2020 has been filled with many challenges and our community has had to adapt in unprecedented ways.

We invite you to take a moment to look back with us at what has been an unforgettable year, and what YOU made possible. (Thread)
https://t.co/epK3yfJWZB

At the onset of the year, the coalition convened in January to plan the strategy for Secular America Votes - 2020, which was headed up this year by @SecularStudents who did an amazing job turning out the the vote of secular students this Nov!
https://t.co/RZBNhQUvfM
In February (*way back* when we could be together in person) we hosted our annual Member's Meeting with key staff from our 19 member orgs. Attendees lobbied Congress and attend a meeting of the Congressional Freethought Caucus (CFC) where they present their priorities.
When the pandemic lockdown began, Director of Policy & Gov Affairs @CaseyBrinck pivoted to virtual lobbying, contacting not only Congressional leaders, but @SBAgov, @HUDgov, and the @US_FDA as well. Making sure your leaders were held accountable.

https://t.co/vHDk7307D8
This year was dark for so many. We saw many atheists and humanists around the world persecuted for their views including Nigerian Humanist leader Mubarak Bala. Our coalition continues to stand in solidarity, demanding his freedom #FreeMubarakBala

https://t.co/SRW2f5TZEf
These inhumane blasphemy laws finally got the Congressional condemnation they deserve with this year's passage of #HRes512 and #SRes458. We thank @RepRaskin, @SenatorLankford, and @SenCoonsOffice for their leadership helping these resolutions pass.
This year was also wake up call to the continued persecution in our own country. While racism has long been aided by Christian Nationalism, we continue to improve the intersectionality of our work.

Our movement benefits from the many Black atheists and humanist voices #BLM
Our coalition is full of diversity and that was shown & celebrated this year in various ways with @BNonbelievers' billboard campaign, @LGBTQHumanists' 'Centering the Margins' Conference & @FreethoughtScty's Secular Day of the Dead. SCA is proud to have supported these efforts!
Our movement saw many of our annual traditions and gatherings moved virtually but that did not deter us!

One highlight for us was facilitating & conducting interviews with CFC members @RepRaskin and @RepHuffman for @SecularStudents' virtual Lobby Day. https://t.co/8cFCBMd1oB
Speaking of which, the CFC has grown significantly this year with the additions of @RepRashida and @RepDonBeyer!

The increased visibility and inclusion of nontheists in politics is something we do not undervalue. This year was historic in that regard.
https://t.co/7vkGzYxkBG
This year was filled with loss and grief for many. Many in our coalition have lost friends and loved ones, as well as influential figures who championed secularism and skepticism like Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg & James Randi.

We honor them in our memories and actions
2020 was the year the Secular Vote made its voice heard. With President-elect Biden's inauguration around the corner, we are optimistic about adoption of our priorities laid out in our in our Secular Agenda for the 117th Congress and Biden Admin: https://t.co/ByxLE3aPal
We can only do this work because of your support. If you appreciate the work we are doing, and want to be a part of our efforts, we hope you will consider giving today: https://t.co/Wq71AeLuC7
Today is not only the last day of 2020, it is the LAST DAY to have your donation doubled! Our 2021 lobbying efforts begin Tuesday, and with a lot of damage done to the wall of separation over the last four years, there is a great deal of work to be done: https://t.co/Wq71AeLuC7
#Secularism Big thanks to all our member organizations @AmericanAtheist @EthicalUnion @americnhumanist @BNonbelievers @CampQuest @center4inquiry @ExmuslimsOrg @FFRF @FreethoughtScty @FoundBB @hafreeusa @HumanistsInt @militaryatheist @RFRorg @SecularStudents @humanisticjews
Thread unrolled: https://t.co/WIf354RRwG

More from Education

Time for some thoughts on schools given the revised SickKids document and the fact that ON decided to leave most schools closed. ON is not the only jurisdiction to do so, but important to note that many jurisdictions would not have done so -even with higher incidence rates.


As outlined in the tweet by @NishaOttawa yesterday, the situation is complex, and not a simple right or wrong https://t.co/DO0v3j9wzr. And no one needs to list all the potential risks and downsides of prolonged school closures.


On the other hand: while school closures do not directly protect our most vulnerable in long-term care at all, one cannot deny that any factor potentially increasing community transmission may have an indirect effect on the risk to these institutions, and on healthcare.

The question is: to what extend do schools contribute to transmission, and how to balance this against the risk of prolonged school closures. The leaked data from yesterday shows a mixed picture -schools are neither unicorns (ie COVID free) nor infernos.

Assuming this data is largely correct -while waiting for an official publication of the data, it shows first and foremost the known high case numbers at Thorncliff, while other schools had been doing very well -are safe- reiterating the impact of socioeconomics on the COVID risk.
An appallingly tardy response to such an important element of reading - apologies. The growing recognition of fluency as the crucial developmental area for primary education is certainly encouraging helping us move away from the obsession with reading comprehension tests.


It is, as you suggest, a nuanced pedagogy with the tripartite algorithm of rate, accuracy and prosody at times conflating the landscape and often leading to an educational shrug of the shoulders, a convenient abdication of responsibility and a return to comprehension 'skills'.

Taking each element separately (but not hierarchically) may be helpful but always remembering that for fluency they occur simultaneously (not dissimilar to sentence structure, text structure and rhetoric in fluent writing).

Rate, or words-read-per-minute, is the easiest. Faster reading speeds are EVIDENCE of fluency development but attempting to 'teach' children(or anyone) to read faster is fallacious (Carver, 1985) and will result in processing deficit which in young readers will be catastrophic.

Reading rate is dependent upon eye-movements and cognitive processing development along with orthographic development (more on this later).
The outrage is not that she fit better. The outrage is that she stated very firmly on national television with no caveat, that there are no conditions not improved by exercise. Many people with viral sequelae have been saying for years that exercise has made them more disabled 1/


And the new draft NICE guidelines for ME/CFS which often has a viral onset specifically say that ME/CFS patients shouldn't do graded exercise. Clare is fully aware of this but still made a sweeping and very firm statement that all conditions are improved by exercise. This 2/

was an active dismissal of the lived experience of hundreds of thousands of patients with viral sequelae. Yes, exercise does help so many conditions. Yes, a very small number of people with an ME/CFS diagnosis are helped by exercise. But the vast majority of people with ME, a 3/

a quintessential post-viral condition, are made worse by exercise. Many have been left wheelchair dependent of bedbound by graded exercise therapy when they could walk before. To dismiss the lived experience of these patients with such a sweeping statement is unethical and 4/

unsafe. Clare has every right to her lived experience. But she can't, and you can't justifiably speak out on favour of listening to lived experience but cherry pick the lived experiences you are going to listen to. Why are the lived experiences of most people with ME dismissed?

You May Also Like