Charlie Friedman

Founder @nashclassical Husband to @disability_dame Fellow @BESLeadership Fan @Sixers

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

Nails it.

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

The first couple of paragraphs in this one are worth a read and explain a lot about why K-12 schools are the way they are. https://t.co/Cm0rErZ3jr

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

Reading the @nytimes piece on the new Texas curriculum and, well, one of these things (critical thinking) is not like the others (the founding fathers and contributions of women and people of color).

In my experience, there’s usually an inverse relationship between how much someone talks about critical thinking as a “topic” and how much they understand about learning.

[Tom Bennett OBE @tombennett71]

And this is why education is stuck in such a rut, and constantly regresses back whenever we make an inch of improvement: because the progressive tropes are so intuitively attractive, easy, and simple, and the reality of learning is much more complex and difficult.

You don't learn very well by watching an amusing or entertaining video; you retain the information in it like a river running through you. You're aware of it temporarily until it is replaced by the next packet of facts, but you don't retain it well or in a way you can retrieve easily later. You might remember novel, surprising, amusing, or shocking parts well enough, but miss the details that weren't obvious, or the links between them.

Knowledge and skills are acquired through scaffolded explanations/ demonstrations followed by the student processing it, using it, thinking about it. The teacher then checks their understanding and offers high quality feedback, reinforces, corrects, redirects or reconstructs. Then the next lesson connects meaningfully with the last one in a similar way, infused with retrieval and revision of prior concepts to ensure deep learning.

Videos can be part of that, but they are not that. We actually do know a lot now about how we learn, and how we teach, and collectively they tend to be called the Learning Sciences, or Evidence-Informed Education. It's urgently required across the world as an antidote to both the winner-takes-all grindhouse of poorly led-lecturing, or more commonly, the inane performative pantomime of progressive flim-flam.

Mr B's references here demonstrate the old Keynesian adage of how so-called practical men who believe themselves free from bias, are usually in the grip of some long dead economist or philosopher. He trots out the most pedestrian and reactionary dogma about learning while believing himself to be a common-sense revolutionary. It's not his fault. I don't know anything about being a social media megastar.

But tech, no matter how shiny, cannot replace the architecture of the human brain. There is a 1300g bag of neural porridge inside every one of us that isn't going anywhere fast, so we better get busy using it to understand how to replicate and build on how we already actually learn, rather than what we wish it was like- or what sells content.

[Jerusalem @JerusalemDemsas]

RELEASE THE OBAMA CUT

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

Brian and Sandra are the epitome of hope.

When Brian was diagnosed with ALS, he turned tragedy into action by launching @iamalsorg and leading a movement to find a cure.

I’m inspired by these two—and after you hear their story at the @DemConvention, you will be, too.

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

I think vouchers are bad, but when economically disadvantaged families have received vouchers to live in the suburbs the impact was…enormous. Anyway, a system of neighborhood schools is great in theory, but creates segregated and economically isolated schools in practice.

[Phil Williams @PhilNvestigates]

For Tennessee’s “school choice” debate, let’s try an experiment: Pick Tennessee’s most elite private school and its most economically disadvantaged school - and switch the students for a year (or more). Is it the school or the economic/home life that makes the real difference?

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

Excited to finally put to rest my most serious marital argument about whether 1980s Bruce Springsteen was, in fact, hot.

[Pitchfork @pitchfork]

Jeremy Allen White is reportedly in talks to play Bruce @Springsteen in a new movie about the making of the iconic album Nebraska. Learn more ↓ https://t.co/J6UVghAVR4

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

@WSMV Hello, in your video on the fight at East Nashville Magnet Middle School, you put the wrong school in your video. Please correct!! You shot video of @NashClassical students, families, and staff during dismissal -- we do not have fights and would never happen at our school.

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

Only three guarantees in life: Death, taxes and disappointment for Sixers fans.

[Liberty Ballers @Liberty_Ballers]

Joel Embiid will undergo an MRI on his left knee, per Nick Nurse.
https://t.co/SdG0lK3Lka

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

Snow day with a toddler. Dispatch from day 3.

Today, things took a turn for the worse. We’ve exhausted our rations of Bluey episodes and - crossing a personal Rubicon - have resorted to consuming “Paw Patrol.” Naptime cannot come soon enough and is over before it starts.

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

@mandersonville @NashClassical @PossipIt Genuinely appreciate you and would be happy to talk more - here or anywhere - but, be warned, I may need to delete this app again soon for my sanity!

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

@mandersonville @NashClassical @PossipIt Matt, I spent hours last spring drafting documents parents could use to form
an organization. If you want to criticize the execution, that’s fine. But I just don’t see how this is a fair characterization.

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

@mandersonville I have zero interest in destroying public education, take my integrity seriously, and just want our schools to be the best they can be for our kids, which will include my own in ~18 months. It’s really hard work, but means a lot to me and I appreciate that you choose us.

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

@mandersonville I don’t know if this will make a difference, but figured a reminder that I’m a real human being with a family just like you might help.

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

@mandersonville But, to bring full circle, I agree us v. them is generally unhelpful and my comments in TNLookout were meant to reflect this belief! Hence rigorous authorizing, housing, transportation, and...yes...facilities 🙂

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

@mandersonville 💯

Fwiw, the truth is out there...the library is on the third floor. It's been empty since 2019 and we ask about it each year, as recently as Oct. Again, won't post e-mails, but would politely describe the feedback from the facilities dept as not encouraging.

[Charlie Friedman @CharlieFriedman]

@mandersonville Maybe someone a lot smarter than me at politics (😉) could help me figure out whether it's worth continuing to explore and ask about.