Matt Bateman @mbateman Twitter profile

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Matt Bateman

3 years

All I want is to create a system of education that allows every human to fully internalize the wisdom of the classics, the optimism of the 19th century, and the inescapability of entropy. Is that too much to ask?

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Last Seen Profiles

@docirle

@anastasiiamak

@AJJtheBand

@Sumatra_CC

@atreyupilled

@MecitCanBoy

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@SalimDepay92

@StiutG

@PlagueLordMeme

@denishaughnessy

@pupdobie

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@ZihangDai

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@luvhhmoon

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@StiutG

@VDNissa

@WHYRUTheSeries

@fuwa_sui

@thistaydream

@ribbobs

@PerplexityBlehh

@babya4m__

Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

How long should I soak cast iron before putting it in the dishwasher?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

4yo now deploying “perhaps”, as in, “I will leave this leaf here for a creature to eat—perhaps a caterpillar” Hardest part of being a parent is not bursting with delighted laughter and smothering them with hugs every time they speak

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 month

me: Show me how to get to this place google maps: Ok, ETA 38 mins google maps: WAIT google maps: I HAVE FOUND A ROUTE THAT SAVES 4 MINUTES AT THE NEGLIGIBLE COST OF TRIPLING HUMAN COGNITIVE OVERHEAD AND STRESS google maps: REJOICE me: Um no that’s— google maps: REROUTING

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

> You’re born alone and you die alone You’re born into the arms of people who love you with the intensity of a thousand suns and you die enmeshed in a lifetime’s worth of intimacy and connection of your own design

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

5 months

A surgeon friend told me that the digestive tract is more the exterior of the body than the interior Haunting

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 month

One of the common denominators in the great marriages I’ve seen is that they took the relationship seriously right when they first started “dating”. They either came in with that energy or things escalated very rapidly. It didn’t even look like dating. Dating is low velocity.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

This is a book for 4 year olds I hate this so much

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

10 months

Can you edit a tweet to quote itself?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

9 months

One of the few pieces of parenting advice that I’m highly confident in and think generalizes widely across personalities, family cultures, ages: If your child is concentrating on doing something, don’t interrupt. Don’t correct, don’t compliment, don’t join in. Leave them be.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

8 months

Couldn’t find 3yo this morning Right when I was starting to worry I see my wild daughter sitting quietly on the back porch, in pajamas, before sunrise me: There you are 3yo: Oh, hi 3yo: I’m just listening to birds 3yo: It’s nice out here 3yo: *contemplates eternity*

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

3yo: I don’t want to go to school. 3yo: 3yo: But… I like school…? me: When it’s school time you don’t want to go. When school’s out you don’t want to come home. When it’s bath time you don’t want a bath. When the bath is over you want to stay in. 3yo: That’s interesting.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

3 months

Friendly reminder

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

10 months

Some years ago I heard the late Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines, on a podcast. He told a story about how he visited a business class for a Q&A. The students asked how he managed stress. “I dunno? I like the stress.” He was confused. The students were confused.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

10 months

Not sure who needs to hear this but the world is full of couples who are married and functional and in love, and who are completely, happily inoculated against whatever status/SMV/earner/alpha/chad/trad/young/hot/body count/fertility attractor you believe is total and inescapable

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

I am thankful for having IRL friends who are overanalyzing the propriety and quality of this joke relative to other possible jokes in this possibility space

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

Arc of this children’s book: 1. Wolves build brick house; pig destroys it with sledgehammer 2. Wolves build concrete house; pig destroys it with jackhammer 3. Wolves build steel bunker; pig destroys it with TNT 4. Wolves build house of flowers; pig smells roses, reforms So…

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

you: twitter isn’t real life twitter:

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

10 days

@Gena_I_Gorlin I have come to believe that there’s great cognitive value in strategically telling children philosophical absurdities that they can identify as such

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

> your 20s aren’t serious, relax > teenagers should be wild and irresponsible > childhood is supposed to be fun and carefree Your 20s are serious, adolescence is serious, childhood is serious, and your life is serious.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

