DrAnnD
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drannd.bsky.social
DrAnnD
@drannd.bsky.social
710 followers 660 following 1.7K posts
Educator, intellectual freedom advocate, scholar, reader, writer, and lyricist. I knit, garden, and cook for instant gratification. Professor in title. Michigan expat in Texas. (Skeets my own.)
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drannd.bsky.social
Me too, @maris.bsky.social, me too. Can’t wait to read it. And thrilled to see it being featured at the Texas Book Festival!
November 11, 2025 at 3:25 AM
drannd.bsky.social
I hate the heat and 20 years in Texas has given me coping mechanisms, but not reduced the soul-deep hatred.

When I can do this in my office… my soul rejoices and my to-list seems less loathsome.
An open door to the outside in a small room. The door is dark purple with a window in it with blinds drawn. There are three pictures on the wall closest to the camera and another window behind the door. The outside is sunny with a strip of lawn and a wooden fence.
November 9, 2025 at 10:41 PM
drannd.bsky.social
Miso shawl from Ambah O’Brien. A colorway from Sleeping Bear Yarn Club. The colors in the pic are wrong. It’s a deep pink and purple. Finally getting into the rhythm and will look great with the whole thing as the eyelets will show up better with more repeats. #knitting
A pink and purple striped-ish shawl on the knitting needles. There is an eyelet zigzag pattern emerging.
November 7, 2025 at 4:40 AM
drannd.bsky.social
Did women ruin seduction?
Judith with the Head of Holofernes by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1530. Source: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A red headed woman in Elizabethan garb, holding a sword with point up while reading her other arm on a severed head. The head is a man with brown hair. The woman has a slight smile. It is the face well known among competent women stuck in meetings with less competent men who get paid more.
November 7, 2025 at 3:21 AM
drannd.bsky.social
The line for voting in San Antonio. My precinct has one of the best turn out rates typically, but this far exceeds anything I’ve ever seen!

There’s a smattering of terrible constitutional amendments, but folks are likely interested in the new Spurs arena proposal.
Looking across a small lawn, though a small tree at a as line of pale snaking around a brick building.
November 4, 2025 at 11:21 PM
drannd.bsky.social
*chefskiss*

I'm not even a New Yorker and this hits perfectly.
It is easy to imagine the Journal, the Times, and the Post as three nervous suburbanites on a day trip to New York City: purses clutched tight to their sides, their hands grasping pepper spray as they descend into the threatening depths of the Times Square subway station, vigilant to the possibility of an attack from a homeless person. These types of visitors, their view of the city shaped by too many urban crime dramas, are common. We welcome them. We do our best to soothe their fears. We even try to gently persuade them to go to Jackson Heights and try some Indian food. But we do not let them tell us how to run our city. That would be ridiculous.
November 4, 2025 at 10:16 PM
drannd.bsky.social
Blocking day! #knitting sorcery is my favorite.
Green lace shawl with chevron-esque pattern. Stretched out on tan blocking mats with pins and knitting blockers. There is a pink and dark pink baby cap at the top corner. A pink and dark pink Scandinavian baby cap blocking flat. The ties are organized into a swirl.
November 2, 2025 at 6:05 PM
drannd.bsky.social
Tell me you fucking didn’t.
A common grackle started at the camera. It is standing on the back of a white and blue wooden chair with a wooden fence in the background.
November 2, 2025 at 12:55 AM
drannd.bsky.social
If I do not let a certain doggo outside when I get this look, she will relocate my shoes around the house. Sometimes they are lightly chewed.
A small dog with black fur, with white and tan accents on her belly and paws, sits inside in front of a white door. She is licking her chops.
October 29, 2025 at 3:58 PM
drannd.bsky.social
Another #KnittingHorrorStory—
Put the skein on the swift only to discover 6 stands were cut. Ended up with a whole mess of yarn that I then wound into itty bitty bits. It’s fine, but I’m weaving in more ends than I’d like.
The top of the frame is a green dappled yarn on a swift that is attached to a door. There are a set of cut strandsstrands hanging from the swift. The background is a chair swing room. A tangle of fingering weight yarn on a bamboo surface. There always to be one small ball wound from the mess. Six tiny balls of yarn.
October 27, 2025 at 4:17 AM
drannd.bsky.social
Still growing. May bind off tomorrow. #knitting
Mottled green lace shawl on circular needles with a chevron-esque pattern.
October 26, 2025 at 3:50 AM
drannd.bsky.social
I’m going to be thinking about teachers experiencing “moral madness” for a long time (Albright, et al., 2023).
[key quote] …teachers bear the responsibility of (and accountability for) student achievement and growth, yet they are positioned with very little power to enforce that responsibility…. Importantly, we understand that educators oftentimes experience a sense of moral madness as they try to act morally, but within a system that does not acknowledge the individual as a "moral agent" (Santoro, 2018, p. 50). As such, all mentorship (and professional learning institutes cited above) are rooted in anti-racist social and emotional learning practices. We understand that most SEL curriculum is rooted in Eurocentric norms and is oftentimes a covert form of policing used to punish and control Black, Brown and Indigenous children and communities to adhere to White norms (Davis & Behm Cross, 2020).” Pg 228
October 24, 2025 at 3:58 PM
drannd.bsky.social
How new projects start.
A stack of printouts of academic articles set at an angle to the camera, sitting on a brown and grey paper cutter. The text of the article is not readable, but the top article is titled Moral Injury Among Professionals in K-12 Education.
October 22, 2025 at 9:07 PM
drannd.bsky.social
#NoKings San Antonio
A white woman wearing sunglasses and a cowboy hat smiling with a San Antonio City flag on the left.
October 18, 2025 at 9:45 PM
drannd.bsky.social
Bigger. Good squish factor. Need the mediation after this week. #knitting
Dappled green triangular knitted shawl in circular needles with a braided effect. Shawl is in someone’s lap.
October 18, 2025 at 2:55 AM
drannd.bsky.social
That last little bullet point under funding is "Book Sales."

