Teacher, Thinker, Life long learner. Interested in effective & efficient learning & teaching for humans and machines. Live long and learn lots.
Joined July 2013
- Tweets16.8K
- Following4.6K
- Followers1.6K
- Likes11.4K
Hart of Learning retweeted
When I was placed in special education, the teacher was an amazingly kind woman whom I loved like a mother.
Problem was, I already had a mother. I didn't need another one who excused me from class whenever I wanted, who talked teachers into giving me more chances, who "advocated" for me even when I wasn't deserving of it.
What I needed was someone to draw a clear line and tell me what would happen if I crossed it and then to carry through with the consequence if I did.
I had a childhood which, in a lot of ways, was the stuff of sob stories that get kids excused from their entire education, lest their problems be exacerbated by the normal expectations of a classroom.
But what I didn't need, and what kids today don't need, is the permission to be their worst selves. The only way to make it out of a bad situation, and to make up for past bad decisions, is to begin making better choices. There is no cheat code into a good education.
The adults who are meant to help students with "special needs," like I had, need to understand that they can't make the decisions for these kids. They can help them to make good decisions themselves, but they can't do it for them, and the worst thing they can do is continue making excuses for the bad decisions and behaviors that kids like I was persist in all in the name of compassion.
It wasn't until I got out into the world and got my ass absolutely kicked by the vicissitudes of a world which was much less kind to me than my beloved teacher ever was that I began to find my way to normative and prosocial behaviors. But this took the better part of a decade, a decade that may have been avoided if I had learned the right lessons earlier in life, taught by the people who are supposed to care the most.
Hart of Learning retweeted
I'm not sure if everyone realizes that this "Millionaires Tax" will require EVERYONE to file their income with the state and you get an exemption on all income under 1 million.
It only takes one session to lower the exemption amount to $500k
It also doesn't just hit W2 high earners.
It covers married couples, out of state residents, LLC, S-Corp, and pensions.
If you think this doesn't effect you think agian.
Vote YES on I-645
Hart of Learning retweeted
Mathematical rot starts early.
“Kids don’t really need to memorize multiplication tables.”
“They can just use a calculator.”
That’s where the decay begins.
But then…
-- Multiplication never becomes effortless.
-- Every calculation eats up working memory.
-- Factoring becomes a struggle.
-- Algebra becomes a slog.
Instead of fixing the foundations, people water down the classes.
Students become reliant on calculators to do what they can’t do by hand: Graph. Solve equations. Manipulate expressions.
But moving students ahead without skills doesn’t work. It doesn’t fix the rot. It just allows the rot to keep spreading.
Every new topic sits atop a weaker foundation. A Jenga tower that one day will all come crumbling down.
You don’t fix that in college.
You have to fix it where it started.
You have to fix the foundation.
Further reading: justinmath.com/if-you-want-t…
Hart of Learning retweeted
Signs you are rich:
1. Both of your parents are alive
2. Your have a partner who loves you
3. You have a stable roof over your head
4. You have good health and pace of mind
...It's the simple things that matter most.
Hart of Learning retweeted
🚨OH. MY. GOSH!!!!!
A LIBERAL JUDGE JUST LET THE ALLEGED 15-YEAR-OLD “BITE OF SEATTLE” MASS SH00TER OUT OF JAIL!!!!!
He was arrested ON THE SPOT, ADMITTED he pulled the trigger, and less than 3 months later he’s sleeping in his OWN BED… and he’s the ONLY PERSON ARRESTED FOR IT!!!!!
On July 26th, the Bite of Seattle was packed at Seattle Center, 500 feet from the Space Needle, the the gunfire started.
Two festival goers were K*LLED, and 4 more were wounded, including a 2-YEAR-OLD BOY.
Ashley Whitehead was 56.
Carlos Israel Sanchez Villalba was 44.
They came for the food.
They never went home.
Police didn’t have to hunt for this kid, they arrested him RIGHT THERE, with a gun in his jacket.
Prosecutors say it was a Polymer 80 GHOST GUN.
