We’re two weeks into the school year, and I’ve already seen some incredible examples of authentic learning in action. It’s a good reminder of Steve Wozniak’s advice: keep the main thing the main thing—and don’t sell out for something that only looks better.
This week’s newsletter rounds up 10 links worth your time, from AI and education to remote learning, punk archives, and why cell phone bans never work.
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Posy takes us on a grand adventure into the world of the incredibly small and ridiculously close.
Prepare to sit in awe of everyday objects from an entirely new perspective.
Funny, we should probably try to look at the world from different perspectives more often…
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In 2018, Dan Brown (yes, thatDan Brown of The Da Vinci Code) helped fund a project at Amsterdam’s Ritman Library to digitize thousands of rare, pre-1900 books on alchemy, astrology, magic, and other occult subjects. The result, cheekily titled Hermetically Open, is now live with 2,178 digitized texts—freely available in their online reading room.
At first glance, this might feel like a niche curiosity, the kind of thing best left to academics or fantasy novelists. But the truth is, these works are a goldmine for educators looking to spark authentic learning across disciplines. They’re messy, strange, multilingual (Latin, German, Dutch, French, and English), and they blur the boundaries between science, philosophy, medicine, and mysticism. And that’s exactly why they’re valuable.
Why Teachers Should Care
For a few hundred years, it was nearly impossible to separate theology, philosophy, medicine, and natural science from alchemy and astrology. Isaac Newton himself famously spent as much time on apocalyptic prophecies and alchemical experiments as he did on calculus and optics. To engage students with these texts is to remind them that knowledge has always been interdisciplinary, networked, and evolving.
That makes them perfect material for authentic learning and connectivist classrooms: students work with primary sources, make connections across fields, and grapple with how humans have always sought to explain the world.
How Different Subjects Can Use the Collection
English & Literature (HS & College):
Analyze archaic language, quirky spellings, and “long s” typography in original texts.
Compare occult poetry or allegories to Romantic and Gothic literature.
Use passages as mentor texts for student-created “modern grimoires” or magical realism writing.
History & Social Studies (MS–HS):
Trace how alchemy influenced the rise of modern chemistry.
Explore how astrology shaped political decisions in early modern Europe.
Debate the blurred lines between science and mysticism in intellectual history.
Science (HS Chemistry & Physics):
Contrast alchemical “recipes” with modern chemical equations.
Investigate how flawed models of the universe still paved the way for discovery.
Discuss how cultural context shapes what gets counted as “science.”
Art & Design (All Grades):
Study illuminated manuscripts and esoteric symbols as design inspiration.
Create modern visual interpretations of alchemical diagrams.
Explore symbolism as a universal language across time.
Philosophy & Civics (HS & College):
Debate the tension between hidden vs. open knowledge.
Compare Platonic philosophy, Christian theology, and occult traditions.
Examine how fringe ideas challenge (and sometimes advance) mainstream thinking.
Why It Matters
When students encounter these texts, they’re not just paging through dusty old curiosities. They’re stepping into a world where knowledge wasn’t siloed, where science, spirituality, and imagination lived side by side. For teachers, this is a chance to create assessments that matter—projects where students remix history, art, and science, using both ancient texts and modern tools like AI.
It’s weird. It’s wonderful. And it’s exactly the kind of resource that can make authentic learning feel alive.
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Blistering verdict:Brené Brown turns vulnerability from a punchline into a power-up.Daring Greatly isn’t self-help fluff; it’s a rigor-backed field guide for stepping into the arena when your brain is screaming, “Nope.” It reads fast, hits hard, and leaves you with language—and habits—that change how you lead, teach, parent, and show up.
Spoiler-free recap (no “cheap seats” commentary included)
Brown’s premise is simple and seismic: vulnerability is courage in action—the willingness to be seen when outcomes aren’t guaranteed. Drawing on years of qualitative research, she maps how shame (the fear of disconnection) drives perfectionism, numbing, and armor… and how shame resilience (naming what’s happening, reality-checking our stories, reaching out, and speaking it) gives us our lives back.
