David M

Honouring First Nations in a primary school in Naarm & the role students can play in creating positive change. An article I've co-written. Hope it is a useful read! @flashblak @ShelleyWare @Sharon_Davis_ research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewconten…

@SenatorClaire Hi Claire, please be aware that because you support Trump & Netanyahu’s war on Iran, you have lost your right to complain about what comes from it. Thanks.

"Part of that is understanding how our masculinity is formed through the denigration of the feminine and femininity – i.e. women". "I believe that we need to humanise our boys and humanise ourselves in the process and part of that involves them understanding the full humanity of women and girls. So much is put in their pockets, in their hands, in their ears, in their eyes, that persuades them otherwise – whether it’s the toy industry or clothing, messages from porn or music lyrics or whatever. They’re learning from this totality of culture, just by osmosis, what it is to be a man. And it’s based on some really poor and wrong data. And that becomes dangerous. They are dangerous assumptions and premises to work from"

Sending my support to @AEUfederal Vic and all teachers who took industrial action today. Covid taught us who the truly essential workers are … and it ain’t hedge fund managers or online influencers. It’s time we paid our teachers for the difference they make to our country.

Old Spotty, on Yuin country, down the beautiful South Coast of NSW. If you want to know why so many of us Marched for Forests today this is why. Old Spotty, 500 years proud, is in unprotected State Forest and all round is up for logging any day.

Dante argued that humans need "a rational and sensory sign" to communicate—rational because ideas come from and lead to reason, and sensory because "nothing can be transferred from one reasoning mind to another except by sensory means." We literally cannot share thoughts without the physical medium of language. This two-part process—thinking and then expressing through sound—is what makes human dialogue work. Dante believed great poets with "scientia et ingenium" (knowledge and genius) should use language to "melt the hearts of human beings, so as to make the unwilling willing and the willing unwilling." Words don't just convey information—they transform what people desire and believe. He saw this persuasive power as essential for guiding communities toward virtue and justice. Dante described understanding as a "circulazione"—a circular process where meaning flows from speaker to listener and back again. He recognized that philosophical activity "unites individual human beings" through shared contemplation of the same truths. We don't just exchange ideas—we align our minds by participating together in the process of understanding, constantly adjusting through interaction. plato.stanford.edu/entries/dante/

It’s a much-needed deep dive into what it means to be human. Highly recommend!!

@TylerVillagra24 Thanks for this, Tyler!

Each week I'm gonna try and do a little report on each Sydney Swans VFL game, posting my takeaways and notes from the game. Here's my 1st one of the season from yesterday's game ❤️🤍 #GoSwans #Bloods #VFL

Frankly, I’m surprised it wasn’t more.

Seems I’ll never get used to the ups and downs of teaching, even after 30 years. One day, “I am changing the world.” Next day, “WTF am I even doing?” Yesterday, the latter. Maybe today will be better. Teaching is one long exhausting existential crisis.

Isn’t this what ABC journalist John Lyons said? #istandwithjohnlyons @TheLyonsDen

Press pack journos with access to the PM, you need to be asking him about Lebanon, otherwise you look complicit and stupid. A million Lebanese displaced by the IDF. There are a quarter million Lebanese Aussies. What are @AlboMP's thoughts on the Zionist carpet bombing of Beirut??

In 2008, 62% of teachers said they were very satisfied with their job. In 2022, that dropped to 12%. We've got a serious problem brewing in education...

Here it is. A 'Greater Israel'. The aim. The ambition. And now the enactment. 'They can't return home' because? Because...? Who's going to get to live there instead?

“Instructional studies need to be the source of the determinative evidence as to how instruction should proceed – if we are really trying to reduce our uncertainty about how best to increase reading achievement. Legislating instructional practice based on brain scans is dopey.”

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” ― The Great Gatsby (1925)

"The machine exists to create dependency. It is essentially a mechanism of colonisation. The history of modernity is the history of the spread of the Machine mentality to all corners of the Earth... Externally, we see the results in a chaotic climate, dissolving cultures, spiralling rates of extinction and infernal destruction of nature. Internally, we see it in the loss of our stories, in our broken-hearted confusion about who and where we are. Locally, we see it in the loss of our self-sufficiency and agency in the place where all human stories begin: the home." --Paul Kingsnorth, "Against the Machine"

Bracketology meets cognitive science. 🧠🏀 Just in time for Selection Sunday, my March Substack: Bracketology and the Brain... What working memory and cognitive load tell us about why text-centered literacy instruction should be the #1 seed. open.substack.com/pub/kristenmcq…

A while back I wrote about the science of PAREIDOLIA, the "you can't unsee this face in this inanimate thing" bias - & all the examples I found are delightful, ludicrous & worrying! (It's amazing how completely it hijacks our mind.) I dare you to unsee the following... 1/

You’re allowed to just love everyone You are much more likable when you’re not filtering people through some stupid ideology

Nobody tells you this: there is no arriving. The fantasy of permanent enlightenment - some finish line of no-thought - is the last trick of the mind that wants a project. Awakening isn't a state you keep. It's a freshness you meet. Again. Now. And now. And now.