He even TOLD POLICE he fired it.
Court filings say that before the festival, his group met at a house where video showed at least 11 GUNS lined up on the FREAKING FLOOR!!!!
One of them matched the gun he was caught with.
Even his OWN LAWYER told the judge his actions were “dangerous and inappropriate.”
He was charged with FIRST-DEGREE ASSAULT with a firearm and unlawful possession of a firearm.
The state wants him tried as an ADULT.
On September 1st, Judge Veronica Galván kept him locked up and called him “a threat to community safety" but then when the hype went away... yesterday she let him go.
Electronic home monitoring. At his dad’s house. Online school.
Her reason?
SELF-DEFENSE.
Prosecutors told the court he’s a danger to the community. She sent him home anyway.
IT GETS WORSE
This isn’t the first time.
In December 2024, Judge Galván released a 17-year-old robbery suspect WITHOUT BAIL, over prosecutors’ objections.
FIFTEEN DAYS later, prosecutors say he and another teen lured a 14-year-old to a park in Everett, tied him to a tree, and ST*BBED him EIGHT TIMES.
WE DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS!!!!!!!
Hart of Learning retweeted
Teaching in the inner city made me more conservative
I watched as weak-on-discipline policy made schools ungovernable
I witnessed soft-on-crime policies tear apart communities
I sat through condescending lectures about how urban kids can't get the right answer in math or read Shakespeare
I saw torrents of money pouring into schools get wasted on useless admin and consultant speakers instead of actual classroom needs and teacher paychecks
Most frustratingly, I watched white progressives advocate all of the above policies, free from having to deal with their actual consequences, lecturing me about how little I cared about poor students WHILE I ACTUALLY WORKED TO TEACH THEM
Hart of Learning retweeted
@researchEDCan Guess what we are going to livestream our keynote sessions from #rEDTO2026
Tune in Saturday Oct. 24, 2026 using this link.
Share widely!
@rastokke @NickGibbUK @KJWinEducation @Ready4rigor @Educhatter @researchED1
@tombennett71
vimeo.com/event/6289476
Hart of Learning retweeted
Effective Immediately, all organizations using PHP for their systems are advised to be prepared for an update addressing two critical vulnerabilities. PHP is widely used for web applications. These vulnerabilities often provide a direct path to the server's file system or database. If an immediate update is not feasible, it is recommend that organizations take the system offline until it can be fully mitigated. NSA will follow up shortly with more specific guidance.
Hart of Learning retweeted
If you feel the same, check out our mathematical foundations sequence.
Especially designed to propel adult students to the upper echelons of math as efficiently as possible.
mathacademy.com/courses#math…
Hart of Learning retweeted
A 24-year-old junior associate complaining in the office kitchen this morning:
“Leadership just doesn’t get it. Boomers like Dave had it made. They bought three-bedroom houses on a summer job salary and coasted into retirement.”
Dave, our 54-year-old operations director, poured his coffee, turned around, and looked at him:
“Tyler, I’m Gen X. When I was your age, my first mortgage was at 11.2% interest. I made $32k a year working 65-hour weeks. The Dot-Com crash wiped out my tech stock options in 2001, and the 2008 Lehman collapse cut my home value in half right when my second kid was born. Nobody handed me a coupon for the American Dream.”
Tyler went completely silent. Dave took a sip of black coffee and walked back to his desk.
When did people convince themselves that anyone older than 45 was gifted a debt-free mansion at birth?
Hart of Learning retweeted
I am looking for a special projects engineer.
You will design stuff that is on our never-ending “we should redesign this some day” list.
Things like designing a lifting mechanism for a 1000lb blast door.
Or coming up with a better heat resistant material for a battery testing enclosure.
Or designing an acoustic test.
Or or or…all sorts of weird shit associated with the business of protecting people in the space and aerospace industries from things that go boom.
This will be remote. I don’t care where you work. Hours are flexible. Not full time. Or Full time.
