Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

Learning is intensely personal. Another’s assessment of my learning is nice, but it is so very incomplete.

Leader goes to a conference. Hears of a wonderful strategy. Returns to school. Begins advocating for it as if they are innovators. That really pisses off those adopters who have been refining the strategy for years. #highschool #highereducation #leadership

Faculty member spent the weekend trying to set up the textbook publisher's online resources for his students.

"How did it go?" I asked.

"My son knows all sorts of new swear words," was his response.

Yeah... so those who are not able to deal with ambiguity... uncertainty... changing needs/ expectations/conditions... you are going to find the coming decades difficult.

25+ years in #edtech and I’m amazed at the lack of customer service accepted by school leaders.

Always state the opinions upon which you base your facts.

Great ideas do not have eureka moments... they ooze into existence.” - Stephen Jay Gould

“If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great us our sin.” Darwin wrote this in Voyage of the Beagle. We haven’t found any laws in the intervening time.

Becoming an inclusive organization is not a reaction to fix. It is a step to make your organization innovative... and sustainable.

Yeah, sorry, but if your approach necessitates I be “prayerful” or otherwise be spiritual, I’m probably not going to. A deep intellectual connection is much more meaningful to me.

Even the greatest scientific achievements are rooted in their cultural contexts. - Gould and Eldredge

Have you ever noticed how many “student learning” advocates confuse tests scores with meaningful learning?

*Strong teachers nurture strong learners.* If your students leave having mastered the standards, but cannot learn the rest of what they must know (which is entirely absent from the standards), then your class has been wasted time.

Just because we use it in a certain way does not mean the inventor intended that use.

Teaching about your subject isn’t really teaching... if we assume teaching should correlate with learning.

“Yes step back and scrutinize your own mind. But with what?” -Gould

Certainty is both a blessing and a danger. -Stephen Jay Gould

I’m starting to understand that when many say, “learning styles,” they really mean “vary your teaching methods.” So, I’m starting to talk with the “learning styles” folks to decide which rant (if any) is appropriate.

Competence is multi- dimensional. Can you do it? Are you aware you can do it? Are you willing to do it? Can you judge if you can do it in a specific instance? What is your affect when doing it? How do you react when you fail to do it? #leadership #teaching

The best thing about reading Stephen Jay Gould is the way he points out how wrong we’ve been all along.