You’ll walk through:
Scarcity culture (“never enough”) vs. worthiness (“I’m enough, so I can risk more”).
Armor types—perfectionism, foreboding joy, cynicism—and how to set them down.
Empathy as antidote (connection > fixing).
Wholeheartedness: living with courage + compassion + connection, anchored by boundaries.
No plot twists to spoil—just a research-driven blueprint that makes bravery behavioral, not mythical.
Why this book still matters (and why your team/family/class will feel it)
It rewires the courage myth. Courage isn’t swagger; it’s risk + emotional exposure + uncertainty. That framing scales from a tough conversation to a moonshot.
It gives you a shared language. “Armor,” “scarcity,” “shame triggers,” “wholehearted”—terms your team can actually use in meetings without rolling their eyes.
It upgrades feedback culture. Vulnerability isn’t oversharing; it’s specific, boundaried honesty. That’s the backbone of psychological safety and real performance.
It’s ruthlessly practical. The book reads like a human-systems playbook: name it, normalize it, and move—together.
AI & authenticity. In a world of auto-generated polish, human risk-taking is the differentiator. Vulnerability is how we build trust beyond the algorithm.
Hybrid work, thin trust. Distance amplifies story-making. Brown’s “story I’m telling myself…” move is rocket fuel for remote teams and relationships.
Schools & Gen Z. Teens live under surveillance capitalism. Teaching boundaries + worthiness beats any pep talk on resilience.
Read it like a field guide (fast, no navel-gazing required)
Skim for tools, then circle back for depth. Treat each section like a drill you can run this week.
Practice out loud. Say the scripts: “Here’s what I’m afraid of… Here’s what I need… The story I’m telling myself is…”
Pick one arena. A hard 1:1, a classroom norm, a family ritual. Ship courage in small, observable iterations.
For my fellow geeks & builders
If Neuromancer gave us cyberspace, this gives us the social API for courage. It’s the middleware between your values and your behavior under load. Think of shame as a high-latency bug; Brown gives you the observability tools to catch it in prod and roll a patch without taking the system down.
Who will love this
Leaders & coaches who care about performance and people.
Educators & parents building cultures of belonging without lowering standards.
Makers & founders whose work requires public risk and iterative failure.
Anyone tired of armoring up and ready to try brave instead of perfect.
Pair it with (next reads)
The Gifts of Imperfection (Brown) — the on-ramp to wholehearted living.
Dare to Lead (Brown) — her organizational upgrade, perfect for teams.
Crucial Conversations (Patterson et al.) — tactics for high-stakes talk, post-armor.
Final verdict
Five stars, zero hedging.Daring Greatly is the rare book that alters your behavioral defaults. It’s sticky, quotable, and wildly usable the minute you close it. If you build products, classes, teams, or families, this is the courage stack you want installed.
Ready to step into the arena? Grab Daring Greatly in paperback, hardcover, or audio—whichever format helps you practice while you read. (Some links on my site may be affiliate links, which help support this work at no extra cost to you.)
The Eclectic Educator is a free resource for everyone passionate about education and creativity. If you enjoy the content and want to support the newsletter, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps keep the insights and inspiration coming!
Blistering verdict:Neuromancer doesn’t predict the future—it jailbreaks it. William Gibson plugs you into a neon-slick, rain-slicked world where data has gravity, money moves at the speed of light, and the line between human and machine is just another corporate asset to be negotiated. It’s fast. It’s razor-sharp. And four decades on, it still crackles like a live wire.
Spoiler-free recap (no ICE burned, promise)
Meet Case—a burned-out “console cowboy” who once rode the matrix like a god until he crossed the wrong people and lost the only thing that mattered: his ability to jack in. He’s offered a dangerous second chance by a mysterious patron with deep pockets and deeper secrets. Enter Molly, a mirror-shaded street samurai with retractable razors and zero patience for anyone’s nonsense. The job? A multilayered, globe-hopping (and orbit-hopping) heist threading megacorps, black-market biohacks, and an AI problem that’s less “glitch” and more “philosophical earthquake.”
