The Web We Need To Give Students
“Giving students their own digital domain is a radical act. It gives them the ability to work on the Web and with the Web.”
Open Society
Thomas Pynchon
TRANSFORMATIVE SOMATIC PRACTICES AND AUTISTIC POTENTIALS: AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC EXPLORATION
Micah: "fundamentally, at the core of conservatism is an empathy gap they might, in the abstract, know how things work - but it isn't real unless it happens to them, at which point it becomes an outrage they don't think other people are real, not the way they are" — Bluesky
fundamentally, at the core of conservatism is an empathy gap they might, in the abstract, know how things work - but it isn't real unless it happens to them, at which point it becomes an outrage they don't think other people are real, not the way they are [contains quote post or other embedded content]
Latest news on TS - Neurodiversity in the Criminal Justice System
Keep up to date with the latest news about Tourette Syndrome, including advancements in research. You'll also find information from Tourettes Action about upcoming events and campaigns.
Rachel Lense is Professionally Curious: "If you or someone you love has ADHD, especially if they're a woman, this video is for you. It's a mini-documentary about the disorder and what it was like growing up with it, how it affected my family, and how I've been learning to cope. 🧪 youtu.be/Dzxqhp2_SrY?..." — Bluesky
If you or someone you love has ADHD, especially if they're a woman, this video is for you. It's a mini-documentary about the disorder and what it was like growing up with it, how it affected my family, and how I've been learning to cope. 🧪 https://youtu.be/Dzxqhp2_SrY?si=MhBBi7PfSt9NL-do
Rachel Lense is Professionally Curious (@rachellense.bsky.social)
I made this Pride flag using only NASA images and our team thought it would be cool to share on social (I work on the NASA heliophysics communications team), but it's getting all sorts of hate on the bird app and Fbook. Thought y'all might be more appreciative of it here. ☺️🏳️🌈💖
Neuroqueering in the Liminal Spaces
Exploring rhizomes, plateaus, liminal spaces and neuroqueer potential.
Reclaiming Neurofuturism: Responding to “The Double Empathy Problem is DEEP” by Edgar, 2024
Responding to Edgar (2024), David explores how the double empathy divide has been intentionally weaponised, preventing the connection and collective power of monority groups.
The Double Empathy Problem is DEEP
Double Empathy Extreme Problem - a multidimensional gap of embodied experience and presence.
I am learning to be more embodied through somatic practice and connecting with other people exploring these ideas across various communities. The work of Kay & Dan Aldred (2023) about Embodied Education demonstrates how embodiment is essential for individuals to thrive, we need somatic practice embedded into the ways our education and healthcare systems operate and evolve, we need people to be deeply intune with others, embodied, so they can transform and work more meaningfully.
We need to carve out time to embody ourselves in the world around us, reorient ourselves, realign ourselves, our past, connect with nature, embrace the rhythms and cycles in water, on earth and in the air and sky around us to fire and energize our bodyminds. We need to take moments to breathe so we can recharge and gather the force we need to move, to transform and to neuroqueer ourselves and our spaces.
I feel we are moving further away from embodied connections with each other; we are losing our primordial affinity with nature and drifting further from coherence, harmony, and the humanised ecology of care that we need (Bettin). The double empathy problem feels extreme, it feels deep; it is what I have been describing with my peers as DEEP (Double Empathy Extreme Problem).
The double empathy problem (Milton, 2012) creates a gap of disconnect experienced between people due to misunderstood shared lived experiences. It is “a breakdown in reciprocity and mutual understanding that can happen between people with very differing ways of experiencing the world.”
The DEEP (DOUBLE EMPATHY EXTREME PROBLEM) arises from feelings of disconnect; not only from cultural, sexual, political, religious, neurodivergent, or any other cross-section of differences but also through embodiment, or lack thereof. The double empathy gap is non-linear; it is deep, multidimensional, rhizomatic, and holographic (Mirra, 2023). DEEP could be a huge contributing factor that leads to burnout and ill health. The DEEP gap can break people at their core, leaving them fragmented, disconnected, disoriented and disembodied, feeling like they’re in a void space.
Another amazing spoken word response to the Warwickshire SEND Scandal. This one from glenn_advocate_of_hope on TikTok
— Elissa Noves (@ElissaNoves)
The History of the Future
Here are the transcript and slides of the talk I gave today at CUNY. Well, not at CUNY. The conference was called
Click Here to Save Education: Evgeny Morozov and Ed-Tech Solutionism
To Save Everything, Click HereSince the publication of his first book, The Net Delusion, Evgeny Morozov has become one of the fiercest critics of the sweeping and giddy proclamations we hear about ...
“Technological solutionism” is the related tendency to identify simple answers — in all domains, not just the tech sector — “before the questions have been fully asked” or the problems fully articulated.
Take, for example: “the Internet has changed everything about how we teach and learn.” Thus, “education is broken.” And from there, “technology will fix it.”
So his book urges us to ask — of tech and, I’d add as well, of ed-tech: what exactly do we mean by optimization — optimized for what and for whom? Who builds and who audits the algorithms that purport to steer students forward through subject material? What subject material is important? Who says so, and why? Who wants to build more automated classroom software, more robot teachers, and why? Why is efficiency, particularly when it comes to learning, something we’d want to pursue? Why do we suppose that more data means better teaching, let alone means better learning? By what means? To what end?
