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.

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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

From Counting Blocks to Bias: Rethinking How We Teach Young Children Math

brown numbers cutout decors — Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels.com

Math is supposed to be the most “objective” subject in school. Two plus two equals four, no matter who you are, right? But research shows the way we teach early math is full of bias—and those inequities start shaping kids’ identities before they even reach third grade.

That’s the focus of the Racial Justice in Early Math project, a collaboration between the Erikson Institute and the University of Illinois Chicago. The team is developing resources—books, classroom activities, teacher trainings—to help educators confront racial bias in how young children experience math.

As project director Priscila Pereira points out, bias isn’t just an individual teacher problem; it’s baked into structures like scripted curricula, under-resourced schools, and practices like ability grouping. Danny Bernard Martin, a professor at UIC, highlights how stereotypes like “Asians are good at math” and deficit narratives about Black children filter into classrooms, shaping expectations in damaging ways. Even the smallest teacher choices—who gets called on, whose creative solutions are validated—can reinforce or disrupt those narratives.

The initiative is working to equip educators with not just strategies but reflective spaces: webinars, fellowships, and immersive experiences where teachers and researchers can rethink what it means to create racial justice in early math classrooms. As Pereira puts it, “We just have to keep doing the work, because we know what’s right.”

It’s a reminder that math isn’t just about numbers—it’s about identity, power, and whose ideas we choose to value.

Democratizing AI in Education: David Wiley’s Vision of Generative Textbooks

David Wiley is experimenting with what he calls “generative textbooks” — a mashup of OER (open educational resources) and generative AI. His core idea is:

What if anyone who can create an open textbook could also create an AI-powered, interactive learning tool without writing code?

From Open Content to Open AI-Driven Learning

For decades, Wiley has championed open education resources (OER)—teaching and learning materials freely available to adapt and share under open licenses like Creative Commons. With generative AI now in the mix, Wiley sees a unique opportunity to merge the participatory spirit of OER with the dynamic adaptability of language models.

The result? A new kind of learning tool that feels less like a dusty PDF and more like a responsive learning app—crafted by educators, powered by AI, and free for students to use.

The Anatomy of a Generative Textbook

Wiley’s prototype isn’t just a fancy textbook—it’s a modular, no-code authoring system for AI-powered learning. Here’s how it works:

Learning Objectives: Short, focused statements about what learners should master.
Topic Summaries: Context-rich summaries intended for the AI—not students—to ground the model’s responses in accuracy.
Activities: Learning interactions like flashcards, quizzes, or explanations.
Book-Level Prompt Stub: A template that sets tone, personality, response format (e.g., Markdown), and overall voice.

To build a generative textbook with ten chapters, an author creates:

One book-level prompt stub
Ten learning objectives (one per chapter)
Ten concise topic summaries
Various activity templates aligned with each chapter

A student then picks a topic and an activity. The system stitches together the right bits into a prompt and feeds it to a language model—generating a live, tailored learning activity.

Open Source, Open Models, Open Access

True to his roots, Wiley made the tool open source and prioritized support for open-weight models—AI models whose architectures and weights are freely available. His prototype initially sent prompts to a model hosted via the Groq API, making it easy to swap in different open models—or even ones students host locally.

Yet here’s the catch: even open models cost money to operate via API. And according to Wiley, most educators he consulted were less concerned with “open” and more with “free for students.”

A Clever—and Simple—Solution

Wiley’s creative workaround: instead of pushing the AI prompt through the API, the tool now simply copies the student’s prompt to their clipboard and directs them to whatever AI interface they prefer (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, a school-supported model). Students just paste and run it themselves.

There’s elegance in that simplicity:

No cost per token—students use models they already have access to.
Quality-first—they can choose the best proprietary models, not just open ones.
Flexibility—works with institution-licensed models or free-tier access.

Of course, there are trade-offs:

The experience feels disjointed (copy/paste instead of seamless).
Analytics and usage data are much harder to capture.
Learners’ privacy depends on the model they pick—schools and developers can’t guarantee it.

