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Garrison Keillor, giving an overview of yearly lectures to the Thanatopsis Society in Lake Woebegon, noted that experts on education are never hard to find.

Following are memorable pronouncements on the subject, from conversations with students and colleagues, who can be quite hard on each other and on themselves. Warning: Some laws might not be politically correct. I do not judge these expressions: I'm just reporting what they said.

Wenkstern's Law (The First Law of Education)
Nobody wants to learn.

(This statement was uttered, matter-of-fact fashion, by a student who was bright, hard-working, disciplined, and ultimately, very successful. He did not enter the teaching profession.)

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Nash's Law
Ten percent never get the word.

(Some teachers, when told this law, respond with something like, "That's why I always repeat important instructions." They do not understand the law: ten percent never get the word.)

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Mrs. Dininny's Law of Three

Some students know. Some do not know. Some do not suspect.

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The Good-Student User's Manual
The best thing you can do for good students is to get out of their way.

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Laws of Standards
I. Your standards are never high enough.

II. Your standards are always higher than students think they should be.

III. Students will sink to your standards.

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Coakley's Law of Teaching Evaluation
Half of them like it, half of them don't.

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Law of What Matters
If you give exams, students will learn.

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Law of Teaching Methods
Any teaching method works, if the teacher is enthusiastic about the subject.

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Simanek's Law (from Donald E. Simanek, HERE)
Nothing works if students do not work.

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First Rule for Discussion Leaders
Don't fill silence with the sound of your own voice.

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Law of the Remote Past
Students will not recognize allusions to Shakespeare, the King James version of the Bible, great literature, prerequisites, or the syllabus.

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Law of Readiness
For meetings of academic committees, there is no need to prepare to be asked what you think.

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Newton's Law
The students who cheat are too stupid to cheat.

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Weber's Law
It's so much quicker and easier to explain things to smart people.

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Law of the Professional Educator 
The same people who ran screaming from chemistry class when asked to balance an equation now teach education courses and tell us that they understand learning.

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Rhodes's Law*
The cause of the student's difficulty, the root of the student's question, is more fundamental than you think, even if you remember Rhodes's Law.

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Law of Devices
No one reads the manual.
(This one is obsolete. No one writes manuals any more.)

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Voltaire's Law
Common sense is not very common.

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Zeno's Law 
Each instruction in a list confuses half of those not already confused.

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My Father Said It 
If there is any way they can possibly misinterpret an instruction, they will.

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What Teaching Teaches 
If there is anything you learn from years of teaching, it's

I. not to worry excessively about whether students learn (see An Encouraging Law, below),

II. how to recognize and ignore hopeless ignorance,

III. how to create confusion.

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How to Avoid Inviting Discouragement
When writing exams, do not include questions that you think are so simple that everyone will answer them correctly.

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Laws of Innovation
I. All teachers believe that they invented education.

II. Today's newest ideas in education were published ten years ago, and twenty years ago, and thirty years ago, ... , and a new cadre of professional educators earned tenure with them every time.

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Law of Reliable Sources
The best teachers never took an education course.

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An Encouraging Law
Students will learn, in spite of your teaching. (Humans are natural, instinctual, incurable learners; just get them interested.)

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Law that Goes Bump in the Night
The teacher's goal is to slip away, and not be missed.

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Laws About Theories 
I. There are no good theories of education. We don't know enough about human learning to formulate them.

But do not despair:

II. There are no bad theories of education. Build knowledgeable and enthusiastic teaching on any theory, and students will learn.

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Mathematics of Panel Discussions
4 x 5 = 90. If 4 panelists of academics are each given 5 minutes for opening statements, expect discussion to begin in about an hour and a half.

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Law Printed on the Teacher's Rear-View Mirror

Students in the back row are dumber than they appear.

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The Frasco Misconception

"I've taught this concept for years and years; you'd think they'd get it by now."

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What Teachers Need to Know
Teachers who know their subject well, but cannot teach it well, do not know themselves well.
(There is no one best method for all teachers. For each teacher, the best method merges the teacher's knowledge of subject and knowledge of self. The teacher must discover that method.)

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Learn More by Teaching Those Who Know Less

The brighter the students, the less the teacher learns -- about the subject, and about teaching.

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Lab Student's Lament

The student who says, "I did exactly what the procedure said, and it didn't work," -- -- didn't.

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Law of Efficient Committee Work

I don't recall any wise decisions made by committees more than 50 minutes after the meeting began.

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* Rhodes's Law might also be called, cumbersomely, the Back-to-Square-Zero law.