Accepting both the opportunity and the responsibility evokes a great deal of humility.

I think [testing] has had a profoundly problematic impact on student learning. It must seem to students that their worth as individuals is equivalent to their test score. The stress the high stakes culture has on teachers is also highly negative and must surely impact students in a negative way. It also de-professionalizes teachers because it encourages them to be script readers, followers of rigid schedules, and to disregard the needs of the people they teach in favor of the scripts and schedules.

Until a teacher learns to use elements like time, space, materials, groupings, and so forth flexibly, it's incredibly difficult to teach students as they need to be taught.

Important element is deeply understanding our curriculum. Most teachers know what they're going to cover this week or this term. Few of us can specify precisely what students should know, understand, and be able to do as a result of any particular learning experience or set of learning experiences. Without that specificity, alignment between content, assessment, and instruction is weak.

The best educators I have met never stop asking questions. Some of them have taught for forty years and continue to be energized by new possibilities.

A teacher in a differentiated classroom does not classify herself as someone who ‘already differentiates instruction.’ Rather that teacher is fully aware that every hour of teaching, every day in the classroom can reveal one more way to make the classroom a better match for its learners.

[Students] often have a "We can figure this out - don't just tell us" attitude. In that way, they can be less patient with "traditional" approaches to teaching.