Nate
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jessenathaniel.bsky.social
Nate
@jessenathaniel.bsky.social
270 followers 170 following 710 posts
Black. Special Education administrator. Holding fast to the belief that education and restorative justice can meet the political moment. Committed to racial justice inside & outside of school.
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jessenathaniel.bsky.social
I attended my oldest’s kindergarten parent-teacher conf last week. This part about advice really resonated. My son is more than fine academically, but still working on the social side. The way she laid that out was considerate and she engaged it as more an invitation for partnership than criticism.
“As a young teacher, it was easy for me to judge my parents' decisions. If they would only just (FILL IN THE BLANK). As I've gotten older, though, and made many, many mistakes, I better understand that we are all doing our best given our current resources. This does not mean that I ignore opportunities to offer caring advice for my students' wellbeing. It means that I try to help without judgement and resentment. I assure parents that, even though things are tough, their child will be okay as long as we all continue to love and support them, and help them develop healthy habits. My job, as a teacher, is to lovingly push my students to grow in all academic areas.” “But I also take seriously my responsibility to help students grow to be happy and healthy human beings. I offer my students compassion and encouragement. I've learned that motivation through encouragement is stronger than through fear of disappointment. Sometimes, my encouragement can feel like a push. I'm a warm demander; I expect a great deal of my students and convince them daily that they are brilliant.”
November 11, 2025 at 2:39 AM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
I’m always struck by the number of teachers who *don’t* actively listen to their students and/or actively solicit feedback from them. Massive missed opportunity to not only improve practice, but also find the motivation to keep going when things get tough.
teacher2teacher.bsky.social Teacher2Teacher @teacher2teacher.bsky.social · 11h
Want to know if you're making a difference?

Just listen to your Ss, says T Matt Johnson! #TeacherSky
"My first 6 years of teaching I felt defeated and irrelevant. One day I overheard a student in my class tell another student that I was the best teacher in the world. From that day on I believed her and taught like I was. Thank you, Gabi." —Teacher Matt Johnson
November 11, 2025 at 2:16 AM
Reposted by Nate
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
OSCAR ISAAC, on whether he'd return to "Star Wars":

".. Yeah. I mean, I’d be open to it, although right now I’m not so open to working with Disney. But if they can kinda figure it out and, you know, not succumb to fascism, that would be great."

@variety.com $DIS
variety.com/2025/film/ne...
Oscar Isaac Was ‘Not So Open to Working With Disney’ After Jimmy Kimmel Suspension, Said He’d Return to ‘Star Wars’ if Disney Does ‘Not Succumb to Fascism’
Oscar Isaac was not open to working with Disney after Jimmy Kimmel's suspension and will only return to 'Star Wars' if the studio avoids fascism.
variety.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by Nate
tressiemcphd.bsky.social
Yes, I do.
avs.bsky.social ashlee, mph @avs.bsky.social · 1d
do you all ever think about how howard dean got knocked out of a primary for being a lil too excited and now we have All This and people who will defend it because politics are sports to some people
November 10, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Reposted by Nate
prisonculture.bsky.social
Why has the government been closed at all if Senate Dems cave now? Didn't they say that they could not go along with throwing millions of people off health care?

