New Year’s Resolutions: 2025
In 2025, I resolve to be a better bridge between traditional literacy education and the emerging world of AI. Drawing from my classroom teaching experience and my understanding of how students learn to read and write, I will try harder to help active teachers integrate AI tools into their literacy instruction.
I'll freely share and comment on potential strategies for using AI as a complement to proven teaching methods, supporting colleagues in harnessing these new technologies while safeguarding precious human elements of reading and writing.
Having witnessed multiple swings of the pendulum in literacy education, I'm positioned to reach out and help teachers and learners think through this transformative moment in education, sharing the fervent hope that AI might become a tool for enrichment, especially for children in poverty as I once was, rather than a cruel replacement for sound pedagogical practice.
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In 2025, I resolve to transform my hard-earned wisdom into bridge-building rather than battle-fighting. Having walked the path from material poverty to advanced education, I carry both deep understanding and, admittedly, some lingering wounds.
This year, I will harness my passionate drive for educational equity not as a weapon, but as a tool for connection. When discussing AI and literacy with fellow educators, I pledge to engage with empathy rather than urgency, remembering that my colleagues are allies in the mission to democratize educational opportunity.
I will honor my journey by making space for others' perspectives, turning my fierce advocacy into thoughtful collaboration. This chip on my shoulder, carved by real struggle, can serve as a reminder of why this work matters rather than a barrier to working together effectively.
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In 2025, I resolve to navigate the delicate space between formal research and public dialogue about AI in writing education. I have committed to serve as a co-researcher and an instructional participant in a senior year writing course offered this Spring aimed specifically at teaching AI as a writing tool rather than a cheating machine.
While maintaining strict confidentiality about our classroom study until proper analysis and documentation are complete, I will use my newsletter to explore adjacent insights and emerging questions that our work inspires but doesn't directly examine.
This dual commitment—to rigorous research protocols and to ongoing public conversation during this critical upcoming year—will culminate in a co-authored book proposal by summer, transforming our carefully documented findings into a resource for the broader educational community.
Through this approach, I'll honor both the immediacy of weekly discourse and the deliberate pace of scholarly work, recognizing that each serves a distinct and valuable purpose in advancing our understanding of AI's role in writing instruction.
Image created by ChatBox Image Tool (1/2025)