Tag Archives: culture

Digital distraction

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Last night we went out for a wonderful dinner. I’m the restaurant we had a booth next to a round table which had a mother and 3 daughters. I’d guess the kid’s ages to be about 7, 12, and 14. My youngest daughter was sitting next to me and whispered, “They are all on devices.”

When I looked, the 7 year old had an Anime video playing on her laptop, which was about 8-10 inches (20-25cm) from her face. The 12 year old had over-ear headphones on and was endlessly scrolling on social media. The 14 year old was opposite me and all I could see was that she had one earbud in, on the far side of her mom, and she was bouncing between drawing (she definitely had some art skills) and scrolling on her phone.

The whole table sat in what was mostly silence, eating slowly. This continued from the time they sat down until we left the restaurant.

My daughter then pointed out the table behind us where a boy, about 5, had his face over a tablet, his face lit up from the light off of it, since he was so close to it.

It’s the era of digital babysitting, digital distractions, but creating distraction from what? Mealtime, family time, conversation, social engagement? …All of the above.

I think this form of distraction is fundamentally changing the way we socialize and this will affect our sense of family, community, and culture.

What happens when our screens become more important than the people around us?

One world under God

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Imagine a world where everyone who prayed believed that no matter what religion anyone practiced, that the higher being they prey to is The Creator. Can an all powerful God not manifest Him/Her/Itself in many ways to many peoples? Does this God need to share their understanding with every tribe, in every language, and in every culture identically? Would that even make sense?

If there is One God then could we not see the Good in all holy texts, and recognize our similarities? Recognize the kindness to strangers all these books profess? Recognize that living a spiritual life means spreading love and kindness rather than raising arms against our brothers, sisters, and other children of the same God?

If The Creator is the same creator, no matter the religion, then why would we be fighting? It can not be in God’s name. So it must be a weakness of our species that creates the hatred. It is the territorial animal in us that overpowers our humanity.

A spiritual, kind, and loving being does not attack fellow beings; does not send their children to war; does not treat children as pawns or collateral. Since religions can not bring our world together I have to wonder what can? What can bring our people, all of our tribes together?

I want to believe that we can see ourselves as a species that is kind. I want to believe that we can see ourselves as a species that is loving. I want to believe that we can see ourselves as a species that is peaceful. I want to believe that humanity is more powerful than our animal instincts and that we are wise enough to solve our problems without the need to kill our neighbours, here on this planet with so-called ‘intelligent’ life… that one God created.

To know, to think, to dream

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“Savoir, penser, rêver.

Tout est là.” ~Victor Hugo

I saw this quote on a building in the city of Biarritz, in southern France. In English this translates to:

“To know, to think, to dream. That is all.“

This is such a beautiful phrase. I like that ‘know’ comes before ‘think’ and ‘dream’, this sets the imagination free from knowledge. It allows us to start with what we know then expand our thinking, our creativity… and that is all. That is what it means to be human. We are not just the sum of what we know, we are creative beings, designers, artists, admirers of creativity and beauty.

We have our own style, we develop our cultures, and then challenge the norms we create for ourselves, and adapt. We seek out entertainment, create and listen to music. We question our origins and seek new places to explore, and new discoveries that help us to know more… more about the the earth we live on, and the universe we live in.

“To know, to think, to dream. That is all.“

New norms needed

I was in a community of schools meeting yesterday morning, and it was quite insightful hearing some of the challenges that my colleagues are facing with respect to student behaviour. From elementary principals right up to high school, behavioural concerns of students has been concerning this year. Social-emotional dynamics are not as well managed by kids of all ages, as compared to just a few years ago.

Post-pandemic or endemic times are not the same as pre-pandemic times. Where this is most noted is in the social construct of what ‘normal‘ behaviour looks like. It’s different in Kindergarten classes when more students have been home with limited other-student interaction, especially when compared to a kindergarten class a few years ago where more than when 2/3rds of students had already spent 2-3 years in pre-school.

It’s different in middle schools where students can feel isolated not only in school, but also online. Or students showing behaviour that is usually something seen with much younger kids. High schools are noticing this too. Grade 12’s having social dynamic challenges normally seen with younger students, and behaviours that seem immature happening far more frequently.

We sometimes forget that ‘normal’ behaviour is learned. We don’t realize that an expected culture is no longer expected when it hasn’t been practiced for 2+ years. We aren’t just experiencing a blip in the norm, we are experiencing new norms, and if we don’t like what we see it’s going to take both time and effort to change. And if we don’t explicitly think about how we want things to change, and work on making those changes, then we probably aren’t going to see the results we are expecting or hoping for.