What's materially changed? A *promise* is not action. ALSO fascists lie and I've been told by some Senate Dems that the GOP is fascist.
November 9, 2025 at 11:43 PM
Reposted by Nate
warondumb.bsky.social
The people who voted for Zohran Mamdani and the folks who raged over “woke” Cracker Barrel have more in common than you may think. Let me explain.
November 8, 2025 at 1:34 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
This is endlessly fascinating to me: why do politicians left of center seem so reluctant to stake a claim as a voice in defense of public education while the right vomits out myriad losing arguments
“Call them Park Slope Populists or the emergent coalition of the precariate, voters who are both highly educated and struggling to survive financially officially arrived as a political force this week. Which led to consternation among certain conservatives about the right's inability to speak to this constituency.(See, for example, Fox's Jesse Watters mocking Zohran Mamdani's voters as women who majored in southeast Asian feminist literature when they should have gotten a degree in finance or the hard sciences, or economist Stephen Moore insisting that college leads to socialism.) But here's the thing. Centrist Democrats have nothing to say to this constituency either. Presidential aspirant Rahm Emanuel wants to rally the nation around a vision of restoring the American Dream, "one student, one opportunity at a time." As Jack Schneider and I wrote last year, this message fails utterly with voters who followed the Democrats' prescription for success, only to struggle economically. The big question, one that I'll be exploring on this page and elsewhere in the months to come, is what do Mamdani and other left-wing populists have to say about education? The answer so far seems to be 'not much.'”
November 8, 2025 at 10:22 PM
Reposted by Nate
lindaholmes.bsky.social
I will add: People who expected this teacher to be bummed do not know (good) teachers very well. A civics teacher? With a student who wants to run for office? That’s probably bliss.
November 8, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Nate
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
"Hey, man, what message should we push today as we deliberately deny millions of Americans their food benefits?"
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4d
Dr Oz: "Americans will lose 135 million pounds by the midterms"
November 6, 2025 at 5:38 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
👀
annieabrams.bsky.social Annie Abrams @annieabrams.bsky.social · 4d
you know what’s interesting about laguardia’s new york? ed policy
November 6, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by Nate
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
Tuesday night, in an off-year election, a majority — yes, a goddamn majority — of eligible American voters agreed with me. These people spent eight months living in a woke-free America and collectively decided, “We don’t want this.” What we DO want is to be left the f—k alone. Contrary to what Ted Cruz might tell you, that’s what woke does. Woke lets you drive around town without the threat of a cop pulling you over to gun you down. Woke lets you be gender fluid without an emergency PTA meeting springing up outside your door. Woke lets you go to college without entering into a modern sharecropping agreement. It lets children read, lets every citizen be able to vote without a fuss, leaves the original recipe for Tylenol intact, and endeavors to keep our air and water clean. Woke, in other words, is good.
November 5, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Nate
marisakabas.bsky.social
"Hope is not blind optimism or uncritical belief in a political savior. Hope, to me, means the ability to imagine a better world is possible and then work to build it brick by brick. It is, as @prisonculture.bsky.social says, not an emotion but a discipline—one we must practice every single day."
Mayor Mamdani redefines what it means to hope
His victory has created a harsh contrast between the world we want and the world we have.
www.thehandbasket.co
November 6, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Reposted by Nate
jackmurphyrgr.bsky.social
Who knew that FDNY had deal breaker views about...Israel which is a foreign country I believe. Do they have any other views about any other countries we should know about?

NYC Fire Commissioner to Quit Over Mamdani Stance on Israel - Bloomberg share.google/u4nCw8SxcGCX...
NYC Fire Commissioner to Quit Over Mamdani Stance on Israel
New York City Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker will step down next month, becoming the first senior official to resign on the heels of Zohran Mamdani’s decisive win of the mayoralty Tuesday.
share.google
November 6, 2025 at 2:13 AM
Reposted by Nate
jamellebouie.net
ah, perhaps instead of pumping millions into endless factional infighting Dem donors could invest in making local Dem organizations genuine civic spaces that can reach people during and between elections
November 5, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Reposted by Nate
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win
nbcnews.com NBC News @nbcnews.com · 6d
BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York City mayoral race, NBC News projects. nbcnews.to/4nIzNUC
November 5, 2025 at 2:34 AM
Reposted by Nate
prisonculture.bsky.social
Now comes the even harder work. But for tonight, let's celebrate.
November 5, 2025 at 2:39 AM
Reposted by Nate
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
Dick Cheney did more than anyone else to build up expansive and destructive executive branch powers in the wake of 9/11; he lived to see another president turn those same powers against his own daughter.

He should be a warning sign to the GOP today but too many of them are in the cult.
November 4, 2025 at 12:35 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
In the interest of naming wins, yesterday I led a PLC about assessment and IEP writing — real riveting stuff! Near the end, I told them we have Dec off thinking they’d welcome a reprieve.

Instead: gasp, requests to schedule one, and suggestion of a potluck..?

