Mike Schmoker

“Collaboration allows teachers to capture each other's fund of collective intelligence.”

“Learning, without any opportunities to share what we've learned, is a little like cooking for ourselves; we do it, but we probably won't do it as well.”

“We must begin where we are and move forward immediately by starting small and capitalizing on what's at hand.”

“The number of books students read...is among the best indicators of student reading development.”

“What gets measured (and clearly defined) does get done.”

“These programs and reading series are the fruit of an intellectually exhausted literacy industry that lost its way long ago, even as we mutely accepted its misguided agenda - to complicate reading and literacy so that we will purchase its programs and materials.”

“When we unnecessarily elongate the process of "learning to read," we postpone "reading to learn" - learning itself - by years.”

“worksheets - the archenemy of abundant, purposeful reading (and discussion and writing).”

“Things get done only if the data we gather can inform and inspire those in a position to make difference.”

“In a research-poor context,isolated experience replaces professional knowledge as the dominant influence on how teachers teach.”

“The research we do at the local level - collaboratively - is what makes formal, outside research work. Outside research cannot be installed like a car part - it has to be fitted, adjusted, and refined for the school contexts we workd in.”

“Nostalgia is a seductive liar.”