Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

“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.

Should teachers abandon the presentations that accompany their textbooks in favor of those created by AI?

“We’ll get to it as soon as I tell them all the basics they need” contains a condition that is never met.

I’ve worked in schools for 35+ years. Leaders who assign blame are familiar to me. Very familiar.

“People don’t trust x” and “x isn’t accurate” are not the same.

I’ve been in education since 1988. I knew their parents. I knew their grandparents. It isn’t young people.

I’m convinced there are two kinds of knowledge:

Things we know when tested in the classroom.

Things we use to solve pragmatic, critical, creative problems.

They are not the same. One doesn’t matter.

#education #teaching