One Year Take-iversary
Smarter people than me have written volumes about the antics of Elon Musk and the decline of Twitter. However, it is worth noting that this newsletter is a direct result of Musk’s acquisition of the platform. As we mark the first anniversary of Takes & Typos, major advertisers are again pulling their ads from Twitter because its owner is actively amplifying antisemitic posts, (not algorithmically but manually).
Here’s the tweet in question:
There’s a bigot two-for-one special here.
This is fancily worded prejudice, borrowing from the early twentieth-century media conspiracies and today’s neo-Nazi Great Replacement thesis. To which Elon Musk—the wealthiest man in human existence—replied, “You have said the actual truth.”
If you read this newsletter and are still on Musk’s site, let it go. It’s never going to be what it was and it's only gonna get worse. I did it, you can do it too.
Onto the main event.
One year ago, I decided to start the newsletter. It, like my head, is all over the place—I don’t stay in one particular sandbox. We tackle whatever has my attention in a given week, sometimes you all agree, and sometimes I get a bunch of emails telling me I’ve lost the plot. I have also developed a regular correspondence with a few of you where we go back & forth via email. It’s a highlight of my week.
For newer subscribers, here are the most read and or shared editions of the newsletter. The list is interdisciplinary, there isn’t a unifying theme.
Losing Friends: Reader Mailbag Edition - on what happens when friends become bigots
Consolidation and Near Monopolies Are Making Everything Terrible - on unregulated markets worsening the world
The Canaries are Dead and No One Wants to Go into the Mine - on the troubles in the teaching profession in the US
Another Take on that Silly Chat Bot (or Death to the High School Essay) - on the mainstreaming of AI
You Owe it to Yourself to Watch Women's Soccer and the World Cup - a travelogue from New Zealand this summer
This week, I am replying to some questions that you all submitted over the last two weeks. I love the random things you notice about the newsletter and some of the inconsistencies in my reasoning.
Part I of the reader mailbag:
In the last newsletter, you drew parallels between historical events like McCarthyism and contemporary challenges to academic freedom. How do you see the role of educators evolving in navigating such challenges, and what recommendations would you offer to fellow educators facing similar pressures to conform to specific ideological norms within the classroom?
I currently work at an American international school that is partially overseen by the US embassy in a Middle Eastern state. That complicates elements of my speech and expression inside the classroom and out. That said, one of the things that I wish more teachers would do is give more thought to the leadership they choose to work for. The job market for educators is cyclical and given events and economic trends, we're currently in a seller's market.
I would propose that anyone, in particular, educators entering the career field, be circumspect about school and district-level leadership. During job searches and interviews ask about academic freedom and policies on teacher speech. If you feel leadership in the institution is not offering the protections you deserve as a professional, you shouldn’t work for them. Similarly, if leadership changes and the winds begin to shift, consider greener pastures. You don’t owe anyone your labor.
Nate, you expressed in the past strong reservations about the mainstreaming of AI-generated content without proper societal due diligence. How have your views changed on this topic since you first wrote about it?
I knew this one was coming.
When Chat GPT hit the mainstream I took a fairly belligerent stance. But I have softened on that a bit. Whether I want them to or not my students use the technology fairly regularly when looking for information and I've had a few stern conversations with them about claiming credit for intellectual work that's not theirs. I also often caution them about the need to quality-check the information for veracity. But in the big scheme of things, most students use the program like they would the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article.
Personally, I occasionally use AI to create short stimulus texts. I put these in front of students to give them some context and have them respond. For example, last week I had it write the following and then gave students a couple of essay questions and the end of a class about Congressional checks on Executive authority.
That said, I still maintain my concerns about the mainstreaming of AI in our daily lives. Here is a recent report about UnitedHealth using an AI with a 90% error rate to deny medical care. Here’s another instance of AI being used to screen resumes and then how people started hacking that problem (see video below).
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This AI stuff isn’t ready for prime time and may never be but it's being used to determine matters with life-or-death implications without any meaningful regulation.
Your story about collective grieving in schools hit hard. Can you share more about how schools become these emotional hubs, especially during tough times? And, like, how do you think this shared grief impacts the whole vibe in a school?
To be a 40-something teacher in 2023 is to have lived through the AIDS crisis, three major US wars, two once-in-a-century financial crises, a global pandemic, 50,000 annual gun deaths, 100,000 annual overdoses, and increasingly more intense and more frequent natural disasters fueled by climate change.
American society is obsessed with moving forward and not allowing people time and space to grieve. The culture within schools mirrors society. We don't give space and we don't make time to grieve. I know someone who lost eight relatives to Covid in their home country and never missed a day of work. I know a young person who lost over a dozen members of their family to an IDF bomb in Gaza and showed up the next day for an exam.
But when people who are hurting walk around like they aren't hurting it creates a sense of collective pain and delusion. Everything isn’t okay and it’s okay to feel that it’s not. We need to process grief rather than bottling it up and we need to make room for students to do the same. I am as guilty of this as anyone. It's a place where I know I need to be a better role model.
Bro, I can’t be the only one wondering, you ain’t never coming back to America, huh?
I promise you, I am not telling the internet before I tell my mom. You ain’t finna get me whooped by an old woman.
That's it for this week. I’ll share more questions that came in next week. If you want to submit one of your own it's not too late, hit me up here.
As always, if you have any thoughts or feedback about the newsletter, I welcome it, and I really appreciate it when folks share Takes & Typos with their friends.
As always, if you have any thoughts or feedback about the newsletter, I welcome it, and I really appreciate it when folks share the newsletter with their friends.