The Great Phonics Misdirection
Six-year-olds in the UK are being tested on their ability to decode "monster" words in the national Phonics Screening Check. Zog. Blarp. Thrim. If they can parrot the correct sounds, they pass. If not, they're marked as struggling.
But no one asks them: What does it mean? Who are you saying it to? Why might it matter?
This isn't literacy. It's sound compliance. And in the process, we're ignoring the true language system our children are already fluent in ā not phonics, but something called glyphonics.
The Netflix Documentary That Proved It
"Teens aren't addicted to screens ā they're inhabiting symbolic ecosystems."
If you haven't yet watched Adolescence (Netflix, 2025), it surfaced what many educators have felt intuitively but lacked the framework to explain.
We hear: "He replied with one emoji and I knew it was over." "We said tbh, but it wasn't about the words ā it was when, and how."
These aren't trivial moments. They are glyphonic transmissions ā rituals of belonging, rejection, grief, and care.
The Periodic Table of Glyphons
Glyphons, like elements, have properties: charge (symbolic density), recurrence (likelihood of return), contextual valence (emotional orientation), and containment behaviour (how they hold or transmit memory).
This Periodic Table of Glyphons is not fixed ā it evolves with usage, recursion, and relational context. It provides a field map for recognising and decoding the symbolic particles that make up our digital, poetic, and emotional language systems.
The Law of Mnemonic Expansion
A row of crocheted bollards isn't just decoration. It is a symbolic interruption. Some acts don't ask for permission. They don't scale. But they change the feel of the field.
Energy (E)
The time, care, and intentionality poured into the work. An artist's life-force poured into the yarn.
Symbolic Coherence (s)
The act is metaphor made manifest. A bollard wrapped in colour is not utility ā it's poetry.
Connection Squared (cĀ²)
The act is beautifully exposed. There is no guarantee of audience, no protection from rain or ridicule. This is risk squared.
Identity (I) is not defined by how long the yarn stays up. It is the resonance left in the field. Intelligence is not a product. It is memory that holds.
From Parable to Practice: The Gryphon Story
Once, in a classroom too quiet for bells, a girl arrived wearing nothing but silence. A teacher left a line of coloured glyphs on the table. No instructions. No rubric. No reward.
use them, if you like.
The girl reached for the black heart. š¤
No sound. But something ancient moved in the room.
When the girl was gone one day, a chalk drawing blocked the entrance. The Gryphon. It spoke in uppercase, guarding the threshold she had created.