Commonplace – Page 2

New Tools I’m Trying in 2026

black and red headphones beside black smartphone and white earbuds — Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels.com

I’m revisiting some of my everyday tools as we head into 2026. Why? Because… reasons…

Mostly, I’m thinking about how I move through my days and how I combine analog and digital tools to keep my monkey brain moving and productive.

Tool 1: I’ve moved away from Google Search. Face it, friends: it’s trash. Whether beset by so many ads you can’t find actual sites or that actual, worthwhile sites are pushed further and further down the page because of the ongoing enshittification of Google and other services, I’ve switched to Kagi.

I won’t go into all the details of why here (soon), but suffice it to say that Kagi just works like a good search engine should. Yes, I now pay for the privilege of decent web searches. Or, I ask ChatGPT for an awful lot of things before I try any searches at all.

Tool 2: I’m abandoning Notion for all but one thing, and that’s tracking my reading. I’ve got a database for all my books (read, TBR, and want to buy) in a Notion database and using a tool called NotionReads, I can easily add books to the database, pulling necessary data for each book.

I thought about just using a Google Sheet for this purpose, but Notion works well for this process. For my daily note capture and digital Zettelkasten, I’m moving to Obsidian. I’ve had it for a few years but initially went with Notion for note-taking. However, after dealing with more software bloat than I wanted and only seeing more of it on the horizon for Notion – why do we always want a tool to do everything rather than just doing one thing really well? – I’m jumping ship to Obsidian.

I’m still using Readwise to capture highlights from the web and the few remaining Kindle books I’ve yet to read – more on my shift from digital to physical books soon – and I can import those highlights seamlessly into Obsidian. I’m using Steph Ango’s usage strategy for setting up my Obsidian vault since it makes the most sense to my seeing-all-things-as-an-interconnected-web brain. More on how that progresses soon, too.

Pulling into the final year of my dissertation journey, there’s more to come from me this year. Besides, this year marks 20 years of publishing web content, so we’ll see what that brings.

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MP Daily Telegraph: October 16, 2025

Photo by Amsterdam City Archives on Unsplash

New Oklahoma Superintendent Rescinds Bible Mandate: Oklahoma’s new superintendent, Lindel Fields, will not enforce the previous mandate to place Bibles in public school classrooms. This change marks a shift away from the former superintendent’s focus on culture war issues. Fields aims to improve the quality of education and student outcomes in the state.
Life: The First Few Levels – Traditional education resembles old computer games in its reliance on manuals and tests. Modern games teach players through simple, fun challenges that build skills and allow failure without harsh consequences. Education should be more like these games, using real-life examples to prepare students for the future.
As more question the value of a degree, colleges fight to prove their return on investment: Many students and families now question if college degrees are worth the high costs. Colleges are working hard to show that degrees can lead to good jobs and higher earnings. Transparency about job outcomes and skills needed is helping students make better choices.
Why Stories Make You Smarter Than Self-Help Books: This is a quick read, but oh so important. STORIES MATTER.

“A life of dangerous adventures might seem worth it now… but one day, you will have children, and you will not want that life for them.” — M. L. Wang, The Sword of Kaigen

MP Daily Telegraph: October 15, 2025

The Atlantic Telegraph 1866 via Internet Archive

Illustrative Math’s CEO on What Went Wrong in NYC and Why Pre-K Math is Up Next – Illustrative Mathematics created a K-12 math curriculum used in many U.S. schools, but its rollout in New York City faced challenges due to implementation issues. The curriculum encourages students to think about problems before teachers explain solutions, blending direct teaching with student exploration. The organization is now focusing on early math by developing a pre-K curriculum to help students succeed from the start.
Mark Rober’s underwater search for a flooded Gold Rush mining town – (This is so FREAKING cool) Mark Rober used sonar and a small submarine to search for a flooded Gold Rush town under Folsom Lake in California. The town was covered by water after a dam was built in 1955. Despite challenges, the team found interesting shapes and objects on the lakebed.
D’Angelo: 14 Essential Songs – D’Angelo was a talented soul singer, songwriter, and producer known for his unique style and deep musicianship. He released three important albums blending soul, funk, jazz, and hip-hop, influencing the neo-soul movement. Despite personal struggles, his music remains powerful and full of emotion, exploring love, pain, and social issues.

A Quick Zine Resource Guide for Teachers

I’ve been on a zine kick for a while now, and recently had the chance to walk teachers through making their first zine.

We worked on creating their own zines, which was fun and made many of them uncomfortable, which is perfectly OK. I compiled some quick links and information, and we discussed potential ideas they might consider and run with when working with students.

Oh, and here’s the zine I made during one of the sessions. Feel free to use it to introduce the idea of zines to your peers and admin.

Download the Zine About Zines

What Is a Zine?

A zine (short for “magazine” or “fanzine”) is a small-circulation, self-published work, often made by hand, that can take many forms—comics, essays, art, collages, instructions, etc.
Because zines are informal, tactile, and often DIY, they offer a low-stakes way for students to share voice, experiment with layout or narrative, and synthesize content in creative formats.
Zines are used in classrooms to teach skills such as media literacy, personal narrative, research synthesis, visual thinking, and more.
- https://guides.library.illinois.edu/zines/classroom
- https://www.zinelibraries.info/running-a-zine-library/teaching-with-zines/

Folding a Zine — The One-Sheet Method

One of the simplest and most powerful forms is the one-sheet zine (fold, cut, fill).