Feels like I’m on the right track.
November 4, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by Nate
ilanahorn.bsky.social
what is lost:

opportunities to connect through play, express themselves spontaneously, and learn to self-regulate.

by insisting children behave in developmentally inappropriate ways, we impede the things that help them develop.
November 3, 2025 at 1:03 AM
Reposted by Nate
tressiemcphd.bsky.social
I really am just working from the basic premise of political science that public opinion isn’t just measurable — you can and should CREATE it.
morfaleji.bsky.social Doug Pennington @morfaleji.bsky.social · 8d
This never stops being true, but I’m not sure Ds have ever, at least in my lifetime, learned to apply it for good. *Creating* public opinion either never occurs to them, or if it does, offends their sensibilities? It’s exasperating
November 3, 2025 at 3:04 AM
Reposted by Nate
johndownesangus.bsky.social
Every public school teacher you know now knows more about how to help families find affordable food than they did about a week ago. In case any anti-teacher-union types are curious, this is what those disruptive organizers have been texting/emailing each other about all weekend.
November 3, 2025 at 12:37 AM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
No better sign that we’ve rapidly lost the plot in education than people proudly boasting they can help kids learn 10x faster with AI and get them through years of school in a matter of months…
November 3, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Reposted by Nate
annaeclark.bsky.social
When you see Mamdani looking all normal doing normal person things—petting bodega cats, riding public transport—you realize just how bizarre and estranged our average candidate for public office is. Rich martians in flesh suits
November 2, 2025 at 2:26 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
Been listening to a Knowledge Matters podcast series about social studies that made an important point about CCR: schools went all in on math and “reading skills” at the expense of…everything* else. Today’s high schoolers have grown up with that + Zoom. Disconnectedness is a logical outcome (1/2).
November 2, 2025 at 8:04 PM
jessenathaniel.bsky.social
Just to expand this a bit: the Gates small schools program is a great example of an idea that might’ve made sense at a given moment — and even had community support! — but had a number of blind spots. We have to find ways to better center the humanity of communities. oaklandside.org/2024/12/11/t...
Screenshot #1 from the Oaklandside article, “The small schools movement remade Oakland education. Is this the end?” It reads as follows: "It becomes difficult to argue a level of personalization when kids are learning new adults year after year after year. We cannot underestimate the impact of teacher retention on small schools," LaShawn Routé Chatmon, the executive director of the National Equity Project, then Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools, told the Oakland Tribune in 2009. “What eventually killed the small schools movement, Adam said, was a state takeover in 2003 and the 2009 recession. “Receivership meant there were constant changes in district leadership and a revolving band of state administrators leading the district. Combined with concern from the teachers' union over work hours, Adam said, support eroded for the autonomous schools. The financial crisis in 2009 meant that OUSD had to lay off teachers en masse, decimating the newer small schools that had less-experienced teachers. The layoffs prompted some of those schools to petition for charter status, Adam said.” Screenshot #2 from the Oaklandside article, “The small schools movement remade Oakland education. Is this the end?”. It reads as follows: “Some have dual-immersion programs, special education resources, or newcomer support systems that aren't available at every school. Creating these school communities and cultures required deliberation and input from school staff, students, families, and the community. To mash two schools together simply because they share a campus is to threaten that careful work, said Christsna Sot, a teacher at United For Success Academy. "To build a school, it's not just the building and structure, but the people in the school," Sot said. "It takes years to build and create a culture. With that merger happening, it feels like that would have to start all over again. “Sot attended Calvin Simmons Middle School, which closed in 2007 and then became United for Success and Peralta Creek Middle School. He was part of the first graduating class at United For Success, and noticed the difference immediately.” Screenshot #3 from the Oaklandside article, “The small schools movement remade Oakland education. Is this the end?”. It reads as follows: “Part of what made the small schools campaign successful was that it was community driven, with input from parents, neighbors, and teachers working together to create the schools they wanted to see. The merger plan feels like a top-down approach, an abandonment of the grassroots energy of the movement, advocates said. "The school district has enough experience in how making relationships with community and parents and educators is the best way to go. But it looks like we never learn," said Paulino, who today is the director of organizing and leadership formation for Faith in Action East Bay. "If we have so many years of experience already and we learned that the voice of the parents and the community is important, why are we undermining those voices again? Why are we making decisions from the top down? “Where is the voice of educators in this process?"
November 1, 2025 at 8:05 PM