heathjw.org

Kyle Spencer, from his NYT article, “At New York Private Schools, Challenging White Privilege From the Inside”:

During an exercise called “Who Are You?” Mr. Gay asked students to create their own “identity cards,” writing down terms they wanted to be associated with, in stark contrast to the other exercise, which focused on unwanted identities. One girl wrote “white,” “SoHo” and “Sag Harbor”; another wrote “a very nice person.” Then students paired up, with one responding to the question “Who are you?” The room erupted in noise, with students shouting, “black,” “white,” “straight,” “lesbian,” “Jewish,” “Spanish” and “smart.” “Everyone has a card,” Mr. Gay told the students. “It’s called an identity card. Society doesn’t value each of these identities equally.” Later he added: “It’s no one’s fault. But you should be aware of it.”

Jenna Wortham, for the New York Times:

And perhaps that’s the true appeal of the series: It does more than blame technology for our woes. It deals with the reality that, no matter what gadgetry we may possess, our problems remain human.

To people who photograph placards when they visit museums—a group to which I belong—the pen is a godsend. It anticipates a need and executes it; it is a straightforward, useful object. But it’s something more. The pen does something that countless companies, organizations, archives, and libraries are trying to do: It bridges the digital and the physical.

The Whitehouse:

There is a ritual on State of the Union night in Washington. A little before the address, the White House sends out an embargoed copy of the President’s speech to the press (embargoed means that the press can see the speech, but they can’t report on it until a designated time). The reporters then start sending it around town to folks on Capitol Hill to get their reaction, then those people send it to all their friends, and eventually everyone in Washington can read along, but the public remains in the dark. This year we change that.

Barrett Brooks, for Fizzle:

We set aside a week on the calendar to talk and run reports. It ended up taking two weeks. We met daily, talking for a couple hours each time, covering accomplishments in 2014 and what we hope to do in 2015. In the process, we discovered key insights about our customers, grew as a team and made huge decisions.

This is great stuff, and who could deny the need to reflect on our work to do it better in the future? This is already happening in our best schools -- it's called assessment. We talk a lot about assessing students, and also about evaluating teachers. A process like this could be really valuable for student, teacher, admin and even school-level evaluations/assessment alike. Self-driven, quantified and qualified, reflective and yet visionary. It's just best practice.

Laura Cochrane, for Make Magazine:

You may be tidy enough to keep your snake pit of miscellaneous cords, cables, and wires all in a single box, but if you want to take your organization to the next level, neatly coil and stow each cord individually inside a toilet paper tube.

The picture is worth a thousand words.

Ugh/blegh:

This tweet from Republican senator Ted Cruz is just nonsense][tc]:

“Net Neutrality” is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government.

That’s word soup. The only similarity to the Affordable Care Act is that Obama supports it. There may well be a rational, reasoned argument against Net Neutrality, but Republicans aren’t making it, and neither are the cable companies or cellular providers. Be wary of the side that can’t express their argument in clear, plain, unambiguous language.

Dr. Drang, on his fallen-over-basketball-hoop saga:

The most dramatic example of thermally prestressed glass is in Prince Rupert’s drops, sperm-shaped glass toys created by dropping molten glass into water. The head of the drop is almost impossible to break directly because of it’s high compressive prestress, but any damage to the tail causes the whole thing to shatter into bits. The high-speed camera work in this episode of Smarter Everyday does a great job of showing the fracture progression.

Nick Bilton, for the NYT:

Graphene is the strongest, thinnest material known to exist. A form of carbon, it can conduct electricity and heat better than anything else. And get ready for this: It is not only the hardest material in the world, but also one of the most pliable.