Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

“The dogmatist within is always worse than the enemy without.”
― Stephen Jay Gould

That link that did not expect in your inbox… don’t follow it! 🤦‍♂️

So many accommodations we make are simply good teaching.

We’ve been asked to identity our “super powers” in a meeting. I’m finding it hard to resist the urge to say “recognizing self delusion.”

Forget teaching how to do taxes, if we teach the paradox of knowledge (“If you think you understand it, you are wrong”), we might be able to make better collective decisions.

Folks who come in to lead small organizations who have never worked in them have no idea how “departments of one” function. And it shows.

“Meetings to update us on the progress of x” usually occur during the time they scheduled for making progress on x.

Data collection should be carefully planned.

So many data-driven folks don’t understand this

Reading papers I submitted in college. One comment said, “You are something of a cynic, huh?”

Yes. Yes, I was… and still am 40 years later.

Remembering. Understanding. Discovering.

School should promote all three.

“What do you think?”

It’s ok to answer, “I don’t know enough to have formed an opinion.”

When you insist the meetings you lead be in-person only, you demonstrate you are not dedicated to inclusion, not matter what you claim about yourself.

There continues to be so many educators who conflate quiet with attentive.

If you are talking about “ascertaining truths” you are not doing science or any other version of research.

Rationalizing isn’t substantiating.

Well... at least rational folks see the difference.

In my experience, lectures can be made more interesting and interactive, yet they rarely are.

“We need to do this thing in schools.”

Yeah… there’s no evidence it helps.

“All the more reason!”

I can’t imagine being so afraid of being wrong that I would not change my mind.

I’m cleaning out files, including high school research papers from the 1980s. I remember my teachers telling us “you need to know how do footnotes.”

No. No, we did not.

One way to be sure I’ll never vote for you is aligning yourself with those who want to ban books.