My favorite form of practical reasoning “advice” is what I call Demotivational Interviewing. It looks like: person 1: Ugh I have to go to the dentist person 2: Good news, you don’t have to, you can let your teeth rot

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

4 months

Have never watched a Mr. Beast video before he started posting them on twitter and I’m a bit surprised at how much they suck

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

4 years

Found the full eulogizing of Grant by Frederick Douglass that I’ve seen excerpted. His praise is damning for the desecrators of Grant’s statue. Douglass fought villainy *and* honored heroism. He saw the latter as critical for emancipation. Where lives that sentiment today?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

3 months

The further I get into parenting the more it seems like the entire world is one giant conspiracy to rob a child of affordances in every meaningful domain of life

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

> Why? Starting with the strictly false: your brain doesn’t feel sparkly. You, the conscious embodied whole organism, might feel something like sparkly (though I must confess to never having felt this way myself). The notion of your brain feeling something is straightforwardly

econ guy

@econguy123

2 months

@mbateman Why?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

10 months

Uhhh am I the last person on earth to know about this movie? An animated children’s film about a boy learning to illuminate manuscripts in the throes of Viking raids in a 9th c. abbey? And it’s uncomfortably scary, goddamned gorgeous, child appropriate, and genuinely thematic?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

3 months

Montessori describing a teacher, who saw a small boy who was moving a chair to be able to see into a tall basin, and picked him up and held him instead:

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

Startlingly effective AI tutoring is coming. I had thought it was 5+ years out and now I think it’s more like 1 to 3.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

4 months

Children need to do stuff like this like they need food and water

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

9 months

3yo: Were you a child when I was in mommy’s tummy? me: No, you didn’t even exist yet 3yo: Where was I when I didn’t exist? me: You weren’t anywhere, we hadn’t made you 3yo: Oh 3yo: But then I found a skeleton 3yo: And I filled around it with water 3yo: And I put skin on it

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

8 months

Met a family this weekend who sent their son to progressive, creativity-centric elementary programs. He’s 13 now, and they asked him what he wanted for middle school. “I just want a school where the teachers know things and will explain the answers.” Common and worth reflection

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

3 months

Bit of a tangent but CGI, even at Disney/Pixar levels, is plainly inferior to quality hand drawn animation. Once you see it you can’t unsee it, and it’s mystifying to me why more people don’t see it.

eigenrobot

@eigenrobot

3 months

watched some of cinderella tonight it's striking how subdued and stately it is at any given moment there is typically one thing going on. sometimes there are zero things going on attention is always drawn to the most charming bits of animation

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 month

This pattern obtained for my daughter throughout the age of 3: her: [says something] interlocutor: [mishears, or asks her to repeat or clarify] her: [immense frustration/rage] I remember the exact moment that she first instead calmly replied, “That’s not exactly what I said.”

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

11 days

For almost any big project, my two most common unblocking questions are: 1. How would I do this, as intelligently as possible, with years of time and unlimited money? 2. How would I do this, as stupidly as possible, in very little time and with very little money?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 years

Totally normal and lovely print of a landscape painting in the living room of my friend’s house except he generated it with a Dall-E prompt

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

I *love* that everyone is trying to meme their dream partners into existence with objective list theory and wouldn’t dissuade anyone from this exercise, but: Almost every enduring couple I know found it fairly surprising what traits in a partner ended up making for a great match

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

11 months

me: We’re putting a lock on your door for when you have trouble staying in your room after bed. 3yo: Ok! > next morning me: *forcibly breaks out of our bedroom* me: Did you put this on our door?? 3yo: Yes. It’s only for if you’re having trouble staying in your room at night.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

4yo: What’s plexiglass? me: Look, I’ll tell you, but the esoteric moral of this story is that the best defense is a good offense 4yo: What’s reinforced steel?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

In general pop neuroscience utterly fails to explain its explananda, and deploying pop neuroscience to 4 year olds makes this comically obvious and for good measure commits a few extra epistemic crimes along the way