You must be a US Citizen. You must be efficient and highly proficient in SolidWorks CAD. You must be smart. You must be dedicated to winning 🇺🇸
Note: @totalshield_llc has a strict no-asshole policy.
DM me if you are interested.
Hart of Learning retweeted
My entire K-12 experience took place in the 80s and 90s. I truly believe it was the golden age of public education.
The number one reason? Little to no technology in the classrooms.
We engaged socially with classmates, read physical books, and did exams on paper.
Hart of Learning retweeted
For some groups of students, the biggest challenge isn't teaching reading comprehension.
It's simply getting them to read.
They will do anything to avoid it: stare at a wall, talk to a neighbor, go to the bathroom.
And the teacher often spends much of their energy just trying to get students to make a genuine attempt to read.
Hart of Learning retweeted
If you live in one of the gray states, your governor has blocked scholarships from the new Trump federal scholarship program from being given to kids in your state.
And I would recommend upgrading to a better governor.
Hart of Learning retweeted
Starting in 2026, you can deduct up to $2,000 in charitable donations even if you take the standard deduction
90% of Americans take the standard deduction & almost none of them know about this new deduction
Here's how it works:
Hart of Learning retweeted
One of the more insidious effects of grade inflation is that it allows students who aren’t doing well to believe the lie that they are.
And it delays the pain of failure so that it happens when the stakes are higher than they are within the walls of the school.
It isn’t compassion to allow a student an inflated sense of self, only for it to come crashing down when they enter the real world where the consequences are real pain and not just a disappointing letter on a piece of paper.
Grade inflation is wrong because it is lying, and lying is wrong, no matter the motives of the person lying.
Hart of Learning retweeted
Emily Hanford already pointed to Direct Instruction in her Sold a Story episodes on Steubenville and Reading First. She reported that only two reading programs were seen as proven by research:
Success for All and Direct Instruction.
Hart of Learning retweeted
Two couples, $1.4 million each, same $90,000 lifestyle.
One of them can retire at 62 and the other can't, and it has nothing to do with how much they saved.
Couple A has $1.35 million in a traditional IRA and $50,000 in cash.
That's the whole picture. Every dollar they spend has to come out of the IRA, and every dollar that comes out is ordinary income.
To actually put $90,000 in their pocket they're withdrawing closer to $105,000, because they're paying the tax on the way out the door.
That withdrawal puts their MAGI over $84,600, which in 2026 is the 400% poverty line for a household of two.
Above that line the ACA premium credit is zero. Not smaller. Zero. So now they're buying health insurance at full retail in their early 60s, which in a lot of markets runs well into five figures. And the only place to get the money for that premium is another IRA withdrawal, which pushes their income up again.
Couple B has $600,000 traditional, $400,000 Roth, and $400,000 in a taxable account with high basis. Same $1.4 million.
They pull their $90,000 from three places instead of one, and their reportable income becomes something they decide instead of something that happens to them.
That's the whole difference. Not the total. The mix.
And here's the part that actually bothers me. For 30 years the only advice anybody hands out is contribute more, max it out, get the match.
Nobody sits a 50 year old down and tells them the account they're choosing right now is going to help set what their health insurance costs at 62.
If you're 50+ and nearly everything you own is pre-tax, you don't have a savings problem. You have a location problem. And you still have time to do something about it.
Hart of Learning retweeted
I’m feeling like I need to make a boomer defense website at this point.
No, we aren’t the selfish generation. We are the most hardworking generation. We don’t want to sell our homes because we worked damn hard for them, and now we have grandchildren visiting with our children and we like there is room for them. AND it’s OUR HOME. Those that are wealthy (not as many as you all imagine) ARE helping their children with paying for college (no student loans) and helping with them buying a first house. Those not wealthy now depend on the SS and Medicare they paid into their entire lives. They are also babysitting grandchildren and loving your children as no one else on earth will. We are not selfish. We are living on the years of hard work. Maybe you’ll understand when you get there, but now this bullsh*t narrative on your parent’s generation has got to stop.