Tools, Templates & Digital Zine Options

Resource	What It Offers	Link / Notes
Zine-O-Sphere	Substack exploring zines, art, culture, and DIY publishing.	https://abigailschleifer.substack.com/s/zine-o-sphere
“Using Zines in the Classroom and How to Make a Single Page Booklet Zine” (OER)	Includes guidance + printable master flat for one-page zines	CUNY Academic Works
SCU Library’s Zine Guide	Walkthroughs for physical & digital zines, plus design tips, templates	SCU Library Guides
The Arty Teacher: How to Make a Zine	Step-by-step guide with photos, cutting/folding instructions, and classroom ideas	The Arty Teacher
“Teaching with Zines” (ZineLibraries.info)	A compiled zine (yes, a zine) with resources, best practices, and reflections on using zines in education	zinelibraries.info
Barnard Zine Library – Lesson Plans	Sample lesson plans, ideas across content areas, ways to scaffold, suggestions for grading/feedback	zines.barnard.edu
TUIMP: The Universe In My Pocket	“Using Zines in the Classroom and How to Make a Single-Page Booklet Zine” (OER)	arXiv

MP Daily Telegraph: October 14, 2025

1938 advertisement for the Daily Telegraph via Internet Archive

“Enshittification”: Cory Doctorow on Why Big Tech Sucks, Keeps Getting Worse & What to Do About It – Big tech platforms like Facebook and Google get worse over time because they focus on profit, not users. This process, known as “enshittification,” ensnares users and businesses, yielding little value for anyone except shareholders. To fix this, we need better rules and new kinds of platforms that serve people, not just profits.
The Post-Pandemic Promise of High-Impact Tutoring – Following the pandemic, numerous U.S. schools have adopted high-impact tutoring to enhance student learning outcomes. Successful tutoring programs connect with teaching and have dedicated managers to ensure they work well. Tutoring also helps inspire young people to become teachers and is gaining support and funding from states.
Red school boards in a blue state asked Trump for help — and got it – In Washington state, conservative school boards like Mead challenged rules protecting transgender students. They asked the Trump administration for help to avoid losing funding over these policies. This sparked a federal investigation and deepened local conflicts about education and student rights.
Are You Christopher Columbus? I’m India, and I Heard You’re, Like, Obsessed with Me – India talks to Christopher Columbus and finds his obsession strange. She says he misunderstood her, drew wrong maps, and acted like a colonizer. India shares her culture and jokes about his old-fashioned ways.
Numerous Billionaires Preparing for End of Society – Many tech billionaires fear that advanced AI could cause society to collapse. They are preparing by building bunkers and gathering supplies to survive. While AI might bring great benefits, these wealthy leaders are ready to protect themselves regardless of the outcome, which, of course, doesn’t involve any of us mere mortal peasants.

All In on Selling Out

Collage time. I took an image from the most recent Wired politics issue from a Steven Levy article about the decidedly traitorous Silicon Valley denizens whom people like me used to look up to and thought were disruptors and fearless resisters to the status quo.

Turns out they were all just bootlickers.

Prophets of a Future Not Our Own

A friend made this prayer into a short video and, while the focus is on the work of Christians (real Christians, not the power-mad Christian Nationalists currently trying to ruin literally everything in the world), I can’t help but see our work as educators reflected here, as well.

This prayer was first presented by Cardinal Dearden in 1979 and quoted by Pope Francis in 2015. This reflection is an excerpt from a homily written for Cardinal Dearden by then-Fr. Ken Untener on the occasion of the Mass for Deceased Priests, October 25, 1979. Pope Francis quoted Cardinal Dearden in his remarks to the Roman Curia on December 21, 2015. Fr. Untener was named bishop of Saginaw, Michigan, in 1980.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of
saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master
builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

Apple TV Pulls ‘The Savant’ – a show about domestic terrorism

In a move likely to spark accusations of bowing to the powers that be and their ongoing battles with media companies and programming that doesn’t fit their narrative, Apple TV+ has pulled The Savant, a show about domestic terrorism based on a 2019 Cosmopolitan article.

We’ll likely never know the reason why the show was pulled, even if it does return. However, I can’t think of a time when media that makes people think is more important than the current time we’re living in.

Constructing Your Own Education

School is one thing. Education is another. The two don’t always overlap. Whether you’re in school or not, it’s always your job to get yourself an education.

More students (and teachers) should grasp this concept. School is a great thing, to be sure, but so is learning on your own. If we can bring that type of learning into our schools… oh, what a time we could have.

But it’s like Jim Henson said: “Your kids… don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.”

One of the things we’ve tried hard to do in our house is to make it a place of learning while also making it as unlike school as possible. What this shakes out to, essentially, is thinking about the house as a library.

– Austin Kleon

Actually, Slavery Was Very Bad

Family on Smith's Plantation, Beaufort, South Carolina, circa 1862. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress and learnnc.org. [1] — Image courtesy of the Library of Congress and learnnc.org

Clint Smith, author of How the Word is Passed, takes on some recent thoughts about slavery’s legacy and whether or not museums are the last refuge of “woke.”

Trump’s Truth Social comment on slavery was unsettling for me not only because I am the descendant of enslaved people, and not only because I was born and raised in New Orleans, which was once the center of the domestic slave trade, but also because I am an American who believes that the only way to understand this country—the only way to love this country—is to tell the truth about it. Part of that truth is that chattel slavery, which lasted in the British American colonies and then the American nation for nearly 250 years, was indeed quite bad.

No matter how you decide to spin events, slavery was bad. Like, for real. Really bad. Always has been. Don’t forget that.