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

I tried my hand at baking bread this morning for the first time Coincidentally, 14mo got quite sick I carved him off a hunk of bread He spent 5 hours straight, through naps, crying, walks, sleeping, and doctor’s visit, holding onto and occasionally gnawing the bread

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

6 months

Are you the Tyler or the Paul in your relationship?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

9 months

Kinda messed up how most OTC drug dosage guidelines are fake, and then there’s Tylenol, where if you double up on it for a day it just kills you

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

11 months

I was skeptical of “you get vitamin D from sunlight” for actual years, because how would a complex molecule travel on massless sun photons, before I bothered looking up how it actually works and begrudgingly admitting that the above quoted ordinary language claim is fine

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

4 months

Montessori: “Actually, it is useless to depend upon scolding and entreaties for the maintenance of discipline. These may at first give the illusion of being somewhat effective; but…

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

4 months

Your periodic reminder that the body also keeps the score for good things, not just trauma

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

3 years

@Tweetsnwhatnot @notfunnyelle Darkness is in my toddler’s top 5 interests

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

8 months

Montessori: “The inert child who never worked with his hands, who never had the feeling of being useful and capable of effort, who never found by experience that to live means living socially, and that to think and to create means to make use of a harmony of souls…

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

8 months

It’s shocking how little wealthy families spend on education. What’s the ceiling, 100k a year per child? 200k? If you want an ultra elite private school and a tutor or two? No one plans years of systematic intercontinental journeys or optimizes acres of land or hires Aristotle.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

4 months

I ran across this again today The optimistic hypothesis is that it’s a timeless but empty complaint The pessimistic hypothesis is that it reflects a steady, decades-long decline in wanting to work

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

7 months

Common phenomenon in our household for about a year: 3yo: I’m thirsty, can I have water? me: Sure 3yo: NO. I want mommy to get it. Thoughts on what is going on, or advice?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

9 months

3yo is starting to get interested in video games The pedagogically ideal route is to get her an original NES console, with cartridges, no? More physicality, can limit choice with quality, and the great old video games assume less about the player’s skills or knowledge

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

11 months

I don’t know who needs to hear this in 2023, since it seems very obvious, but grades are incredibly fake. They are fake in public elementary schools. They are fake in elite colleges. They are fake in graduate programs.

Daniel Buck, “Instruction geek”

@MrDanielBuck

11 months

If record numbers of students are getting As and Bs (succeeding according to the school’s metrics), but actual measures of their ability to read and do math are at record lows maybe… maybe schools aren’t set up to actually teach children to read and do math?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

Lovevery, the company that authored this book, graciously reached out to let me know that they are doing a rewrite based on this gratuitously meanly delivered feedback, so I will now be dismounting from my high horse

Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

This is a book for 4 year olds I hate this so much

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

School reported that 3yo scratched her friend. After a serious talk: me: So next time she’s doing something you don’t like, what will you do? 3yo: I will use words to ask her not to. me: That’s great. me: Hm. me: What if she does it anyway? 3yo: 3yo: I will scratch her.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

10 months

This is your periodic reminder that “organisms enjoy using their faculties well” explains more about motivation than “brains are cued to release dopamine”.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

Today I showed a group of high schoolers how to be ruthlessly selfish with GPT—give direct feedback til it is your perfect personal interlocutor—and one girl immediately gave it an essay of hers and prompted “don’t motivate me or BS me like everyone else, how good is my writing?”