The exciting thing is that we don’t have to go back to how it used to be. The challenging thing is that we need to spend time developing the positive norms we want to see… Or we can get stuck just being reactionary to the negative behaviours we don’t want, but are happening while there is a void of positive norms being practiced.

The learning cliff

Whenever I am talking to new or potentially new employees of our online school I share the idea of a learning cliff. We all know about a learning curve… when you are learning something new, there is an effort you have to exert as you gain knowledge and learn how to use new systems and tools available to you. There’s a slow uphill climb to learn the new job. But some jobs have a few too many systems to learn just by doing things once. I call this the learning cliff.

In a new position you’ll inevitably get to a point where you don’t know how to do something and you need to ask for help: This is true for both the learning curve and the learning cliff… With the learning curve , you ask, you learn, and you don’t need to ask again. But in an organization where too many things are new, you try to absorb so much information at once that you don’t actually remember the help you got the next time you have to deal with the same situation… You asked, you got the help you needed, but you didn’t actually learn because your brain was taxed with too much new information to retain one more thing. So a few hours, days, or weeks later you have to ask the same question again.

You’ve left the learning curve and hit the learning cliff. I tell my new employees that with so many new systems to learn, we have all hit those cliffs and every one of us knows you will too. So, ask again. Ask a third time. We won’t judge. We remember hitting the cliff ourselves. We know you feel bad having to ask again when you feel you should know. We know you can’t, just like we couldn’t, remember everything and need to ask again. We expect it and want to assist you.

A learning cliff is not a scalable slope without help, so let us help you over the edge, and when you come back to the same issue, or a new one, and it’s still not a traversable slope… ask again. We are expecting it and happy to help.

Culture and kids

I was visiting the Philippines back in 2010, my kids were 8 and 10. We went to the beach and immediately they wanted to build sand castles with me. I spent about 25-30 minutes playing then told them I was going to sit with their mom for a bit. I’d had enough. They wanted me to play longer.

Then a family with a mom, dad, and 3 or 4 year old kid came and sat near us. The kid had a shovel and her dad had a spoon, and they started playing in the sand. We stayed on the beach for well over an hour, probably closer to 2 hours and that dad was on his hands and knees or squatting next to his kid playing in the sand the entire time. I think they were speaking Tagalog so I didn’t understand the conversations they weee having, but this dad was engaged with his kid the entire time. During that time, I played with my kids in the sand for another 20-25 minutes.

I remember telling my wife that this guy was making me feel like a crappy dad. I was amazed how his little girl was the center of his attention for so long. It makes me wonder about how our culture and our upbringing influences the raising of our kids?

Visiting Thailand around that same time we stayed for a few days in a resort with tree house rooms near a national forest. The first morning we went to breakfast and there was a makeshift playpen, for a kid who wasn’t quite walking age, near where we ate. When we arrived at the restaurant, the owner was sitting in the playpen with the kid. He left when another worker came to tend to the kid. Then later we saw his wife doing the same thing. We assumed it was their granddaughter. My wife asked if this was the case and we were told no. One of the cook’s mother’s was sick and couldn’t take care of her kid, and so she had to bring her baby to work… they were just all taking shifts when they could so the employee could do her job.

One of the best parts of travel is seeing how some cultures differ from our own, and appreciating that their lifestyles include little things that we can learn from. And I think you can learn a lot about people by watching how they care for their kids, and kids in their community.

Student led tours

After a long period without visitors to our school, we are slowly starting to get people visiting to learn more about Inquiry Hub again. When guests do the tour, I don’t go with them. I greet them, introduce them to a student, send them on their way, and encourage them to ask their tour guide and other students what it’s really like at the school. I’ll sometimes joke, like I did yesterday when I said, “Claire will show you around and after I leave you she can give you real dirt on the school.” Claire, in grade 11 and wanting to give tours since her no-visitor-mask–and-stay-separate-pandemic-grade-9-year, played right along, joking about how horrible it is to go to the school. Good for a laugh to break the ice and start the tour off relaxed.

Now, I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t give Claire pointers to talk about, but there is no script. I want to make sure she talks about the inquiry courses, the supports provided, and the schedule, but I honestly don’t know exactly what Claire shared with the visitor. She gave her version of the school not mine.

And inevitably, whether it was Claire, or any of my previous guides, when the visitor comes back to the office, I hear what an amazing ambassador my tour guide was. I also encourage visitors to talk to other students about the school and their projects, and I know when they took my advice because they tell me they did ask, and how great our students are.

