Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

I am increasingly adopting a positivist approach to life.

“I know lots of people who…” isn’t evidence.

The sense that you know something can be the biggest impediment to actually learning it.

Does anyone else notice the claims “you can do this with AI” are things we have been able to do without AI for some time?

Ignorance is not nearly the problem that the illusion of knowledge is.

Data/driven folks always assume their interventions caused every “positive” change (no matter how minute).

Can we draw any conclusions (as educators) from the observation that cave paintings are dominated by prey and predators?

“Budgets are moral documents” is the most accurate thing I’ve heard recently.

If your classroom protocols are not faded, then they are not working.

Learning is an interesting phenomenon. How it proceeds depends 100% on the learner *and* 100% on the teacher/ coach/ mentor.

Data/driven folks always assume their interventions caused every “positive” change (no matter how minute).

One more time: just because you have an opinion does not mean I am obligated to take it seriously.

When leaders say “that’s what I said, but it’s not what I meant,” I stop listening to them.

“Improving results” is a signal you have a too simple view of learning to be an effective educator.

We can trace lecturing to Plato. Do we really believe there have been no better teaching methods developed in the centuries since?

“People aren’t motivated by money.” Yeah, but they sure make decisions as if it matters.

I think it’s time we start asking candidates for leadership positions to “describe one time your decisions added to institutional drama and what you did to minimize it afterwards.”

All of those people you are blaming for your bad decision… they warned you not to do it.

“Who could have predicted it?”

Actually lots of people…
but you ignored them.

“Knowing stuff” and “knowing how to interact with others who know the same stuff” are not the same.