MG Harris No Longer On X

I'm leaving X/Twitter. Can't be part of this anymore, even passively. Find me at: - Bsky (mgharris - politics and general nonsense) - Instagram (mgharrisbooks - food and fun) - TikTok (mgharrisbooks - booky stuff)

@EYakoby Could it be that the USA isn't a party to these massacres, isn't supplying weapons or getting cosy with the leader that is ordering the murders, so protesting in the USA would have exactly zero effect?

BREAKING: Live look at western university campuses after they learned that over 12,000 unarmed Iranian civilians have been massacred by the Islamic Republic.

New book alert! 'Jaguar's Realm' - a prequel to 'The Mind Game' is here. Here's the video, book buying links are here: mybook.to/jaguarsrealm

@JamesMartinSJ Doesn't Paul write in 2 Cor 1-5 that God has*already* prepared new bodies to house our souls (minds? Memories?) and that the bodies are made of something imperishable and don't suffer or need sustenance in the way our 'earthly tent' bodies do? Ultimate transhumanism.

Oh, brother. All I can say is: "Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish. Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God."

Settling back into the warmth of @SullivanUpp_Lib with #NewYearNewSeries displays😊Lots of great books & series to get into in 2025 inc @SW_Messenger @susanwilsonbook @Kerensd @RealMGHarris @balirai @RealJamesPhelan @MHarrison13 @loganwriter @tompalmerauthor @abriggswriter❤️📚

@lhallwriter 24. A bunch of others I thought about reading and maybe read the first few pages and then stopped 😅

How many have you read? Me: 7...

@crispriestley Yes I have also seen it. I have another account that I used to use for discussing politics etc. Ended up blocking tens of thousands of people! And even then there are always new ones popping up to provoke a fight.

@crispriestley I think sometimes you have to guard your mental health most. There are people doing exactly what you're talking about and they're reporting about it on bluesky. Like @RonFilipkowski who monitors the far right movement. Some things are better seen at a remove.

@crispriestley At the other place you can say anything and you will mainly get good faith engagement. There's a block on sight thing going on with the trolls there, and they're having difficulty getting traction.

@crispriestley If you avoid controversial topics here the experience is fine. Express support for marginalised people or criticise certain dictator and wannabes and the trolls descend.

@naomicfisher Quiet calm classrooms and lessons where knowledge is actually increased are beneficial to all kids not just the high attaining academic ones. It's demoralising to have your time wasted.

They get excellent exam results A lot is justified in the name of exam results. It’s okay to control every moment of a child’s day, if the school can show they get excellent exam results. It’s okay to have behaviour policies which put many children in isolation, if the school gets excellent exam results. It’s okay for parents to be complaining, and children to be protesting, if the school can show improving exam results. Our education system has decided that only one outcome really matters in the lives of our young people. Excellent exam results. When people talk of evidence based education, they usually mean, what the research shows gets better exam results. There’s a problem with this, because it’s not possible for everyone to get excellent exam results. Excellence is defined in contrast to everyone else. ‘Good results’ really means ‘better than the others’. An ‘excellent school’ means one that does better than the others, often in exam results. If everyone does very well, it just becomes the norm. They’d have to shift the goal posts. Half of our young people will always get below average exam results. Not because they don’t try hard, but because an average means ‘the middle’ (and yes I know it doesn’t literally mean that and that there are different ways to calculate an average). The quest for ever better exam results has a cost. Because it seems fairly clear to me that an effective way to get better exam results from more teenagers is to focus myopically on the test. To drill them in what they will need to do, and only that. To make them self quiz themselves for homework, and to do not just a mock exam, but a mock-mock too. To make school hours longer and to stop off-topic discussions. To punish them if they step out of line and to tell them that their lives will be over if they don’t do well. To coach them in how to take exams, so they become experts in that. To terrify them about the consequences if they don’t spend hours each night on their homework. All this ‘works’. Some of them will get better exam results than they would have done otherwise. But there’s a cost. There’s a cost for those who fall by the wayside and stop being able to attend school. There’s a cost for those who get through their exams and then breakdown and can’t go on. There’s a cost for those who submit to all the rules and then still don’t do well, and who spend their lives feeling like failures. There’s a cost to those who develop anxiety, eating disorders and depression. There’s a cost to those who burnout before they are sixteen. The question we need to reckon with is this. If focusing on excellent exam results inevitably has a cost to the wellbeing of young people, is that cost one we are willing to bear? Are we prepared to write off some young people as collateral damage, whilst lauding those who get the top grades? Instead what happens is that there is collective denial of the costs. Governments pretend that schools can focus on high stakes test results AND wellbeing, and that there isn’t a trade off there. Schools claim that children are happy to have every moment of their lives controlled, because it makes for a quiet classroom, and that those who say otherwise are the troublemakers. What if we accepted that an education which prioritises exam results come at a cost, and asked whether this is one we are willing for our young people to pay? What then?

@jakonrath It starts with acts at home, caring for your family and neighbours. The WhatsApp neighbourhood group we started for mutual aid during COVID is still running. Mutual aid groups on twitter too - lots of good people out there.

So for various reasons I may have lost my faith in humanity. If you believe love and compassion are still alive and well, please let me and the rest of the world know by replying to this message. Fingers crossed. Show me the world is good.

Hello! My new book 'False Flag' - Book 2 of 'The Mind Game' series is 0.99 on Kindle for the next 47 hours! One for the 'young adult spy thriller' section of your TBR pile. Get your 0.99 copy of 'False Flag' here: mybook.to/falseflagkindle

@sophiakb_writes @haleypatricia_ Yes. When you have a structural problem (and length is always a structural problem, unless you have a narrative style that will be difficult to sell in most genres). So always go back to the plot and see what you can deepen or cut.

@haleypatricia_ My trick is to list out all the sub plots, and see which one could get deeper. The main plot is probably polished to perfection, but subs can usually take work. thread that in from start to finish, or add a subplot - a sub character growth arc or trauma healing maybe?

In the other place I'm mgharris.bsky.social (Yes I beat the other MG Harrises to it. Like I did for Twitter years ago, then deleted account by mistake and had to start over with another handle, ah good times.)

I'm keeping my X/Twitter account for occasional book talk. On Bluesky I'll be more scrappy and into politics etc ;) Anyway, an update on my latest project, THE MIND GAME, an espionage thriller series for young adults. Book trailers. All of two 😆 youtube.com/playlist?list=…

I hope you all enjoy the Blake's 7 Blu-rays as much as I have. The series has never looked and sounded so crisp, shiny, and new. I'm in awe at the hard work and dedication that has gone into the restoration. #Blakes7

Can you pitch your book in four words? Here’s mine: Celebrity family ghost ship.

@AuthorEmy Writer here!

If you’re a writer and you’re still here PLEASE COMMENT SO I CAN FIND YOU