The plot moves like a hot knife through black ice—tight, propulsive, and always one layer more ambitious than you think. Every chapter ups the stakes; every alleyway has a camera; every ally might be a contractor. You don’t need spoilers. You need a seatbelt.
Why this book still matters (and why geeks keep handing it to friends)
It gave us our mental model of the net. Gibson’s “cyberspace” isn’t just a word—it’s an interface, a mythos, a feeling. The luminous grids, the consensual hallucination of a shared data world? That’s the cultural operating system we installed long before broadband.
It forged the cyberpunk aesthetic. Street-level grit meets orbital decadence; chrome and sweat; hackers and mercenaries threading the seams of empire. If you love The Matrix, Ghost in the Shell, Cyberpunk 2077, or Mr. Robot, you’re drinking from this well.
It nailed corporate power as world-building. Megacorps behaving like nations. Security as religion. Branding as surveillance. In 2025, tell me that doesn’t feel uncomfortably like a user agreement we all clicked.
It treats AI as character, not prop. Neuromancer asks the questions we’re still arguing about in boardrooms and labs: autonomy, constraint, alignment, and what “self” means when the self can be copied, merged, or monetized.
The prose is pure overclocked poetry. Gibson writes like he’s soldering language: compressed, glittering, and purpose-built. The sentences hum; the metaphors bite; the world feels legible and alien at once.
What hits different in 2025
Identity as a login. Case isn’t just locked out of systems; he’s locked out of himself. That anxiety—who are we without access?—is the backbone of our cloud-tethered lives.
The gig-hacker economy. Contractors, fixers, “teams” assembled like temporary code branches. It’s Upwork with thermoptic shades.
Biohacking & upgrade culture. From dermal mods to black-clinic tune-ups, the book treats the body like firmware—exactly how today’s wearables, implants, and nootropics culture wants you to think.
Algorithmic power. Replace “AI” with your favorite recommendation engine and the social physics hold: it watches, it optimizes, it nudges. The ethics still sting.
How to read it (and love it)
Surf the jargon. Don’t stop to define every acronym. Let the context teach you like you’re a rookie riding shotgun with veterans.
Trust the city. The settings—Chiba City, the Sprawl, orbit—are more than backdrops; they’re tutorial levels. Watch what they reward and punish.
Hear the bassline. The book is paced like a heist film. When it slows, it’s loading a bigger payload. When it sprints, hang on.
If you’re this kind of reader, this book is your jam
You love high-concept, high-velocity fiction that respects your intelligence.
You care about tech culture’s DNA—where our metaphors and nightmares came from.
You’re a world-building nerd who wants settings that feel lived-in, not wallpapered.
You’re into AI, hacking, and systems thinking and want a story that treats them as more than shiny props.
The influence blast radius
Neuromancer is ground zero for the cyberpunk sensibility: the hero is small, the system is massive, and victory looks like carving a human-sized space in a machine-sized world. Its fingerprints are everywhere—console cowboys inspiring dev culture; “ICE” as the vibe under every security audit; fashion, music, and UI design that still chase its cool. Even the way journalists write about breaches and “entering the network” leans on Gibson’s visual grammar. Read it and you’ll start seeing the code behind the cultural interface.
After you jack out: what to read next
Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive (finish the Sprawl Trilogy—richer world, expanding consequences).
Burning Chrome (short stories that sharpen the vision).
Adjacent canon: Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (satire-powered rocket fuel), Pat Cadigan’s Synners (media and minds), and Rudy Rucker’s Ware series (weirder, wilder, wonderfully so).
