.

But thinking back to that last call, and how before saying goodbye that night, he asked for the phone back from my mother and said, "I love you" one final time. It clearly took him a lot of effort.

But of course, I pushed it aside in my mind, and carried on, as we do. Then received the terrible news today that he had died suddenly in the night. He has been battling cancer and receiving chemo, but he seemed to be handling it well. All it took was 2 days.

"With a great effort he tried to return to life and to see things from their point of view. ...'Yes, to them it must seem sad!" he thought. "But how simple it is.'"

Sometimes, you just need to be willing to appear stupid to get to the truth. (Psst, tell students this. Asking questions is how everyone gets smarter!)

I find it fascinating that in a nation of 13,000 school districts we talk about the notion of a "canon." Which district's canon are we referring to, now?

What if the beautiful theory that the brain is not born to read is not quite accurate? What if language development actually is enhanced by writing systems? I'm worried it's just a precious and convenient to theory. I should note it's one of my go-tos, so that's why I'm worried.

I don't think we talk enough about how general learning ideologies are so often driven by a secondary lens, and don't make any sense at an early elementary level.

The problem in education is that everyone just wants strategies they can do in their schools/classrooms tomorrow, when what they really need are better frameworks and deeper knowledge for making better instructional decisions.

Just finished Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.

I highly recommend. The continued resonance of Douglass's voice through the ages is remarkable, and this detailed account of his life is also inspiring. I knew little beyond his own Narrative...

https://g.co/kgs/kfcve7

Narrative was a touchstone for me in my professional development as a teacher. In my 3rd year teaching 5th grade, fed up with the scattered incoherence of my school curriculum (TCRWP), I bulk printed the Narrative and began reading it every day to my students, using CKLA lessons

This biography makes it clear just how amazingly rich and complex this remarkable man's life was. Basically from the minute he was embraced by Garrisonian abolitionists and added to their roadshow, he never stopped traveling and giving speeches until nearly his final breath

When I later cotaught 6-8 grades, his 4th of July Hypocrisy of American Slavery speech was another of my go-tos for close and critical reading. But I knew little of his words or life beyond these texts.

We read every single page. And his words carried the full force of his intellect, insight, and craft into my classroom. His vivid passage describing the painful irony of slaves singing on their way to the Great House Farm through the deep pine woods never fades in force.

Like a musician whose mastery is etched by constant performance on the road, Douglass evolved his oracy to the highest levels of eloquence, passion, pacing, and effect on his listeners. But he also developed his sharp irony and ability to cleave through racist and dim thinking...

I mean, it's crazy to think, his Narrative came out at the beginning of his career, and his Hypocrisy speech was in 1852. . . He died in 1895! So I'd basically been missing a whole body of his work, because he kept producing right up to the end. Much more to read!

He was rarely home, and his ever growing family life was always complicated. But he was able to successfully navigate between races, classes, cultures, and genders in his social life, maintaining deep, intimate and diverse friendships.

In addition, he had decades of experience as a writer and editor, honing his thinking and arguments. That his written voice carries so far through the ages speaks to the depth, range, and discipline of his craft.

...by direct and constant confrontation through his formative barnstorming years. The abolitionists were heckled, fought, and driven from churches, and would give speeches in fields or parks or wherever they could. His time on the road standing and delivering was long

He moved from radical abolitionist outsider to seasoned political insider, yet never lost the flame of raw anger against racism, & he continued to pen and speak jeremiads up to the end that cut through the morass of biased thinking with a clarity of intellect & force of morality

I didn't realize how close to John Brown he was -- he even had to flee the country for a time after Brown's prosecution, nor just how directly connected Douglass was to so many other Black luminaries, like Booker T. Washington, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Ida B. Wells.

So much more in the book to talk about, but just want to say this is essential history. Douglass's life spanned a critical period of our past that continues to reverberate today. And the words of his sharpest critiques of our racist society remain painfully accurate.

How can we innoculate one another against stories that simplify and demonize groups of people, and embrace stories that individuate and complicate our understanding of ourselves and one another? https://languageliteracy.blog/2022/05/15/the-danger-of-the-story-of-white-displacement/

Reminding my own self of this again. It's an inmate tendency of our system and of our humanity to add more to try and solve problems, rather than pare down. https://x.com/mandercorn/status/1385712183594700802

The "science of reading" has become a loaded term — partly due to how "science" itself may be conceived. http://languageliteracy.blog/2022/08/31/how-you-interpret-the-science-of-reading-depends-on-how-you-think-of-science-part-iii/

Just remember that when you hear about AI being "trained on data," it's often much of the same data you have been trained upon. If we want our algorithms to be better then us, we may want to restrict their diets.

He was turned forward into the next day so much I had trouble seeing him clearly until his fire was gone.

I look at my son now, who explodes like kindling when he doesn’t get his way. I must be distant from my own demands to give him space to catch. (2/3)

It takes a death to bring to life how little I have seen beyond the tip of my own needs.

My father’s discipline was to deny himself any warmth that could not be banked towards the future. (1/3)

I must be better than who I was.

We are never enough for each other until we are far enough away.

It’s too late to control. This is the place where our hearts will begin. (3/3)

There's a strong tendency to write off the power of #LLMs because they are 'just' parroting or predicting a sequence of words that most often come together. But that's what language is. Even stripped of cognition, language has a generative power that LLMs have tapped into.

A friendly reminder that outcomes data does not represent potential. They more often represent potential ignored or denied.

Simple messages and concrete models are important for laying the foundations to advance growth and broaden reach.

Ultimately, we need to be able to carry people into a space of nuance and complexity and divergence. Not to such a level that all is relative and nothing is essential. But also some level of quiescence can be a means to move all forward in the long run.

A seed carries the kernel of complexity, which when provided with adequate space, time, love, and attention, flowers and branches multifaceted into the sky.

But growth can be easily stunted when the conditions (leadership, policies, resources) change too rapidly to secure those foundations, or the foundations are never agreed upon or actively sabotaged.

It starts with simplicity, but it carries from the beginning a hungry tension that edges towards the as-of-yet undefined. It emerges. It adapts. It is beyond any one person's limited capacity.

Our messages, however simple, must allow for these future multitudes.

That generous, generative space of complexity, the level we want to get people on a team or in an organization to, is at the same level as water. Dynamic, flowing, accepting of all -- and relentless in its drive to flourishing.

The most exciting potential of LLMs may lie not in their ability to respond to and generate human language, but in their ability to help us to process and manage vast quantities of information --and thus further extend our cognitive capabilities. https://languageandliteracy.blog/scaling-our-capacity-for-processing-information

There is great potential for #AI to extend our #cognitive capabilities Yet there is a strong case of an equal and commensurate danger that use of #LLMs can reduce our cognitive capabilities. https://write.as/manderson/reviewing-claims-ive-made-on-llms