Monthly Archives: March 2020

Transforming Exponentially

It’s 15 minutes to midnight on the first Monday after March break, and I still haven’t done my ‪#SDFitnessChallenge‬ exercise yet today. I will work on my handstands after writing this and I’m not waking up early to workout and finish this post tomorrow morning, like I usually do. I’ll sleep in a bit later. Today the work day just kept going and tomorrow is already a busy day.

My fitness progress is incremental. My commitment to daily writing is a marathon, not a sprint. Even my dedication to transforming education moves slowly… but the school closures for Covid-19, and the Provincial commitment to a ‘Continuity of Learning’ is promising to be exponentially transformational.

I wrote a post a while back called Isolation vs Collaboration, and in it I said,

“Educators who work in isolation improve incrementally, while educators who collaborate transform exponentially!”

Kathleen McClaskey posterized the quote, and shared by in a Tweet and on the Personalized Learning website.

Recently Michael Buist also posterized this quote and shared it in a tweet:

https://twitter.com/buistbunch/status/1244352249947660289

With almost every educator in the province looking to connect with students digitally, many are quickly realizing that trying to do this alone is overwhelming. They are connecting with colleagues, and district support teams who are developing resources to support them.

With endless resources available online, educators are realizing that information is abundant, and students developing literacy and numeracy competencies, and skills, are more important than just focusing on content.

With an inability to proctor tests and supervise exams, teachers are rethinking assessment and evaluation.

Doing this all at once can be a bit scary and overwhelming, but working with colleagues and mentors can help. Collaboration will be key. This is not a time to try things on isolation, it is a time to work together. For now changes have been forced upon us. These changes can lead us to rush and just do small incremental changes in individual practice. Or we can be slow and thoughtful and ensure that these changes lead to a collective, exponential transformation in the way we look at content, skills and competencies, as well as our assessment and evaluation practices.

Let’s commit to working together, sharing openly, and transforming our practice exponentially.

Break in routines

It’s Monday after the March break and the week ahead will be far from routine. I’m starting my work day in less than an hour but students won’t be walking in the school doors and I’ll only see my teachers digitally. I’ll start the day reviewing emails I’ve flagged that remind me about new procedures and expectations around dealing with Covid-19, and the ‘new normal’ that will be far from normal. Next I’ll join a district team in a digital meeting to discuss supporting administrators and teachers. After that I have two meetings with two of my different school staffs. After that, communication to students and parents.

Usually, returning from March break means going back to a normal routine, but this year there is nothing normal about what I’m returning to. Yesterday I wrote that the quick answer isn’t always the best answer, but starting today I’m going to have many people wanting immediate answers from me. Some will understand my need to find out more and ask more questions before responding, some will get frustrated with my lack of answers. Some will approach me with resilience to handle the abnormality of our new situation, some will feel frustrated, nervous, and even scared. Some students or parents won’t engage in asking questions even if they have them.

In general we are creatures of habit and we like routines. Not all the these routines we have are positive and healthy, but routines help us cope with challenging situations and help us stay calm and resilient. When routines break, some of those coping strategies are lost. This is a time when we have to be supportive to those that do not handle changes and breaks in routine as well as others. This is a time to remember that we are dealing with human beings going through a challenging time. This is a time to remember that we ourselves are going through a challenging time.

This tweet by Dean Shareski really hit me this morning:

We need to focus on the needs of those we work with and for. We need to remember that that students, parents, and educators can struggle with new routines. We need to put people’s well being ahead of concerns about curriculum and learning. As we navigate the new teaching and learning routines we are creating, we’ve got to put people first. The rest will fall into place as long as we don’t rush and, while going slow, we show that we care for one another.

The quick answer isn’t always the best answer

Tomorrow marks the first day back from March break in our school district. Teachers will not be returning Monday/Tuesday, and can schedule a time to come in to collect resources etc. after that. The continuation of learning plan will evolve over the week in response to schools being closed to students due to COVID-19.

I know that students and families want to know what things will look like after that, but no one is rushing to give answers, and for good reason… This is all very new to us and our approach moving forward deserves thoughtful planning.

We need to consider:

  • Ministry expectations and requirements
  • District plans and protocols
  • Capabilities of staff & technology
  • Capabilities and needs of students and families
  • Fairness with respect to expectations across the district and province.

