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I have news about online teaching and reading workload, friends.

I have experimented with REDUCING the number of readings I assign for a class. This is hard in overview courses because you always feel like they should have "the lay of the land" and master all that there is.

HOWEVER...

My students have performed BETTER with reduced reading workloads.

Undergrads focus on ONE reading per week, while having 3 more available "if they so happen to have the time to read them" (they often do try to read these extra readings).

Masters' level students have appreciated taking a "let's just take things more slowly" approach.

Doctoral level students felt somewhat weirded out that I wasn't assigning three books a week. Though they appreciated it.

What I have drawn from my experiences:
- Workshops work.

Having a section of the class that is "hands-on, let's get writing/analyzing/thinking/reading" as a workshop fulfills two goals, for me:

1) Cements my students' understanding of the method.

2) Helps them have actual time to think and read and write rather than rush through.

Depth and breadth are issues we need to compromise on.

- Do I want them to read more broadly or more deeply?
- Do I want them to become more expert in a few things or become more generalist-type people?

These choices are malleable, as is our context.

What is NOT malleable:

What does it take to sustain screwiness in the way the world works? Mostly, it's just good people, trying their best to get us to a better place... within constraints which pretty much preclude us actually getting anywhere! A case in point with

These authors come across as hugely committed to something we might all agree upon: improving young people's experiences of physical education through better school-based-interventions. Sounds great? Agreed, & pretty much everything about their study models best practice 🥳

Sadly, established "best practice" involves further embedding the medicalisation of PE as if it should be about the potential contribution of physical activity to everything from quality of life, self-perception & cognition to the likelyhood of becoming healthy & active adults 🤯

We're reminded of the Chief Medical Officer's "recommended guidelines of 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day for healthy growth and development" 👇 This is a focus on what we can easily measure (generic) rather than on what we might value (individual).

We get recognition that PE "is not merely an opportunity for children to engage in PA" but that's linked to its role in "the development of knowledge & skills to foster their PA engagement throughout life" - so further focus on health outcomes. A long way from @meaningfulPE 🙄

I got the feedback today that my views on schools were too confident

I will die on this hill; hold to me to it

School closure will be the absolute worst public policy decision for the generation to come

The most discriminatory, net neg & cruel

It will be found to have made nearly no dent in the spread of the virus

The risks to teachers and staff will be found to be modest & modifiable

But the damage to kids and the very institution of public schools will be cataclysmic

The stories of undetected child abuse will be so powerful that every person who thinks it is reasonable to close schools, in this irrational way we have done in the US, will change their tune overnight

The damage to upward mobility will fall along class and racial lines, and this country will be more feudal

The fate of the nation itself-- democracy and those who participate in it-- will be made vulnerable.

🧵1) I don't know if my view is appreciated or puzzling to the professor and students in my seminar course on the conquest narratives. It's been enlightening in some ways because it has started to prove my theory that there is a hermeneutic for those who are #ActuallyAutistic

🧵2) I have been quite appreciative of the voices I have connected with, especially here on Twitter (@robertjmonson, @JoLuehmann, etc) that have expanded the space of interpretation I take into consideration when approaching the biblical text.

🧵3) While one cannot be wholly objective about a text (Hermeneutics 101), it has helped me develop a stronger empathy for "interpretations from the edge," minority and philosophical interpretations. Admittedly, this also stems from my own baggage with Evangelicalism.

🧵4) What I learned from the flavor of Evangelicalism I was exposed to in college has more or less been designed to exclude (read: ignore) other voices because of 1) its deep roots in American Imperialism and 2) its implicit ties to a passive form of white supremacy.

🧵5) If you don't believe that, you needn't look much further than the previous presidential administration. Chris Hedges, in his book "American Fascists", connects religious conservatism to fascism, which is "a kind of colonization," according to Rev. Davidson Loehr.

THREAD: Are Schools SAFE during Covid? A Collection of Research, Science, and Data on Schools: Risks to children, teachers, and comparisons within the community.

Sources: Academic, institutional or governmental. I will summarize conclusion and cite link.

Let's begin..

1/

European CDC:

"Investigations of cases identified in school settings suggest that child to child transmission in schools is uncommon and not the primary cause of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children

whose onset of infection coincides with the period during which they are attending school."

3/

"Educational staff and adults within the school setting are generally not seen to be at a higher risk of infection than other occupations, although educational roles that put one in contact with older children and/or many adults may be associated with a higher risk."

4/

Public Health Netherlands:

"The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is mainly spread between adults and from adult family members to children. The spread of COVID-19 among children or from children to adults is less