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I Benefited A Lot From Reading This Piece About AI In Education, & I Think All Educators Could, Too
Marc Watkins writes a thoughtful SubStack about AI in education. It’s primarily focused on higher education, but a lot of it can be applied to K-12. One of his recent posts, What We Give Up When We Let AI Decide, really hit it out of the ballpark. It comments on a lot of important issues, particularly the dangers of using AI for student assessment. I have long shared similar concerns, and feel that AI’s only role in assessment should be in low-stakes online learning games like Wayground or Kahoot, and in low-stakes practice, like Quill for grammar. I think it’s definitely worth your time to read his piece.      Sentences Of The Week Darkmoon_Art / Pixabay
I thought readers might, or might not, find this new regular post useful. Each week, I highlight several sentences, with links to their sources, that I find interesting/concerning/useful. And they may, or may not, be directly connected to education. I may also include my own comments or related links. This regular post will join my other regular ones on teaching ELLs, education policy, Artificial Intelligence, infographics, and Pinterest highlights, not to mention sharing of my regular Education Week posts. Here are this week’s sentences: The LAUSD policies aren’t an attempt to hurt schools with higher numbers of white students, but rather to raise up those schools that have larger numbers of students who historically have lacked opportunities — to meet the outcomes those wealthy-neighborhood schools already have. Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it. Educators cannot solve immigration policy, but they can and do push back against its harm: by showing up for students, telling the truth, and ensuring that belonging is not conditional. So many people started with the Large Language Model as the solution and worked backwards to define a problem. It [AI] can be incredibly helpful for neurodivergent kids. A Spanish teacher, an immigrant herself, has been trying to set up a system whereby local families with citizenship make a four-week commitment to be the primary point of contact for one of a hundred and fifty families who are sheltering at home. See The “Best” Lesson Ideas For Teaching About The Protests & Killings In Minneapolis Nearly 75% of teens said that no matter the policy, their school still lets them keep their phones with them. See The Best Posts On Student Cellphone Use In Class — Please Contribute More “It seems that these curriculums are designed to build knowledge and they don’t develop meaning, and so then why read about the Civil War or about insects?” “It’s sort of strange to be comparing [Alpha’s] students to students from a wide variety of very challenging circumstances, rather than comparing their students to other students in elite private schools,” Reich said. They found that the introduction of Communities In Schools led to higher test scores, lower truancy rates, and fewer suspensions in Texas schools. One of the key strategies of the civil rights movement was, through nonviolent protests, provoke the racist police so public could see violent reaction on tv, and the Trump administration people obviously know nothing about history & how it’s repeating itself. “You should be kind, helpful and caring like normal police, not dangerous, scary and stealing people.” She realized her students couldn’t always discern whether what AI generated was valuable or not, and they still needed to build foundational skills, like how to write a thesis and construct an argument. Classroom management language comprises 24% of teacher talk… I think this attitude — that all opposition is illegitimate and nothing we do can be questioned— is probably pervasive in the white house and helps explain why they keep making terrible political choices Chaya Raichik, who runs the social media account Libs of TikTok, has spent the days following Alex Pretti’s killing doxxing ordinary working people — teachers, nurses, school board members — for speaking out against federal immigration officials or expressing sympathy for Pretti. Our research shows that clearly stating that you want to learn about your counterpart’s perspective significantly improves how that person evaluates both you and your arguments. Liam’s case, Biery wrote, originated in “the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.” If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism”—a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. “Mobilizing is about getting people to do a thing, and organizing is about getting people to become the kind of people who do what needs to be done.” When I was a community organizer, we understand that the most important work was organizing. See The Best Posts & Articles On Building Influence & Creating Change.
See The Best Sites To Learn About Anne Frank.
 TED-Ed Video: “Los antiguos orígenes de los Juegos Olímpicos” Agzam / Pixabay
I’m adding this video to The Best Resources For Learning & Teaching About The 2026 Winter Olympics:   Langston Hughes Was Born On This Day In 1902 – Here Are Two Good Lessons For ELLs Using His Poetry
American poet Langston Hughes was born on February 1st, 1902. One lesson that I’ve used for years with Intermediate English Language Learners is reading his poem, The Ballad of the Landlord as part of our unit on Problem-Solution essays. After studying the poem, students write a letter to their own landlord (though we obviously don’t send it). Here’s a video reading of that poem:  The second lesson is a great one that I’ve previously shared by teacher Andrew Kozlowsky. Here’s a video with Hughes himself reading his poem:
 Have you used his work in other ELL lessons? ADDENDUM:
 Today Is The Sixty-Sixth Anniversary Of The Greensboro Sit-Ins – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources Samilustrando / Pixabay
February 1st is the anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins. As a local television station describes it:
You might be interested in The Best Sites To Learn About The Greensboro Sit-Ins.  More Recent Articles
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