This last point is interesting. At one my schools, Inquiry Hub, we could almost run everything the same. Every class already has shared digital spaces. We could have students meet on Microsoft Teams during class time and students are only in class 40-60% of their day, so they could still have large parts of the day to do school work, and inquiry projects, and have free time. But how fair is it for us to expect this of them at home, when no other school is expecting this? How fair is it when we don’t know how equitable home situations and supports are?

We need to go slowly. We need to ask a lot of questions. We need to think about expectations at the provincial, district, school, and home levels.

A quick response will not be as good as a slow, thoughtful response. The pandemic has everyone thinking in ’emergency response mode’. What we need now is long term thinking and planning. We can’t treat a continuation of schooling like we are in a constant crisis with immediate response time required. We have to remember that the school year ends at the end of June, and quick responses now, without thinking and processing time, will not help us get to the end of June in a thoughtful and supportive way. We need to slow things down, think things through, and put the long term well-being of our students first.

Where do you find my Daily-ink?

I write this daily-ink on a blog at Daily-Ink.DavidTruss.com but I’m pretty sure that’s not were people go to find it. When a new post gets published, it also goes to:

  • My ‘Pairadimes’ Facebook Page
  • LinkedIn, and
  • Twitter

I then share it to my Facebook Story and page.

These social media sites are where my daily posts get seen… but are they read? If you’ve read this far, can you please let me know where you found this post?

2di.me/Daily-Ink-Survey

Thanks!

Are we Social Distancing or Physical Distancing?

Disclaimer: Continue Social Distancing as recommended by health professionals! I’m not talking about changing practice, only changing perspective! We all need to do our part to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

A couple days ago, I wrote about how Connecting Online is Easier Than Ever:

The social distancing due to Covid-19 has been challenging, and getting outside once a day for a walk has made me feel a little boxed in. But we live in a time when it is easier than ever to connect with people online.

Since then I’ve come across the term ‘Physical Distancing’ a lot more. This is really the issue. Reducing or actually eliminating our physical proximity to others long enough that the virus doesn’t spread. However, we can still be social in the digital world. Video helps. It’s nice to see the people we connect with. 

More than ever, I think this is a time to be social and to not let the idea of being isolated get you down. As we head into a long period of physically distancing ourselves, I think we should find ways to connect with people socially. Be intentional and thoughtful, whether connecting for fun, for learning, or for work… but no matter what your intention, make sure that you make the time to be more social and to connect in ways that meet your needs to spend time with others.

________________

A great tool to connect to others with is Twitter. If you want to get started

Twitter EDU is your FREE One-Stop-All-You-Need-To-Know-Guide to Twitter.

“The hardest part of Twitter is that it does not have a friendly entry point. Until you develop a network, it actually takes a bit of work to make it meaningful and rewarding.”

This book makes learning and engaging with Twitter easy. Twitter EDU: Your One-Stop-All-You-Need-To-Know-Guide to Twitter by [Truss, David]

Thank-You-Message-for-Lisa-B-Post

Positive Messages Make a Difference

My niece, Lisa Bouliane, wrote the following post on Facebook. She is a nurse in a large hospital in Vancouver, BC. I asked her to open the post up (beyond just sharing with friends) ,and if I could also share it here. It speaks for itself:

Lisa Bouliane – March 23 at 9:14 PM

I was biking home from work at VGH tonight and passed this message on the sidewalk. Thank you. I continued biking past down the road, before realizing I was tearing up at the message. I knew I had to circle back and take a picture to share.

I work in a critical care area of the hospital where the workplace has been a whirlwind of emotions and preparations. We are madly implementing safety measures for both patients and staff, for the impending increase of covid positive patients that will be admitted over the next couple of weeks. Working at the hospital is a highly emotional place as it is and now tensions are even higher, with a general feeling of the calm before the storm.

After another long and stressful 12 hour day, to come outside and see a message of appreciation touched my heart. This simple message on the sidewalk eased a sense of stress and anxiety I hadn’t realized I had been taking home with me. It immediately relaxed me and reminded me that we are all being impacted in numerous ways by this virus. It reminded me to be thankful to my amazing hard working colleagues, as we all go through this journey together. It reminded me to be thankful that I am young and healthy, and able to continue going to work to help others. It reminded me to be thankful for the people and support that I have in my life during these difficult times. I’ve had friends and family deliver food to me as the grocery store was emptied out while I was at work all week. I’ve had a bottle of wine left for me at home as a token of appreciation. I’ve had a friend loan me puzzles for something to do on my days off. I’ve had numerous messages from friends in health care and my sports team, and old friends and family members reach out online saying thank you for all I am doing. These gestures, both big and small, mean a lot to health care workers right now. We are stressed, and working in the unknown right now. The acknowledgement that we are working hard to keep you, ourselves, and our loved ones safe and healthy is warmly received.