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 years

Car dealer just printed this and told me to X the captcha with a pen. Cargo cult bureaucracy? AI doomer?,,

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

6 months

Once upon a time I was part of a Montessori company It had a dysfunctional board. They fired the CEO, a few others 10 people including me quit We started a new org, from scratch, with board protections OldCo bled talent, died NewCo lives, has opened 130 schools The end

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

I’m signing off to do thanksgiving but since this is starting to do numbers: follow me if you want some dadpoasts and education takes and similarly mid jokes as this on your TL

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

5 months

@meekaale a small price to pay for being right

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

Education research in a tweet: Yes phonics Learning styles == myth 1:1 == wow “Transfer” == hard Knowledge begets method Thought begets memory Space repetition Practice past mastery Praise with precision Tell stories Aid self-regulation Helpful: sleep, health, wealth

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

I want to read an good essay, hit me with your favorite essays

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

3 years

A nontrivial number of people are drawn to Montessori primarily because Montessori is beautiful and they believe there is power in beauty. Same room, before and after acquisition.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

Montessori describing a teacher, who saw a small boy who was moving a chair to be able to see into a tall basin, and picked him up and held him instead:

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

4 months

“…Discipline is therefore attained indirectly, that is, by developing activity in spontaneous work. Everyone must learn how to control himself and how to engage in calm and silent activity, for no other purpose than that of keeping alive that inner flame on which life depends.”

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

…like… this story genuinely seems designed to make it maximally likely for the reader to wonder “why don’t the wolves just kill the pig?”

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

9 months

Classical Montessori is still best in class at ages 0 to 9, but it’s disappointing how frozen in the 1940s it is. Plenty of Montessori elementary classrooms teach a wrong theory of how mountains form. (Tectonics wasn’t widely accepted until after Montessori’s death, you see.)

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

4 months

me: Was up all night, going to nap in my office 3yo: Oh! I’ll put you down 3yo: *closes all shutters* 3yo: *turns on small lamp* 3yo: *puts blanket on me* 3yo: *climbs on me, jumps up and down, bellows for 45 seconds* 3yo: *kisses cheek gently* 3yo: *leaves and shuts door*

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 month

4yo literally chases butterflies through wildflowers She has no concept of cynicism or clichés, and for a moment, neither do I

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

10 months

It’s good to have kids around 40

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

9 months

Is it possible to read a headline and become so overwhelmed by the fractal abyss of the philosophical imprecisions that you actually die?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

Children are kittens learning to use supercomputers, and it is not always easy to integrate the “aww” of the adorable kitten learning with the “awe” of the powerfully serious supercomputer into a coherent response

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 month

Disaster. Our program of baby gain-of-function research has resulted in a baby that can *lab leak itself*.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

Cheating is a minor issue in education and the AI cheating arms race that is about to occur doesn’t matter that much. Education is primarily about helping a student willingly learn. It is not primarily about validating qualifications for a credential.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

9 months

me: Bath time 3yo: No me: I’ll give you a piggyback ride there 3yo: No me: I’ll bust out your bath crayons 3yo: No me: Okay but you need to bathe to be healthy 3yo: No me: 3yo: me: Hey. Might you perchance have a secret map to the bath? 3yo: Yes! Let’s go RIGHT NOW

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

5 months

@Jennifeesforest calm down hegel

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

4yo enjoys this book. But the primary attraction for her seems to be the description of the materials that go into the bunker construction. “What’s plexiglass? How do the padlocks help? What’s are the spiked balls on top of that fence?”

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

4 months

A child “would rather dress himself than be dressed, even magnificently. He prefers washing himself to the pleasant feeling of being clean. He would rather build a house than own one. He is thus disposed because he must first form his own life before he can enjoy it.” Montessori

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 month

4yo: I’m so tired of waiting me: Why? Waiting is easy 4yo: No it’s not me: Yes it is. You even have the book Waiting Is Easy 4yo: It is not called that me: Yes it is. It’s right next to Nobody Poops Except you 4yo: Daddy just stop. Mother would not let you say those things

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

What the hell is the point of Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade if a child needs tutoring and summer school to read by third grade?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

Children are incredibly underrated. They are underrated in civilizational significance, they are underrated as contributors to adult life satisfaction, they are underrated as the embodiment of the future. And everyone is always pointing this out and they are still underrated.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

3 months

I’ve been getting asked more and more (by parents) how to approach public school if that’s the only realistic option. Here are three (possibly incompatible) strategies. 1. Embrace the daycare function, eschew the schooling function.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