So, the logical conclusion of the tsunami of book censorship we've seen since 2021 is to simply say that selling books is a terrorist action?

Hey, @tasslyn.bsky.social, thoughts?
October 16, 2025 at 2:50 PM
drannd.bsky.social
And here’s some lace #knitting, which is how I chill out the fight-flight-freeze response to reading books like this.
A triangular knitted scarf in white and yellow with sports of black and bright pink. The pattern includes lace eyelets running along the body of the scarf.
October 16, 2025 at 1:55 AM
drannd.bsky.social
@resistanceschool.bsky.social 102 tonight was a conversation between Jason Stanley and @karenattiah.bsky.social. Going to be thinking about this class for a long time. The tension between leaving and staying, institutions and how they’re compromised, the necessity of trust. The power of the public.
Photo of a page from Erasing History: How fascists rewrite the past to control the future by Jason Stanley 3 Colonizing the Mind Education for colonial people must inevitably mean unrest and revolt; education, therefore, had to be limited and used to inculcate obedience and servility lest the whole colonial system be overthrown. —W. E. B. Du Bois, "The White Masters of the World"! The night of the sword and the bullet was followed by the chalk and the blackboard. The physical violence of the battlefield was followed by the psychological violence of the classroom. -Ngúgi wa Thiong'o, Decolonizing the Mind? When one group erases the history of another, the latter becomes significantly more vulnerable to domination and conquest. One of the clearest examples of this is the practice of modern colonialism. It is much easier for a colonial power to justify taking land when that land can be represented as lacking a history. When a group of people is represented as having no history, they are being denied any valid claim to the present. Colonialism is an ideal case, perhaps the clearest, for understanding how and why…
October 16, 2025 at 1:55 AM
drannd.bsky.social
Current #knitting project: Portree from Georgie Nicholson. Great pattern that’s easy to memorize and has a great flow, easy to memorize.

I added a yo before the last stitch to give it enough ease along the top edge. Learned that from a Jaq Cieslak pattern. Can tell the difference.
Knitting on circular needles. A chevron lace pattern in mottled green yarn.
October 13, 2025 at 3:09 AM
drannd.bsky.social
Evidence of the point that Trump is not doing well among Texans. texaspolitics.utexas.edu/set/donald-t...
A bar graph with the title Donald Trump Approval (August 2025). 28% Strongly approve, 17% Approve somewhat, 5% Neither, 7% Disapprove somewhat, 43% Approve strongly, 2% Don't know (who are you? And why did you answer a poll but don't know how you feel about Trump?)
October 10, 2025 at 12:06 AM
drannd.bsky.social
#BannedBooksWeek, Day 3

@penamerica.bsky.social continues to gather essential data about book bans in public schools. Their newest report: pen.org/report/the-n...

Show up at a school board meeting, insist that teachers and librarians are the experts on book selection. All kids need diverse books.
Four stacks of books with the titles facing out, black bars are through the titles. The words above the stacks: 22,810 instances of books banned in US public schoosl, 2021-2025.
October 8, 2025 at 3:01 PM
drannd.bsky.social
#BannedBooksWeek Day 2
Volume 2 is out for pre-order and 30% off this week. Five original research articles focus on classroom teachers navigating censorship and the climate of fear. States featured include: Idaho, Iowa, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas.

my.ncte.org/s/product-de...
Book cover titled Volume 2 The Impacts of Censorship: The Voices and Experiences of Classroom Teachers Green on the top and orange on the bottom, the middle has speech bubbles of different colors with big black X's over them. Edited by Ann D. David, Katie Burnett, Katharine Covino, Susan Cridland-Hughes, Christina L. Dobbs, Chantal Francois, and Mark Letcher
October 7, 2025 at 2:58 PM
drannd.bsky.social
Tabling in front of the Student Engagement Center for #BannedBooks Week. Lots of great convos, encouraged students to register to vote, and talked about school board elections in May.

Most students had only ever read To Kill a Mockingbird in schools and were universally shocked it was on the list.
A white woman is sitting at a table late in front of a large tree wearing a black shirt and sunglasses. The table has a grey tablecloth and books all over it. There’s a poster on the front of the table has a large title: censorship. On the left side of the frame a woman with black hair wearing a black and tan stripped shirt and jeans stands in front of a microphone reading Looking for Alaska. There is a table with colorful books on the right side.
October 7, 2025 at 1:32 AM
drannd.bsky.social
It’s Banned Books Week!

My action rec: write a letter to your local school board explaining that you want students to have access to diverse perspectives via books and teachers ache school librarians are the experts to make those book selections.
A banner with Banned Books Week Oct 5-11, 2025 in rainbow letters with a rainbow star banner on the bottom.
October 6, 2025 at 1:21 PM
drannd.bsky.social
Lots of terrible, so here are some pictures of my week in Michigan so far.
Small round cookies on parchment on a kitchen counter. A cookie sheet full of scooped chocolate chip cookie dough in a freezer. Bright pink hydrangeas. A faint rainbow over cirrus clouds as the sun sets behind trees.
October 2, 2025 at 7:27 PM