Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

One thing I learned during 35 years in education: leadership never look deeply at “the next big thing.” If they do, they would probably lose their jobs.

Being “smart” is *always* context-dependent.

Information technology is great at moving bits around. Moving knowledge, critical thinking, creativity… not so much.

Knowing about things is fine, it’s just not that interesting. Understanding how things interact... that is interesting.

I had a conversation with a colleague today. The theme was “if you are not pissing off some established scholars, then you are not doing doctoral studies right.”

Who else had heard this?

Solving problems then reflecting on the solutions. That is one way to learn. That is a good way to learn.

Precise outcomes. We value them in education, but I don’t think students do.

What if your students meet the objectives, but don’t learn anything?

I reject authority… especially when it is a tech company telling me how I should teach.

Do we trust the “AI in education expert” who says “this stuff is changing every day” yet used the same slides and examples they did 3 months ago when you saw them give their talk at a different school?

Wait… let me get this straight… you want to hire someone to translate education jargon? But there are folks whose entire role is to introduce it and confuse others with it. Should we not honor that work?

“This new study proves I’m right.”

“How do you know it isn’t in that majority of studies that are not confirmed?”

Data-driven folks always attribute change to their interventions. It’s almost like the Hawthorne effect, regression to the mean, natural variation, etc. don’t exist.

I had a colleague (she taught 2nd grade) who kept every “new” reading program that came out over her long career. She could always find one that worked for a struggling reader. Very few of her students went to 3rd grade unable to read. Maybe the reading war is misguided?

Doing a Google search is not research… typing it into ChatGPT on the other hand… is really not research.

I like to answer, “how did it go?” with “just as expected” with little emotion in my face. Folks invariably smile… for a moment.

I had a colleague (she taught 2nd grade) who kept every “new” reading program that came out over her long career. She could always find one that worked for a struggling reader. Very few of her students went to 3rd grade unable to read. Maybe the reading war is misguided?

There is “knowing,” but information gathering, decision-making, hypothesis generation, causal reasoning, and critically evaluating all seems as worthy of teaching time as knowing.

I once began an answer to a question in an interview, “Your question seems to assume learning styles are real.” They said, “yes.” The next 3 minutes were fun.

The area where I live consolidated school districts over the last 10 years. Since then, they have hired central office staff who delegate their work to individual schools. Guess what they are trying to do again?