I had a similar experience as a visitor at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, and High Tech High in California. Both with engaged students, passionate about their schools, giving me the tours, and me talking to random students that would answer my questions.

The reality is that the tour would not be as good if I tried to provide the narrative. It wouldn’t be as authentic. Do the students miss sharing anything important? Probably. But visitors will ask questions, and learn what they need to, or they can ask me after the tour. But the magic happens when students are trusted to be the ambassadors and not just presenters… and when they are trusted to lead, without an adult present. After all, isn’t it their school?

Rebuilding culture

Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. It’s easy to look back and think about ‘the good old days’, and all the positive things of yesteryear. But trying to rebuild a culture of the past, trying to ‘go back to the way things used to be’ is all but inevitable to fail. You can’t rebuild a culture, you need to build a new and desired culture.

When schools went remote in March of 2019, Inquiry Hub was unintentionally ready for the transition. My teachers barely missed a beat. Students already had a fair bit of independent time, so teachers didn’t need to adapt their teaching to give students time to work independently. Every class was already in Microsoft Teams. And we even joined each other online and had virtual lunches together. I actually saw my staff at lunch more than I normally did. And more importantly, students almost all made positive transitions to working from home.

It was when we got back to face-to-face that things really changed. We used to have students mixing across grades and working collaboratively in hallways, and in any open space or classroom available. Then suddenly they were locked down in single rooms, at single desks, not facing each other in table groups. Two and a half years later, only our Grade 12’s knew what Inquiry Hub used to be, back in the first 2/3’s of their first year. Our Grades 9, 10, and 11 students never experienced our school pre-covid.

I started this year thinking that we need to rebuild the culture of the past, but I realize now that this won’t happen. We have more students who are more used to their classroom being their primary community. We’ve grown by almost 1/3, and classes are now more of a community in size. We aren’t what we used to be. We don’t have the shared history, and efforts to be what we used to be will detract from what we could be.

So how do you build culture? How do you design activities so that they foster the community you want to build… but not force something that isn’t organic and natural? I think you create opportunities for students to connect, but you don’t force it. You show what you value by showing appreciation for positive behaviour and attitudes. You invite people to participate, but don’t force them. You explicitly share your vision and give others a chance to build that vision with you.

You don’t rebuild culture, you build it anew. It won’t be the same, but if you explicitly and cooperatively share a common vision, and take action towards it, the culture you build can look a bit like what it used to be, but it won’t ever be what it was. Nostalgia will keep you from being what you could be while you focus on what was, but never could be again.

Presentation day

Yesterday was a day at school when many students were doing year-end presentations for their inquiries. In the morning I visited the Grade 9’s and watched the tail end of one presentation and then the full following presentation. In the afternoon I got to see several Grade 11 & 12 presentations. Overall, I was very impressed!

My biggest takeaways were first how confident the students were. We have created a great culture where presentations happen all the time and students demonstrate that they are comfortable in the front of the room. Also, student feedback is awesome. Students in the audience share genuine praise and feedback.

But the thing that really impressed me was the design of the presentations. The slideshows each had clear themes, and almost all of them were not typical to PowerPoint. They didn’t feel like students took a theme and plugged their slides into them. Rather, they had the look and feel of something designed by the students, and in many cases they did fully design every slide themselves… making sure to have continuity from slide to slide.

From grades 9 through 12 the slide design was better than almost any presentation we would have had at the school 5 or 6 years ago. The students also had a story line through their presentations. Good delivery, good design, good storylines, these students can really put together solid presentations. I could definitely learn a few things from them about creating and delivering a good presentation!

If it’s important

I love this quote, “If it’s important, you’ll find  a way.  If not,  you’ll find an excuse.”

It’s similar to this Derek Sivers quote I recently shared,

“I have a concept that says that your actions reveal your values better than your words. So no matter what you say you want to do, your actions show what your values really are.”

Eight years ago I created an image for a presentation I was doing:

Here is the blog post on my Pair-a-Dimes blog about the slide and the presentation. The concept is simple: If something is important to you, you will find your way and if it’s not important enough, you’ll find reasons not to change. The greater the challenge to change, the more important it needs to be to find your way rather than finding an excuse.

A couple days later, I added two more images and shared them in a post: Leading Change – 3 Images

I think I used these three images in every presentation I did for the next few years. I wasn’t thinking about forced changes like the pandemic created, I was thinking about changes we want to create. I was thinking about the potential we envision, and how we fight the systems and habits that make excuses easier than change.

It’s easy to be a cheerleader for change. It’s much harder to spend the time removing barriers and working with the resistors of change to make it as important to them as it is to the rest of your team.

It can’t just be important to you.