[ventresses]

This is a perfect time to read the brilliant and unforgettable graphic novel(s) Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, about growing up in Iran during and after the Iranian Revolution, and the rise of the oppressive theocracy that persists to this day.

Both graphic novels are available free online (Persepolis vol. 1, Persepolis vol. 2)

It also was adapted to a wonderful film (co-directed and co-written by the author) which is available to watch for free on Sundance Now (sign up for the free trial)

[tankhall]

photography by @expiredidealist

[apocryphics]

[emlugosi]

Hello 👋, I hope you're doing well..

My name is Mahmoud, and I'm a 17-year-old from Gaza. The ongoing war has devastated my city, destroyed my school, and made daily life incredibly challenging.

Despite these hardships, I'm determined to continue my education and build a better future. I've been given a chance to study abroad, but I need help to cover the costs of leaving Gaza, as well as living expenses and other essentials abroad once the crossing opens.. 🙏

If you can, please consider donating or sharing, your kindness can truly make a difference, and thanks for your time. ❤🍉

https://gofund.me/bd3ccf0b 🔗

[almavio]

Anna Block • Nude Lithographs, n/d

[maertyrer]

Friedrich Pacher St. Sebastian (inside), St. Sebastian (outside)

Painting on fir wood, 175.5 x 62.3 cm, ca. 1480-90

[forestgreenlesbian]

Kunst: Atalanta, Austn Fischer

[lomiondestructionconjurer]

[autistic-af]

In 1970, my mother's family adopted an intellectually disabled man named Horace. Horace was 56, and had been in an institution since 1921.

My uncle, who was 19, was working as an orderly at the institution where Horace lived. He only stayed a few months as the abuse he witnessed was too much for him. He had become friends with Horace and told him "I'll come back for you."

Horace replied "They all say that."

By that Christmas, Horace lived with my uncle and his family. My grandparents did the official adoption. Horace had never seen a Christmas tree, and that was his first real Christmas.

Horace died in 2010, at the age of 96. He laid down for a nap and just slipped away.

At least two generations of children grew up with him. He felt immortal to us. He loved Hot Wheels, pizza, cartoons and to talk to the portrait of my grandparents as he sat in his rocking chair.

He knew everyone's birthday. He loved unconditionally.

He had scars on his back from the institutions. If you asked him about that place, his face would screw up and he'd say "oh, it was a bad place. Bad place."

And for 40 years, he was safe, loved, and happy. He loved us in return.

No point to sharing this. But I still miss his laugh as he held a conversation with a portrait, whispering about his day to the people who had helped rescue him.

[autistic-af]

Memories of Horace:

He'd put anything in his pockets. This included pizza.

He would walk around the dining room table for hours, talking. The floor had shuffle marks.

I was forever called "the baby" because that's how he had met me.

We always joked that he would be the luckiest man in the world and would just die one day in his sleep. He did.

We also always joked that he had a free pass into heaven. He did.

[pagewoman]

Herdwick Ewe and Lamb

by James Rebanks

[alhabeilfamily]

She does not want to die burned in the field, please help us by donating at the link gfm💔🥺🙏

Donate to Help a family from Gaza, organized by Yaser Matar

Hello, I am Ibtisam Al-Habil. My suffering began in 2014 when my husband was martyred, and I was … Yaser Matar needs your support for Help

[victusinveritas]

X-ray of a statue of the Virgin Mary.

[tamarrud]

It enrages me everytime it dawns on me that there is no graduating class in Gaza this year.

How maddening it is to think that just last summer I watched as Al-Shaima Akram celebrated received the news that she got the highest score in all of Palestine in her high school examination, not knowing that come October, Israel will kill her and her family and all the joy that was left.

No tawjihi celebration videos will come out of Gaza this year and that is devastating.

Since October, Israel had destroyed every university in Gaza and destroyed 80% of schools, killing hundreds of teachers and professor and thousands of students in its deliberate attempt to destroy Gaza's education system along with everything else.

