NEW POST: You can't apply the science of learning to materials that weren't designed for it. Retrieval practice is a curriculum property, not a teaching technique.

"Math needs a phonics-style reckoning: Teachers should teach students how to do stuff correctly." - @mattyglesias slowboring.com/p/math-needs-…

I think the challenge for teachers, at least in secondary, is that even when we are given a decent curriculum to teach, we are left with a huge gap between what that grade level curriculum assumes students already know and what prerequisite knowledge our students already have.

Two things… 1. We should talk about this graph a lot more— specifically the cost-benefit part of it 2. When did @C_Hendrick go over to @Alphaschool and what does that mean for sotl???? #2 feels like a big moment. A big and exciting moment.

Sold a Story Season 2 is covering Direct Instruction?? Oh man, this is going to be fun.

The evidence for teacher-created curriculum is weak, and the evidence for the systemic use of quality curriculum is strong. A national conversation about this would be welcome.

The fact the field is divided on this is why there’s all this silly and wasted effort around garnering “buy in” among the adults. What about the kids? How about the field moves on, and starts demanding better materials rather than debating “whether.”

This is *literally* why my two-year, mid-career stint teaching in a South Bronx public school turned unexpectedly into a second career that's lasted 25 years: it's insane to expect teachers to create their own curriculum from scratch. And it doesn't work for students.

Time to warn grandma about this

What are the most effective methods of improving student achievement? An NYT investigation. For me, the data point in the bottom left quadrant is absolutely critical to understanding why student achievement goes wrong so often: teachers making up their own curriculum. nytimes.com/2026/09/28/upsho…

With mainstream articles on education and Sold a Story 2 coming out, we are about to experience a period of intense gaslighting. It’s already started. We will be told, repeatedly, that nobody is—or has ever been—against explicit teaching. Which is easily falsified, but these falsifications will be dismissed. We will be told, repeatedly, that all teachers use explicit teaching. Which is true to some extent because the alternatives are so ineffective. But they’re using it without knowing the research and often under pressure to do something else. Why do people try to deny the debate in this way? Why don’t they just come out and make an honest argument?

Contradictory and even discredited: education depts’ messy advice on student behaviour — EducationHQ educationhq.com/news/contrad…

This will be huge.

Alpha School was having a PR problem, but the NHJ essay fixed that. Amazing how ADHD social media is.

Nobody learns how to tie a tie, chop an onion, swim a legal butterfly, or juggle three balls via inquiry learning or productive struggle — you need a sage on the stage who just shows you how to do it. slowboring.com/p/math-needs-…

Yes. Normalize memorization. Why do so many people think having kids repeat and memorize things is borderline abusive lol... it's abusive to let your kid not know basic math for their entire lives.

AMEN

i genuinely tried using bluesky but it just felt like this over there

They may be crap but at least they're not cheats.

Outside the school context, the overwhelmingly dominant mode of teaching people things is to use Direct Instruction — you literally show them what to do and make them practice it — but education theorists insist this is bad. slowboring.com/p/math-needs-…

RT @sapinker: After WWI, it was predicted that humanity would be extinguished by cropdusters blanketing cities with poison gas. After WWII,…