Final verdict
Neuromancer is essential reading—full stop. It’s the rare novel that changed the language we use to talk about technology and remains a pulse-pounding ride. If the Internet is the city we all live in now, Gibson drew the first street map that felt true. Pick it up for the thrills; keep it on your shelf for the ideas that won’t let you go.
Ready to jack in?Grab Neuromancer in paperback, ebook, or audio—however you mainline stories—and let it rewrite your mental firmware. (Some links on my site may be affiliate links, which help support the work at no extra cost to you.)
The Eclectic Educator is a free resource for everyone passionate about education and creativity. If you enjoy the content and want to support the newsletter, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps keep the insights and inspiration coming!
Ever wondered what life would feel like if your eyes buffered reality the way old dial-up modems buffered videos? Slow Light, the stop-motion stunner from Warsaw animation duo Kijek/Adamski, answers that question with style. It’s nameless hero sees everything on a seven-year delay—kindergarten birthday candles flare up during his first kiss, a forgotten snowball fight snows over a job interview, and so on. Yesterday isn’t lurking in the background; it’s live-streaming right on top of today.
The filmmakers crank up the disorientation to eleven with hand-cut paper sets awash in neon paint. Every frame feels like a pop-up book crossed with a fever dream. Their mini behind-the-scenes reel on Vimeo is a crash course in low-tech wizardry; it’s a reminder that big ideas don’t need Hollywood budgets, just relentless creativity (and a mountain of X-Acto blades).
Turning Slow Light into Authentic Learning
Below are four ways to let this short brain-bender spark real-world, student-centered work. Mix and match, or allow students to design their path.
Lens
Authentic Task
Real-World Connection
Graduate Profile Tie-In
Physics & Neuroscience
Remix the film’s handmade aesthetic in 3D: scan paper sets into Blender and add interactive hotspots that reveal “past vs. present” layers when clicked.
Partner with a local optometrist or university lab for feedback; publish explainer videos debunking vision myths.
Innovative Problem Solver, Effective Communicator
Media Literacy & Storytelling
Analyze how stop-motion’s frame-by-frame illusion mimics the film’s time-lag theme. Teams storyboard their own short that visualizes a cognitive quirk (e.g., déjà vu, false memories).
Submit films to a youth animation festival or stream them during a community movie night.
Creative Producer, Productive Collaborator
SEL & Psychology
Use the protagonist’s delayed perception as a metaphor: How do past experiences color present choices? Students craft personal “slow light” journals, then design advisory lessons to help younger peers understand trauma and resilience.
Collaborate with school counselors to run peer-led workshops on growth mindset and coping strategies.
Empathetic Citizen, Reflective Learner
Design Thinking & Tech
Remix the film’s handmade aesthetic in 3-D: scan paper sets into Blender, add interactive hotspots that reveal “past vs. present” layers when clicked.
Publish the interactive scene on the class website; invite feedback from professional animators via Zoom.
If your own vision carried a seven-year delay, which past moments would you be doomed (or delighted) to relive—and how might that reshape who you are today?
Let students answer in whatever medium they choose—audio diary, comic strip, data viz—then host a gallery walk to surface common themes of perception, bias, and memory.
Bottom line:Slow Light isn’t just artsy eye candy. In the right hands (read: your classroom), it becomes a launchpad for interdisciplinary inquiry, hands-on making, and soul-searching reflection—all hallmarks of authentic learning that sticks long after the credits roll.
The Eclectic Educator is a free resource for everyone passionate about education and creativity. If you enjoy the content and want to support the newsletter, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps keep the insights and inspiration coming!
Back in ’93, cameras caught Ozzy Osbourne flipping the bird and joking that his “farewell tour” might not stick. Spoiler: it didn’t. The kid who once mucked around bombed-out Birmingham, dabbled in petty crime, and nearly lost his lunch during a slaughterhouse gig instead ended up inventing a whole sub-genre. With a hand-me-down PA and a few blues-loving buddies, he asked the million-dollar question: people pay to be scared at the movies—why not scare them with music?