In the words of Gazan poet Khaled Juma "the school year that never started in Gaza has come to an end". No last day of school bells, no kids celebrating the last day of school. All these joyful sounds have been drowned out by the sounds of bombs. No deadline extension requests for final projects, missiles had their final say.

No graduation ceremonies when parents are instead burying their children. No plans are made for the summer either, when everyone is busy counting the days and the dead.

[tamarrud]

I say this with a lot of frustration because you cannot mistake how deliberate this is, knowing how important education is for Palestinians. It's the one thing we know that even if Israel tries to kill us off, you cannot kill our ideas.

This is why Palestinians in Gaza have opened temporary schools and got innovative with prioritising education while trying to survive, like Noor's moving school initiative and many many makeshift schools that have been set up in displacement camps.

Afterall, try as you might but you cannot defeat a people whose graduate students are defending their thesis in displacement tents during genocide.

[da-da-sk]

byzantine mosaic

Museo Nacional de Beirut

[thewildetyme]

when hands touch..

[deathtoskinnyjeans]

A Twitter Thread from David Bowles:

[Text transcript at the end of the screenshots]

I'll let you in on a secret. I have a doctorate in education, but the field’s basically just a 100 years old. We don’t really know what we’re doing. Our scholarly understanding of how learning happens is like astronomy 2000 years ago.

Most classroom practice is astrology.

Before the late 19th century, no human society had ever attempted to formally educate the entire populace. It was either aristocracy, meritocracy, or a blend. And always male.

We’re still smack-dab in the middle of the largest experiment on children ever done.

Most teachers perpetuate the “banking” model (Freire) used on them by their teachers, who likewise inherited it from theirs, etc.

Thus the elite “Lyceum” style of instruction continues even though it’s ineffectual with most kids.

What’s worse, the key strategies we’ve discovered, driven by cognitive science & child psychology, are quite regularly dismissed by pencil-pushing, test-driven administrators. Much like Trump ignores science, the majority of principals & superintendents I’ve known flout research.

Some definitions:

Banking model --> kids are like piggy banks: empty till you fill them with knowledge that you're the expert in.

Lyceum --> originally Aristotle's school, where the sons of land-owning citizens learned through lectures and research.

Things we (scholars) DO know:

-Homework doesn't really help, especially younger kids.

-Students don't learn a thing from testing. Most teachers don't either (it's supposed to help them tweak instruction, but that rarely happens).

-Spending too much time on weak subjects HURTS.

Do you want kids to learn? Here's something we've discovered: kids learn things that matter to them, either because the knowledge and skills are "cool," or because .... they give the kids tools to liberate themselves and their communities.

Maintaining the status quo? Nope.

Kids are acutely aware of injustice and by nature rebellious against the systems of authority that keep autonomy away from them.

If you're perpetuating those systems, teachers, you've already freaking lost.

They won't be learning much from you. Except what not to become. Sure, you can wear them down. That's what happened to most of you, isn't it? You saw the hideous flaw in the world and wanted to heal it. But year after numbing year, they made you learn their dogma by rote.

And now many of you are breaking the souls of children, too.

For what?

It's all smoke and mirrors. All the carefully crafted objectives, units and exams.

WE. DON'T. KNOW. HOW. PEOPLE. LEARN.

We barely understand the physical mechanisms behind MEMORY. But we DO know kids aren't empty piggy banks. They are BRIMMING with thought.

The last and most disgusting reality? The thing I hear in classroom after freaking classroom?

Education is all about capitalism.

"You need to learn these skills to get a good job." To be a good laborer. To help the wealthy generate more wealth, while you get scraps.

THAT is why modern education is a failure.

Its basic premise is monstrous.

"Why should I learn to read, Dr. Bowles?"

Because reading is magical. It makes life worth living. And being able to read, you can decode the strategies of your oppressors & stop them w/ their own words.

[aqua-regia009]

Joanna the Mad, 1877 - oil on canvas — Francisco Pradilla (Spanish, 1848-1921)