Whether we admit it or not, much of teaching requires students to do things they would not otherwise. Some students will read, write, compute, think, and interact for their own motivations or to comply, but in the absence of school and the assignments that accompany class, most students would not choose the work that comprises school. If we accept my premise, then one Read More
Category: Teachers
On Students Who Become Teachers
On January 17, 2022, I posted the tweet that is embedded below. It generated far more conversation than most of what I tweet, and the replies are worth the time to read. Some of the replies did challenge my overgeneralization and my lack of citing any references. Of course, those criticisms were spot-on. Most teachers Read More
Elevator Pitch on Emerging Teaching Practices
In recent decades, scholars have rediscovered the very effective learning that happens outside of classrooms. Because it is so difficult for “school learning” to displace the concepts learned outside of classrooms seems to confirm the strength of what is learned outside of school. As cognitive and neuroscientists have illuminated the changes in human bodies and Read More
Elevator Pitch on Censorship
Educated individuals value the free expression of ideas, yet we recognize some ideas are distasteful, others harmful, and some are likely promoted by quacks. It is through our capacity to critically analyze ideas to decide which deserve our attention, which should be seriously considered, and which dismissed. Our human nature and our professional ethics lead us to Read More
Epistemology Matters
Consider my friend and former colleague Mrs. D. Until recently, she was a first and second grade students teaching for decades. She knows the students that arrive in her classroom are diverse; some are readers and writers, some some are still trying to learn the alphabet. Mrs. D. is always looking for the next thing Read More
Hire a Former Teacher… or Maybe Not
A colleague and I were talking over a video call today… No… that is not true. We were bitching… we were commiserating… we were griping about careers being spent in education and the things educators can do when they leave the field… or more precisely the things it is assumed we cannot do when we Read More
Skeptic or Cynic?
Over my career, I have adopted the role of skeptic. Whenever anything new comes along, I look at it carefully and I must become convinced there is a compelling reason to adopt it. I also, however, turn the same critical eye to my own practices; I seek to convince myself that what I am doing Read More
Thoughts on a Tweet
Seriously teachers. Stop tweeting pictures of students. — Dr. Gary Ackerman (@GaryAckermanPhD) November 11, 2021 I recently had a tweet go “viral” in the non-celebrity sense… something like 80,000 impressions in a day which I attribute to the likes, replies, and retweets. In this post, I dig a little deeper into my rationale for the Read More
Thoughts on Grading
The ungrading community has been busy on Twitter this fall. These folks have taken grades (in the traditional sense) out of their courses, and (according to this posts) have generally been happy with the results. Students are doing work; they are learning. Some suggest students are more engaged and learning more. I have not taken Read More
Lesson Design (Rather than Planning)
When I was an undergraduate student studying to become an educator, my peers and I took great pride in our lesson planning. When I was a graduate student (I completed my masters degree at the end of my 12th year as a teacher), my peers who had yet to teach wrote lesson plans with great care. When I was teaching Read More