So Black Sabbath cranked their guitars down to earthquake depth, borrowed their name from a Mario Bava horror flick, and ushered in heavy metal’s Age of Darkness. Ozzy’s unmistakable wail—sometimes a mumble, sometimes a howl—rode those riffs like a banshee on a Harley, turning everyday dread into stadium anthems.
Success nearly killed him (repeatedly), but each meltdown only birthed another reboot: solo records, Ozzfest, and even a reality show that made the Prince of Darkness a household sitcom dad. Nine lives later, Sabbath’s final hometown set finally closed the curtain. Ozzy’s gone, but the persona he forged—equal parts menace, mischief, and resilience—still courses through every downtuned chord that rattles the rafters. Long live the bat-biting legend.
If you’re a teacher, you know the truth: 40 hours is a fantasy.
Between planning, grading, answering emails, attending parent meetings, professional development sessions, hallway duty, IEPs, MTSS meetings, and trying to catch a breath for a moment, teaching is a job that routinely demands 50 to 60 hours per week, and sometimes even more. It’s not that we’re bad at time management. It’s that we’re swimming against a system that wasn’t designed for sustainability.
But here’s the good news: while you may not be able to control the system, you can change how you manage your time within it.
In this post, we’re going to:
Debunk the 40-hour teacher week
Explore how to design your time like a limited resource
Share seven time-saving tools that can help you win back your evenings and weekends
Provide practical, teacher-tested time hacks you can implement right away
Let’s dig in.
Why the 40-Hour Teacher Week Is a Myth
The idea of a 40-hour workweek originated from industrial labor models—you clock in, you do your job, and you clock out. But teaching isn’t just a job. It’s a calling, a performance, a planning-intensive, people-heavy, paperwork-dense act of organized chaos.
Here’s how time gets spent:
Instruction: 30+ hours/week
Lesson planning & prep: 5–10 hours/week
Grading and feedback: 5–8 hours/week
Emails and communication: 3+ hours/week
Meetings (PLC, IEP, PD, admin): 2–5 hours/week
And that’s before you factor in classroom setup, tech troubleshooting, data analysis, sub plans, hallway coverage, behavior documentation, and the emotional labor of being “on” all day.
Teaching is a job that will expand to consume every available minute if you let it.
That’s why reclaiming your time starts with a mindset shift.
Time Budgeting vs. Task Management
Traditional time management says, “Make a list and get it all done.”
But that assumes time is infinite and predictable. It’s not.
Instead, use a time budgeting mindset: you start with a finite amount of time and allocate it intentionally.
Try this:
Budget 30 minutes to plan tomorrow’s lesson. When the timer goes off, stop. Done is better than perfect.
Give yourself 45 minutes to grade a set of quizzes. Use a single-point rubric or comment bank to expedite the process.
Block off 1 hour for parent communication. Use templated responses, voice memos, or batch them in your planning period.
You wouldn’t overspend your money without consequence. Don’t overspend your time.
The 80% Rule: Done Is Better Than Perfect
Aim for 80%.
We waste enormous energy trying to make things perfect—the perfect slide deck, the perfect anchor chart, the perfect assignment. And while excellence matters, so does survivability.
Let go of perfection and embrace “effective enough.”
7 Time-Saving Tools Every Teacher Should Try
These aren’t miracle apps, but they are real tools that save real time.
As always, some of these links are affiliate links, and if you end up purchasing, I get a small fee.
Planbook is simple, flexible, and lets you align lessons to standards, shift days easily, and copy units from year to year. One hour of setup can save you dozens later.
Pro tip: Create reusable weekly templates for each prep.
Turn common feedback into keyboard shortcuts. For example: type “/mtss1” and paste a pre-written MTSS note. Huge time saver for documentation and repetitive tasks.
