TED Community » Gary Ackerman

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Creating meaningful learning environments.

An idea worth spreading

Education is a wicked problem

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• A comment on Conversation: Are grownup bullies teaching kids how to bully?

  Apr 12 2012: Bullying begins in settings where there is “the” way to do “things.”
  
  In society, there is the dominant popular culture. In education, there is the assumption that standardized tests measure meaningful learning. In politics, there is the assumption that capitalism and our brand of “democracy” are universally positive systems. In religion, there are the unquestioned books.
  
  Because all of these break down under serious inquiry, leaders must take steps to compel compliance. Bullying occurs when those steps are perceived as excessive by those to whom they are applied. Notice that there are different perceptions that can be applied to the same actions: What the leader perceives as “doing what is necessary for the organization,” the members perceives as “bullying.”
  
  Minimizing bullying in the adult world will require:
  
  1) Preventing those with narcissistic tendencies from ascending to leadership positions. (This step is much easier to state than to accomplish.) A corollary to this step: skilled and competent individuals can leave organizations in which a bully is in charge, thus weakening the organization.
  
  2) Developing a culture that values innovation and recognizes the economic (and social and aesthetic and political...) advantages realized only through innovative thinking. For this to happen, it is necessary that leaders recognize compelling “the” way be followed prevents innovation.

• A comment on Talk: John Bohannon: Dance vs. powerpoint, a modest proposal

  Dec 15 2011: I think I am going to start sharing this with my colleagues in education... Bohannon's illusions that accompany PowerPoint are blinding at times.
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  A comment on Talk: Geoff Mulgan: A short intro to the Studio School

  Sep 30 2011: Education as we know it is a recent invention, largely the creation of society to deal with the need to prepare people to live and work in a print-dominated world. Print is no longer dominant, and education is changing. Models such as this will replace "traditional education" as humans come to the realization that direct in instruction in the "3 R's" and the standards-based and testing-driven paradigms are no longer sufficient to prepare young people for the future they invent.
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  A comment on Conversation: What was Kevin Slavin trying to say?

  Jul 22 2011: I think Slavin was trying to increase make us aware that our technology-rich world is active in ways we (mere mortals) cannot know. I see a few lessons to take away:
  
  1) Technology is not neutral-- what we design has political effects, unpredictable effects, and it is ambiguous.
  
  2) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was prescient when he wrote about the noosphere and Kevin Kelly may be correct when
  he writes about the technium-- perhaps this is evidence that technology is taking over the noosphere.
  
  I watch this while on summer break and I think about the students who will enter my classroom in a few weeks. I think I need to help them understand that those who control the computers today (and into the future) control everything... at least until the unpredictable happens!

• A comment on Conversation: We need Sir Ken Robinson, Martin Seligman, and the like to guide the US education revolution, not Obama, Congress, Dept.of Ed., or lobbyists

  Jun 14 2011: Until we realize that education is about helping prepare students for the future they will create-- a realization that will require politicians drop education as a political issue, then we will not be able to follow the evidence and reason presented by Robinson, Mitra, and the other visionary leaders.
  
  Education is a complex endeavor... unpredictable and not easily measured.
  
  Politics is a complex endeavor... unpredictable but easily measured.
  
  Let's realize this importance difference and then we can begin the work of reinventing education for the 21st century.