🧵 Pedagogies of Compliance #

A pedagogy of compliance is made up of a set of classroom management and instructional practices that limit student autonomy and reduce their access to rigorous instruction. It creates dependent learners in the process. Hammond (2025)

I have many questions about what it means to disrupt pedagogies of compliance, particularly at a school site with one of the highest concentrations of students with “Early Warning Indicators” in SFUSD. I have few answers, but I try new things all the time.

🧵 What does it mean to ‘win’ a strike? #

Our union leadership does not get to decide if this is a win. That is for us, the majority, to decide, through discussion and debate of the full Tentative Agreement and the Memorandum of Understanding. Independence HS Educators (2026)

Recently, I was on strike with UESF. Abruptly on the 4th day, the strike was cut off and we were sent back to work. The experience raised a number of questions about how workers movements are managed from above by business unions.

🧵 What happens after the revolution? #

I have been slowly making my way through The Unknown Cultural Revolution: Life and Change in a Chinese Village by Dongping Han. Most of the literature I have been exposed to on China falls victim to sinophobic or new cold war rhetoric (or reactions to the former). This book is a breath of fresh air. It paints a complex and layered account of how the Chinese Communist Revolution and subsequent Cultural Revolution impacted life in rural China. This summer I will have the opportunity to visit my ancestral home in rural Southern China so learning this history is of special importance to me.

🧵 AI in Education is not ‘New’ or ‘Revolutionary’ #

Last year, as a struggling first year teacher I attempted to implement the Modern Classroom approach to my World History class. The results were interesting, but since then I have had big questions about the idea of ‘personalized education’ and the big promises from bigger tech companies. A recent episode of Have You Heard, a podcast covering public school policy, delves into the cold war logic behind much of the current push of AI into education. After listening, I am adding Audrey Watter’s anti-AI education newsletter to my RSS feed reader. I may also check out their book: Teaching Machines: The History of Personalized Learning