A Prototype, Not a Finished Product

Wiley is clear: this is a tech demonstration, not a polished learning platform. The real magic comes from well-crafted inputs—clear objectives, accurate summaries, and effective activities. Garbage in, garbage out, especially with generative AI.

As it stands, generative textbooks aren’t ready to replace traditional textbooks—but they can serve as innovative supplements, offering dynamic learning experiences beyond static content.

The Bigger Picture: Where OER Meets GenAI

Wiley’s vision reflects a deeper shift in education: blending open pedagogy with responsive AI-driven learning. It’s not just about access; it’s about giving educators and learners the ability to co-create, remix, and personalize knowledge in real time.

Broader research echoes this trend: scholars explore how generative AI can support the co-creation, updating, and customizing of learning materials while urging care around authenticity and synthesis.

Related Innovations in Open AI for Education

VTutor: An open-source SDK that brings animated AI agents to life with real-time feedback and expressive avatars—promising deeper human-AI interaction.
AI-University (AI‑U): A framework that fine-tunes open-source LLMs using lecture videos, notes, and textbooks, offering tailored course alignment and traceable output to learning materials.
GAIDE: A toolkit that empowers educators to use generative AI for curriculum development, grounded in pedagogical theory and aimed at improving content quality and educator efficiency.

Final Thoughts

David Wiley’s generative textbooks project is less about launching a product and more about launching possibilities. It’s a thought experiment turned demonstration: what if creating powerful, AI-powered learning experiences were as easy as drafting a few sentences?

In this vision:

Educators become prompt architects.
Students become active participants, selecting how they engage.
Learning becomes dynamic, authorable, and—critically—free to access.

That’s the open promise of generative textbooks. It may be rough around the edges now, but the implication is bold: a future where learning tools evolve with educators and learners—rather than being fixed in print.

Bonus reading & resources:

What are OER and open educational practices?
Explore Wiley’s earlier thinking on prompt-based textbooks
The VTutor project, AI‑U framework, and GAIDE toolkit showcase related innovation.

2,178 Digitized Occult Books: Strange Treasures for Authentic Learning

In 2018, Dan Brown (yes, that Dan 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.

Steve Wozniak Never Sold Out

I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the top. I have no idea how much I have but after speaking for 20 years it might be $10M plus a couple of homes. I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out.

– Steve Wozniak via Slashdot

Teaching the Unmappable: Why Color Defies Easy Charts

For centuries, scientists, artists, and philosophers have tried to pin down a “perfect” way to map color. But here’s the problem: color isn’t just physics, and it isn’t just perception—it’s both. Try to squeeze it into a neat geometric model, and you’ll quickly realize it refuses to stay put.

That’s what makes French video essayist Alessandro Roussel’s latest ScienceClic piece so fascinating for educators. He takes us from Isaac Newton’s prism experiments all the way to modern models of hue, brightness, and saturation. Along the way, he shows why there isn’t just one map of color, but many. Each communicates something different about how humans experience this slippery phenomenon.

So what’s the classroom connection?

In art: Students can compare different models of color—Newton’s circle, Munsell’s tree, the modern RGB cube—and reflect on how each changes the way we think about mixing, matching, or designing with color.
In science: Teachers can use these models to illustrate how physics collides with perception. Why do two people see the “same” red differently? How does light wavelength interact with the human eye and brain?
In interdisciplinary projects: Color mapping opens doors to conversations about how humans create systems to explain the unexplainable. It’s a perfect bridge between STEM and the humanities.

And then comes the kicker for students who think we’ve “solved” everything already: scientists recently managed to engineer a new, so-called impossible color called ‘olo’—a shade outside the traditional visible spectrum.

It’s a reminder that color isn’t just a solved equation or a finished wheel. It’s a living, shifting puzzle that still invites curiosity, wonder, and experimentation.

Imagine giving your students that as a challenge: If color can’t be mapped perfectly, what’s your best attempt?

Daring Greatly: The Courage Manual You Didn’t Know You Needed

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.

Sale

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Brown, Brené (Author)
English (Publication Language)
320 Pages – 04/07/2015 (Publication Date) – Avery (Publisher)

What hits different in 2025

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.)