Create, Digitize, Erase, Re-Create: Capture ideas with the included Pilot Frixion Pen, digitize effortlessly using the Rocketbook app, store in your preferred cloud service. When done, simply wipe the pages clean with a damp cloth and start fresh.
App-Enabled for Digital Organization: The Rocketbook app allows you to scan and upload your visual work directly to cloud platforms like Google Drive, Dropbox, OneNote, etc. The app-connection ensures your creativity is accessible from anywhere.
High-Quality & Durable Materials: Crafted from reusable, premium dotted paper, the Rocketbook Core features a spiral binding and waterproof cover. The grid layout offers flexibility for everything from bullet journaling to geometric sketches.
Portable and Versatile Sizes: Available in two sizes—Letter (8.5 x 11 inches) and Executive (6 x 8.8 inches)—the Rocketbook Core is compact enough to fit into backpacks, purses, or briefcases. This notebook offers portability and versatility.
Eco-Friendly Reusability: Designed with sustainability in mind, Rocketbook notebooks help reduce paper waste with a reusable alternative. Enjoy a paper-like notebook that can be used repeatedly, allowing you to save work and erase everything else.
Use it to capture quick ideas, batch feedback, or create checklists. Label and color code for visibility. Bonus: integrates well with Gmail and Calendar.
5 Time-Saving Habits to Build This Month
Tools help. But systems sustain. Here are habits to pair with your tools:
1. Theme Your Days
Monday: Lesson planning
Tuesday: Grading
Wednesday: Family communication
Thursday: Data and meetings
Friday: Catch up + self-care
2. Use Comment Banks and Rubrics
Create a Google Doc with your most-used feedback phrases. Pair with single-point rubrics in Google Classroom.
3. Batch Like a Boss
Group similar tasks (e.g., grade all assignments from 2nd period, then all from 3rd) to reduce cognitive switching.
4. Automate What You Can
Schedule recurring parent newsletters. Use auto-responders during peak grading periods. Build email templates.
5. Reflect Weekly
Take 15 minutes each Friday to reflect:
What worked?
What drained me?
What can I tweak for next week?
Final Thoughts: Time Is a Teacher’s Most Precious Resource
You are not a robot. You are not lazy. You are not doing it wrong.
You are working inside a system that asks too much and gives too little.
But with the right tools and some intentional design, you can reclaim your time.
You deserve to leave school without guilt. You deserve a weekend. You deserve a full life.
It begins by treating your time as sacred.
The Eclectic Educator is a free resource for everyone passionate about education and creativity. If you enjoy the content and want to support the newsletter, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps keep the insights and inspiration coming!
Libraries are one of the last truly public institutions—free, accessible to all, and serving millions every year. So of course, the Trump administration wants to destroy them.
On Friday night, Trump signed an executive order eliminating the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the only federal agency that funds America’s libraries. The same institution that provides: 📚 Early literacy programs for kids 📚 High-speed internet access for communities left behind by telecom giants 📚 Summer reading programs for children 📚 Job search assistance for unemployed workers 📚 Braille and talking books for people with visual impairments
All for just 0.003% of the federal budget—peanuts compared to corporate subsidies and military spending. But let’s be real: this isn’t about money. This is about power.
Libraries are one of the last spaces in America not controlled by corporations or the ultra-rich. They provide free access to knowledge, support marginalized communities, and serve as safe havens. That’s why the right-wing hates them.
This move is part of a broader fascist attack on public institutions. They’ve been banning books, terrorizing librarians, and defunding schools. Now they’re going after the very existence of libraries themselves.
We fight back. 📢 Call your reps and demand they stop this. 📢 Show up at town halls and library board meetings. 📢 Flood Congress with calls, emails, and protests. 📢 Support your local libraries—because once they’re gone, they won’t come back.
🔥 Defend public libraries. Defend public knowledge. Defend democracy. 🔥
The Eclectic Educator is a free resource for everyone passionate about education and creativity. If you enjoy the content and want to support the newsletter, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps keep the insights and inspiration coming!
