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adlsimmons.bsky.social
public school teacher + articles/essays/newsletters/book(s) sometimes bay area via kentucky adlsimmons.com
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HS teacher take: dismantling of academic institutions’ power to innovate not only leaves a crater to be filled by tech (as it sees fit) but validates students’ sense that academics = frivolous and disconnected from real life and willingness to view AI as extension of the self not cheap avoidance.

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

I’m writing a story for publication about the enduring life (or death) of the “American Dream” lit class unit. I want to know it looks like in high school classrooms in 2025. I’m looking to connect with high school teachers from every part of the country. Message me here, please!

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

For the 38th installment of my criminally under-enjoyed newsletter on teaching in grim times, I finish an essay I started eight years ago. It’s about ejections, culture, community, and the oddest little charter school in Los Angeles.

submitted 25 days ago • 1 comment

Child, 9: are you going to get more tattoos? Me: maybe Child, 9: what about a hippogriff from Harry Potter? Me: as you know I’m not really a fan, I mean… Child, 9 (rolling her eyes): fine, well, why not a Killers of the Flower Moon tattoo or whatever…”

submitted 63 days ago • 0 comments

Teen hustle culture, AI, social media, and pandemic lessons have created a legion of current and future young voters who dismiss expertise, make choices without consideration of consequences, and valorize scams! That’s bad! We gotta help them fix their brains! This is my attempt to sort through it.

submitted 96 days ago • 0 comments

Many former students are very angry at other former students for political choices. The lines are divided: those who did the reading in my class 2015-2023 and those who didn’t. Everyone grabbing at threads re why it turned out the way it did and this would be a great metric, lol.

submitted 105 days ago • 0 comments

My 34th newsletter about teaching high school in doom times. For this issue, I consider the sudden and surprising loss of an old friend as I teach students literature about loss and renewal. andrewsimmons.substack.com/p/34-goodnig...

submitted 147 days ago • 0 comments

I wrote a SF Chron opinion piece about why the graduating class of 2024 is so odd. Plucky, reflective, emboldened, distracted, helpless, detached, cynical, scared, apathetic, brave…. www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...

submitted 249 days ago • 0 comments

open.substack.com/pub/andrewsi... I wrote my 31st Substack about why Grammarly is a diabolical Trojan horse of a “learning tool” and why students using it as a “cheat code” will erode their selves…

submitted 277 days ago • 0 comments

I wrote the 26th edition of my ongoing newsletter experiment about teaching in This Time. “Only a disingenuous person actually wants to section off pieces of a history like the most desirable portions of an unevenly frosted birthday cake.”

submitted 460 days ago • 0 comments

I'm somewhat afraid to pose the question, but have edible things that are not jam been too often called "jammy," an issue also prevalent in discussions of non-Widespread-y bands that enjoy improvisation? Feel like there's data behind it, like people more often click on recipes with the word "jammy."

submitted 475 days ago • 0 comments