Sandy Leaton Gray
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drleatongray.bsky.social
Sandy Leaton Gray
@drleatongray.bsky.social
Professor of Education Futures at UCL. Personal account, posts represent my own opinions and not those of my institution.
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
it's not just that Mamdani is charming af (he is), it's that he is normalizing the idea that children are full members of society that we all share a collective responsibility for
From @acyn.bsky.social (posted on X)

"Reporter: Do any of you have a favorite animal?

Child: My favorite one is a gold snake that can move. It has gold eyes, and it has a super-duper tail…

Reporter: Mr. Mamdani, the second question for you.

Mamdani: Yes. It’s also the golden snake."
February 6, 2026 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
Dorothy Rowntree BSc. 1st woman in UK to qualify in naval architecture & 1st woman to graduate in engineering from @glasgow.ac.uk Worked @ Fairfield Shipbuilding Yard #Govan. Later moved to #Lebanon & worked @ American University of Beirut'. d. #OTD 5 Feb 1988 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy...
February 5, 2026 at 11:34 PM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
Jonathan Ferguson 1915-74 UK #pilot @wes1919.bsky.social member #WWII joined Women's Air Transport Auxiliary #ATA Postwar Chief Experimental Officer @ Ministry of Supply. 1958 had F>M gender reassignment surgery. Civil Service stated “will not affect his employment” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonatha...
February 5, 2026 at 9:02 AM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
2/4/1865 — b. Lila Meade Valentine, American educator, health reformer, suffragist, lecturer. Edu + #publichealth champion; co-founder/pres,VA Equal Suffrage League. Introduced Richmond,VA kindergartens + vocational training. Lectured for suffrage in the eastern states #womenshistory #PolSky #EduSky
February 4, 2026 at 3:09 PM
In a new low for payments to external academics, a university within the EU just offered me 255 euros for a year’s work supervising a PhD student. For context, the usual workload allocation is around 6 working days a year for this, so that’s 50% of the minimum wage for an unskilled 21 year old. 😮
February 5, 2026 at 11:21 AM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
2/1/1857— b. Lucy Wheelock, American educator, author. Early childhood educator; a key figure of the U.S. kindergarten movement. Founder of Wheelock College, Boston; wrote and edited numerous articles, books, and journals #womenshistory #womenwriters #WriterSky #BookSky #edu #highered
February 1, 2026 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
Archaeologist Gertrude Caton Thompson was born #OTD in 1888.

She was one of the first in the field to use aerial surveys to identify sites, using them successfully for her famed work in Zimbabwe & Egypt. She led the first all-female archaeological expedition in history in 1929.

#WomenInSTEM (1/2)
February 2, 2026 at 12:34 AM
I really do not need to see a photo of a certain politician in his underpants in the top story in the Times. I cannot unsee this now.
February 2, 2026 at 6:18 AM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
Ella M. Collin BSc PhD FRIC #Metallurgist specialising in analysis of non-ferrous & precious metals. Later HM Schools Technical Inspector & 1952 @wes1919.bsky.social President. Campaigned on night working laws & equal pay issues. b. #OTD 15 Jul 1903 #WomenInSTEM en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Ma...
February 1, 2026 at 10:38 AM
It was apparently one of those special 360 degree walls that give you skull fractures on both sides and front to back if you run into them.
"Four hours after his arrest, he was taken to a hospital emergency room in Edina with swelling and bruising around his right eye and bleeding. A CT scan revealed at least eight skull fractures and life-threatening hemorrhages in at least five areas of his brain..."

apnews.com/article/immi...
ICE claim that a man shattered his skull running into wall triggers tension at a Minnesota hospital
Nurses in Minneapolis doubted federal immigration officers' claims about a Mexican immigrant's severe injuries.
apnews.com
February 2, 2026 at 6:05 AM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
"Four hours after his arrest, he was taken to a hospital emergency room in Edina with swelling and bruising around his right eye and bleeding. A CT scan revealed at least eight skull fractures and life-threatening hemorrhages in at least five areas of his brain..."

apnews.com/article/immi...
ICE claim that a man shattered his skull running into wall triggers tension at a Minnesota hospital
Nurses in Minneapolis doubted federal immigration officers' claims about a Mexican immigrant's severe injuries.
apnews.com
February 2, 2026 at 12:04 AM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
February 1, 2026 at 6:49 PM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning.

Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.
February 1, 2026 at 3:49 PM
I want these girls as my backing singers
Arcyria sp slime mold. NWT, Canada.
#myxomycetes #fungifriends
The slime mold sporangia are about 0.5cm high.
February 1, 2026 at 10:52 PM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
Alva Myrdal was a Swedish sociologist, diplomat, politician, and a prominent leader of the #disarmament movement. She was born #OTD in 1902.

She received the #Nobel Peace Prize in 1982 (along with Alfonso Robles) "for their work for disarmament and nuclear and weapon-free zones."
February 1, 2026 at 12:07 AM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
A Kentucky family battling extreme cold temperatures on their farm over the weekend opened their home to a newborn calf that was struggling in the deep freeze.

Hours later, the calf, fed and fluffed, took a spot on the couch with the Sorrell family's two children.
https://cnn.it/4taPoQx
January 31, 2026 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
It should not take a court order to get a toddler out of a prison.
January 31, 2026 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
Buttigieg on Fox News: "When you see an American woman opening the door to her home and on her doorstep finds half a dozen federal agents in tactical gear that is more tricked out than what I would take outside the wire in Afghanistan -- I think most people get that that is wrong."
January 31, 2026 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
Buttigieg on Fox News: "Seeing an American taken to the ground, having his gun removed, being shot in the back 10 times, then having the govt say he was a terrorist all along based on no evidence.. those are kinds of things that as painful as they are, can actually bring together a lot of Americans"
January 31, 2026 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
Engineer & astronaut Christina Koch was born #OTD in 1979

+ December 28, 2019: she broke the record for longest continuous time in space by a woman, ultimately returning from space on Feb. 6, 2020, after 328 days.
+ October 18, 2019: Participant, all-female spacewalk

#WomenInSTEM #AstronautEnvy 🚀
January 30, 2026 at 12:07 AM
A brilliantly insightful blog post by Ben Williamson. There’s an elephant in the room though. Maybe in the social sciences, the way we have to write papers and books is now so painfully formulaic that many of them have said comparatively little for a very long time. open.substack.com/pub/hegemon/...
The Age of Academic Slop is Upon Us
what happens when AI automates "normal science"?
open.substack.com
January 30, 2026 at 10:07 AM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
On this day in 1926, Violette Neatly Anderson became the first black woman admitted to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court. She passed the Illinois bar in 1920, established a private practice, and later became an assistant prosecutor in Chicago. #WeTheMen

arthurashe.ucla.edu/2016/01/29/n...
January 29, 2026 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Sandy Leaton Gray
Senior reporter Nathan Halverson wanted to ask a federal law enforcement officer—someone trained in handling quick-moving altercations while armed—what he saw in the video with trained eyes.

Watch former FBI agent Ken Bagchi’s analysis and stay tuned for more reporting on ICE at MotherJones.com.
January 29, 2026 at 10:38 PM