11 months

my favorite bit of xkcd is buried a thousand or so panels into that story about the Mediterranean basin

QC

@QiaochuYuan

11 months

do you guys ever think about the old xkcd's, the ones that were full of yearning, that approached moments of transcendence

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

16 days

Many in edtech are inspired by the AI education in The Diamond Age. The fictional edtech is a nanotech pseudointelligent book, The Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer. It bonds to a child at ~4 and educates them until ~16. Features of interest of the Primer, then general thoughts…

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

“The education of today is humiliating. It produces an inferiority complex and artificially lowers the powers of man. Its very organization sets a limit to knowledge well below the natural level. It supplies men with crutches when they could run on swift feet.” Montessori

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 years

My Apple Watch warned me last night that my heart rate had climbed above 120 even though I appeared to be sitting still. Couple hours later, had a fever of 104 and intense chills. First time I’ve been truly wowed by a health tech wearable.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

Why can’t every podcast be this productively argumentative?

tylercowen

@tylercowen

2 months

My contentious Conversation with @JonHaidt , , #socialmedia

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

I keep seeing this type of take, and maybe I’m the midwit here, but: Paul/Leto II are *actually* messianic figures in the context of Dune, strictly and factually necessary for the survival of humanity, and securing this survival by means of functionally supernatural powers

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

10 months

nature: Here is a spot for a beautiful city. SF: Dope. Let’s make it a grid. nature: A… a grid? The whole thing? SF: Yes cities should be grids. nature: There are hills. Perhaps if you curve some streets around— SF: No way. Grid. nature: The hills are steep, so— SF: Grid.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

5 months

I still don’t understand why the SAT and ACT max out (and aren’t that hard to max out)

Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 years

Why do we make standardized tests that it’s possible to max out? Is there a ceiling on “scholastic aptitude”?

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

Let 2yo out of sight for a minute. Heard her calling for help. Found her here. She was now asking a stranger for help, not to get down, but to go “higher to the top”. I was delighted. But said stranger was a jot judgmental towards my delight and seemingly cavalier attitude.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

As a semi-competent non-professional hackerish programmer, AI seriously makes me feel like a god. Every single script or function I've ever wanted it just creates and troubleshoots for me. The context I don't have it gives me. I learn by watching it at a hugely accelerated rate.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

I’m saying this is the Huberman Lab podcast of children’s books *ducks*

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

4 months

Typical schools become increasingly bureaucratic with the age of the student. Instead of gradually, imperceptibly increasing the agency of the student they gradually, imperceptibly increase the tolerance of the student for bureaucracy. Boiling frog compliance. Really bad.

Violeta𓅓

@MamanLunettes

4 months

15 yo daughter returned to school this semester to grab some credits that are trickier to get with homeschooling Some regular school stuff, from her perspective really does seem absurd: - have to ask for permission to read, pee or close eyes? - have to show steps in math, but

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

4 months

“Fake email job” is a spiritually unhygienic concept and I strongly recommend never using it

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

TIL *all* edible citrus comes via graft and that if you plant e.g. a lemon seed you won’t get edible lemons. I sort of vaguely knew this but didn’t realize it was so fundamental to modern citruses.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

26 days

Today in 4yo/AI stuffy relations, a lesson in how to not respond to a 4yo’s questions

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

5 months

interlocutor: What’s your book on? me: Helping children grow up to be normal interlocutor: Normal? me: Make goals, act towards them, think things through, enjoy people interlocutor: Like, what everyone does? me: You have never met a single person who does these things

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

2 months

4yo: Do you want to tell jokes? me: Sure. 4yo: I’ll go first. 4yo: At school there is a can of coke. me: ? 4yo: Dogs can be blue. me: 4yo: There is a nothing. 4yo: I win.

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Matt Bateman

@mbateman

1 year

Relaxation, free-spiritedness, amusement, silliness, absurdity, and fun are at all ages absolutely important, irreplaceably meaningful, and strictly dependent on and essential component parts of taking yourself seriously.

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