Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

What do we know? How do we know it? What does it mean to know something?

These questions are important for educators to answer They exert important influences on what we do in classrooms, but we can't let them get in our way of acting.

What does it mean to be "literate" (in anything--reading, writing, math, or any other subject )? Ask a group of adults and you will get very different answers that are both reasonable and mutually exclusive.

One thing I leaned during 35 years in education: students have a low tolerance for dishonesty.

Listening to live radio. Reading books. Taking notes. These are all better when using “old” devices.

Einstein is supposed to have said "what matters cannot be counted and what can be counted doesn't matter." I am not sure he said it, and I would not take it as accurate just because he said it, but my experience in education sure suggests its true.

I'm at that age when I have neither the time nor the inclination to undertake projects that will make leaders look good. I may give it passing effort, but I'll be working on my own things thank you very much.

Someone needs to read this today: Your assumptions… they are all wrong.

Why are we so uncomfortable concluding both sides in a dispute are wrong?

I’ve heard recently of two leaders who lost valuable employees because of the leaders’ direct actions. They expressed surprise when the folks left, and both said both were “unfair” in their reasons for leaving.

I’ve worked in education for decades, I’ve heard “a lot of people are saying” as evidence for all of that time. It sounds particularly vapid now, and is a sure way to convince me to stop listening to you.

Can you be a leader if you are never seen?

Sorry, but I yearn for the days when we didn’t have to scroll down and down and down to find the relevant section of the web site.

Just because you use more syllables does not mean you are more clear.

I’ve been using my blog to create podcasts. It is starting to call me (quite accurately) a cynic.

The construct and the instrument seem to have converged in education; “performance on the test” is the goal, but there is no agreement that the goal is worthy or measuring what it is designed to measure. This makes “data-driven decision-making” inherently unscientific.

I cooperate with my teammates to beat the team from the next town over, but we cooperate with that team to beat teams from the county, and with those to beat beat the state... and the trend continues. Eventually, we recognize that we are all share the same fate.

If you are only open to planned activities, the unpredictable teachable moments will be lost.

Decisions made in one part of the school influence others; we know that healthy brains learn better, so decisions about school lunch and physical education matter.

What happens in your classroom matters and students' emotional state when they interact determines what they learn and how they learn it.

No matter how much humans think about technologies and the potential effects they will have on humans, when deployed, there are outcomes that no one could have predicted.