bordenj88

After the last two blogs that were pretty (psychologically) heavy, I thought I would take a week and do something a bit lighter. Over the past 6 months, I have had 10 different people ask me for a list of the quotes that I use in my presentations regularly.


I get it. A good quote should be worth money in some cases. They capture the nuance or they create context in a succinct, yet poignant way, often illuminating life in ways most would not consider. They are powerful.

And, as I tell my communication students, most quotes can be leveraged in multiple contexts. For example, when Dan Pink stated, “There is a significant gap between what scientists know about how our brains work and what organizational behaviorists will tell you our businesses do (Driver, 2008),” I have been able to use that quote as an illustration of various things. In some speeches, I make it clear that schools do not help students learn based on what we know about the brain. In other keynotes, I showcase the dysfunction of organizations which seem to fight more than collaborate. I’ve even used it to illustrate the difference between what we need socially and how humans have a tendency to self-sabotage relationships at work.

I tell you this because I think I’m going to simply place the quotes here without my own thoughts or context around them. You can figure out if and/or how you might use them in your own presentations.

  • “As I was writing Brain Rules, it hit me [that] if you wanted to design a learning environment that was directly opposed to what the brain is naturally good at doing, you would design something like a classroom.” – John Medina, Brain Rules

  • “All focus must remain at the front for the teacher, the chalkboard, and the information, with students in rows, quietly reading books, and absorbing information, only speaking when spoken to and only taking breaks when bells ring, promoting isolation and fear will create the working class America needs.” Ellwood P Cubberly – Speech to Congress, 1900

  • “I wonder when it will become illegal to teach by lecture. No longer worthy of the placebo effect in experiments, the mounting evidence is so clear that active learning strategies are better in every measurable way, I wonder when Do-No-Harm will be invoked in the classroom?” – George Siemens, Georgia Tech Data Conference (2017)

  • “…top executives do not feel personally responsible for coming up with strategic innovations. Rather, they feel responsible for facilitating the innovation process. In stark contrast, senior executives of the most innovative companies—a mere 15% in our study—don’t delegate creative work. They do it themselves.” Jeff Dyer (et.al.), Innovator’s DNA

  • “…more than rigor, management discipline, integrity, or even vision – navigating an increasingly complex world will require creativity.” 80% of employers seeking creative employees cannot find them to hire… 1500 CEO’s from 60 Countries – IBM Survey (2010)

  • “How do you get a great idea? Get a lot of ideas!” Jack Foster, How To Get Ideas

  • “There is no perfect spaghetti sauce. There are perfect spaghetti sauces.” – Howard Moskowitz (relayed by Malcolm Gladwell – TedTalk)

  • “Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person’s skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.” ― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

  • “A few sterile learning objectives, a little bit of bulleted content and then a multiple choice question is not way to engage, excite or motivate learners. Traditional eLearning forgot about the energy that comes from overcoming a difficult challenge or the thrill that a person gets when they master a difficult subject–these are things that excite learners.“ Karl Kapp, The Gamification of Learning and Instruction

  • “The opposite of play isn’t work. It’s depression.” ― Jane McGonigal, Reality is Broken

  • “In a world where information is easily available, strong personal networks and access to helpful people often matter more than access to the information itself.” ― Danah Boyd, It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens

  • “Motivation is the catalyzing ingredient for every successful innovation. The same is true for learning.” ― Clayton M. Christensen, Disrupting Class

  • “The heralded social dividends of education are largely illusory: rising education’s main fruit is not broad-based prosperity, but credential inflation.” ― Bryan Caplan, The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money

  • “Teachers don’t usually plan lessons with norepinephrine or oxytocin in mind, but if they did, learning would be immediate and forever. Planning in this manner is so easy to accomplish, and results are self-evident.” Kieran O’Mahony, Forbes Interview

  • “Taking in information is only distantly related to real learning. It would be nonsensical to say, “I just read a great book about bicycle riding—I’ve now learned that.” ― Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline

  • “The output is always the same: Admit more rich kids. It’s true everywhere:” ― Paul Tough, The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us

  • “Good learning is good learning. The modality should change how you approach it, but the end result is measurably the same.” – Jeff Borden, in almost every keynote I’ve ever given…

Sorry for that last one – a bit cheeky, no?

I hope you found these interesting, possibly inspiring, and absolutely useful in the creation of your own educationally transforming messages. Maybe one or two even lead you on a rabbit trail of learning into a newfound area or concept. (If you’re looking for summer reads, most of these quotes are from really good books, by the way.)

Regardless, have a great summer and good luck preparing for next Fall, with all of the challenges it is sure to bring.

Good luck and good learning.