Morozov claims to reject both cyber-utopianism and cyber-dystopian. Despite his savage critiques of Silicon Valley and his dour outlook on the future, Morozov insists that he’s neither anti-tech nor a “techno-pessimist.” Instead, he appeals throughout the book to what he calls “technostructuralism,” a framework for examining technologies not as “good” or “bad” or “neutral,” but as situated, constructed, social, and deeply deeply political. “Technostructuralists,” he argues, “view information technologies ‘neither as technologies of freedom nor of tyranny but primarily as technologies of power that lock into existing or emerging technostructures of power.’ Thus, any given technology is allowed to centralize and decentralize, homogenize and pluralize, empower and disempower simultaneously.”
But it’s worth pushing Morozov on this point, I think: should the scenarios that he postulates for our future— and they are, no doubt, powerfully nightmarish scenarios — stop us from tinkering? Or in other words, should we tinker more with our political, social and education institutions, in the hopes perhaps of dismantling less? (Because let's not kid ourselves, there are plenty of folks, to misquote Grover Norquist, who want to shrink public education down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.)
How do we distinguish between ed-tech as solutionist marketing (what you hear in (ed-)tech blogs that gush uncritically about every new app and every new investment) and ed-tech as contingency-in-practice (the ways in which students and teachers have always MacGyver-ed together the tools that they need — hacks for inquiry and pleasure, despite a regime that might demand otherwise)? Because do so — distinguish, dismiss, agitate — we must.
Solutionism, no doubt, has far-reaching tentacles. Solutionism serves to foreclose critique.
Hack Education
The History of the Future of Education Technology
The controversy of accessible type
+ download a pocket guide of best practices
Know Your Rights | Students’ Rights | ACLU
The Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." This is true for other fundamental rights, as well.
There Is No Police Exception to the Americans With Disabilities Act | ACLU
The Double Bind of Blackness | The New York Sun
Faulkner recognized what W.E.B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon wrote about as an everyday reality for themselves and people of color as they protested the color…
I Created the Hashtag #EmptythePews Because It's Time for Evangelicals To Walk Out of Toxic Churches
Have you been waiting for any prominent conservative evangelical leaders to withdraw or temper their Trump support over the president's refusal to renounce white supremacy—by name, unequivocally, without whataboutism, and without contradicting himself five minutes later? If so, I hope you’re not hol
Medicinal Media on Instagram: "The water on Earth is older than the planet we call home itself. Its potential to heal and calm extends beyond what we’ve been able to research. Submerge yourself in this water-centered somatic exercise and be soothed by this life-giving compound. In this video, Marie and Mathilde share their favorite aspects of this force of nature as they guide us through a simple practice. Somatic exercises can help us ground and regulate the nervous system. They focus on the mind-body connection and through gentle movements, breathwork, and mindful awareness, they work to help release physical tension and reduce stress. By deepening the connection between the body and mind, somatic exercises can alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression, promote relaxation, and enhance emotional resilience. Their accessibility and ease facilitate easy integration into daily life. Take a moment and let your mind float down the gentle stream of contentment as you experience this
medicinalmediaorg on June 11, 2024: "The water on Earth is older than the planet we call home itself. Its potential to heal and calm extends beyond what we’ve been able to...".
'Autism is the Arena and OCD is the Lion': Autistic adults' experiences of co-occurring obsessive-compulsive disorder and repetitive restricted behaviours and interests - PubMed
Repetitive behaviours and interests are a hallmark feature of autism. It is very common for autistic people to experience mental health difficulties, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Previous research has investigated similarities and differences between obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms …
Netflix Is A Joke on TikTok
Triple threat Maya Rudolph #BigMouthLive #NetflixIsAJokeFest #MayaRudolph @Nick Kroll
An independent guide to quality care for autistic people
Visit the post for more.
RCSLT Autism Guidance
RCSLT Autism Guidance for SLTs - Read and comment on the Autism community's response to the RCSLT's propospals
Sensory integration & SLT Lisa Chapman
Home - Hawthorn Learning
A whole human approach to education Human scale education Size matters Hawthorn Learning is a small, human-scale learning setting for students who are seeking enhancement to their home education or who are struggling or unable to attend school full-time. This consent-based setting is perfect for students who need to learn autonomously.Our mission is to be a
OSF Preprints | CRITICALLY APPRAISING THE CASS REPORT: METHODOLOGICAL FLAWS AND UNSUPPORTED CLAIMS
The Cass Report aimed to provide recommendations for how services for gender diverse children and young people should be delivered in England. Our critical appraisal reveals significant methodological and conceptual flaws within the report and the research commissioned to inform the report, which included seven systematic reviews and both quantitative and qualitative primary research. Using the ROBIS tool, we identified a high risk of bias in each of the systematic reviews driven by unexplained protocol deviations, ambiguous eligibility criteria, inadequate study identification, and the failure to integrate consideration of these limitations into the conclusions derived from the evidence syntheses. We also identified potential sources of bias and unsubstantiated claims in the primary research that suggest a double standard in the quality of evidence produced for the Cass Report compared to quality appraisal in the systematic reviews. We discuss these issues in relation to how evidence regarding gender affirming care is framed, the wider political context, and the future for gender affirming care. To uphold evidence-based medicine, future gender-affirming care research must generate robust observational data, involve transgender communities, and prioritise patient-centred outcomes, ensuring validity, generalisability, and cultural relevance. The Cass Report’s recommendations, given its methodological flaws and misrepresentation of evidence, warrant critical scrutiny to ensure ethical and effective support for gender-diverse youth.
Youth Speak for Themselves
Creating an AuDHD-friendly home — Neurodiverse Connection
AuDHD author Sarah Boon shares how she has carefully chosen and adapted the colours, textures, furniture and lighting of own home to suit her sensory processing needs.
Reclaiming the essence of humanity
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) education beyond wishful thinking: The antidote to xenophobia is genuine appreciation of diversity and interdependence.