I’d like to thank this mystery message writer for taking time out of their day to leave a mark of positivity on the world. Such a simple gesture, a simple message, touched my heart more than I’m sure you intended to.

Now everyone take a deep breath. We are all in this together. Please take care of yourselves and be thankful for the small things in life, like a simple chalk message on your way home. Be kind to others, wash your hands, and stay home!!

Thank-You-Message-for-Lisa-B-Post

Zoom conversation with Kelly

Connecting online is easier than ever

Over the past couple days, I’ve had the honour of connecting online with a number of people. It started yesterday morning with a Zoom conversation with Kelly Christopherson for almost 1.5 hrs. I connected with him again this morning to record a podcast. Last night, my wife and I connected with 2 other couples on FaceTime. We had a trip planned this summer including a cruise ship visiting Spain and Italy, as well as holiday time in Portugal. Those plans are done, but the conversation was still wonderful.

Yesterday I had a TEAMS meeting run by our school district for Principals, then a colleague and I connected to have a conversation afterwards, first on Messenger, then again on TEAMS. I’ve been Twitter and TEAMS Direct Messaging another colleague today and hope to do a podcast with him, maybe tomorrow. Tonight I had a 4-way Text conversation, that moved on to What’s App, with my three sisters and one of them said, “Why didn’t we do this years ago?”

I’m not a fan of music trivia. I recognize every song, but can’t name it, or it’s band/artist. That said, I popped into Dean Sharaeski’s #namethattune music trivia Live Periscope for a short visit. What a fun thing to do, and to get people connected!

The social distancing due to Covid-19 has been challenging, and getting outside once a day for a walk has made me feel a little boxed in. But we live in a time when it is easier than ever to connect with people online.

Who will you reach out to next?

Down the rabbit hole

The afternoon I went down a very dark rabbit hole. First I read a tweet from an influential twitter profile that grossly miss-communicated some data comparing the flu to COVID-19, making it look like this coronavirus was only a threat to those over the age of 60. This tweet went to her 2.2 million followers. Then I went to another public figure’s tweet that was very controversial and did something I almost never do, I went to the tweet and read the conversation/reply thread that followed. Wow. I remember now why I don’t usually do this.

It was dark. It showed the bipolar divide that I spoke about in my post, Ideas on a Spectrum. It was nasty, it was mean, it was ignorant, it was a complete waste of my time. It achieved nothing. Not for me, not for anyone that commented. The lines were drawn and both sides could only preach to their side.

I’m glad that this isn’t my typical experience on Twitter. I’m sorry for those that spend a lot of time in this sad, angry space on both Twitter and Facebook. I’ll happily go back to my world of educators geeking out, sharing, and learning on Twitter… and I’ll stay there for a while. A word of advice as we spend more time at home, more connected than usual to news and our social streams: Keep away from the rabbit holes and check your sources for news and for click-bait headlines.

A while back I wrote about a new tragedy of the commons. In this post I said,

Indeed we have a new, social-emotional, tragedy of the commons. Despite our understanding that perpetuating the onslaught of negative news is, ‘contrary to [our] long-term best interests’, we still do it. And social media isn’t making things any better. We used to be able to blame the media monopolies and moguls, but now we are the news-makers: We publish freely, and quickly and without thought as to how we are part of the problem.

We don’t need to feed this negative loop, and we don’t need to feed on it either.

A dose of humour

I’ve been sharing a few funny posts on Twitter recently. I don’t mean to make light of a serious situation, and I’m sharing messages from experts too…


But I don’t see a need to preach here, and I’d rather people pay attention to experts, not just misguided leaders, but actual experts.

Yes, the Coronavirus pandemic is serious. Yes it likely will get more serious before it gets better. But we can’t spend our time in constant stress, in a continual state of heightened concern. We also need time to laugh and have fun.

Here are a few laughs I’ve shared recently:


In the coming days, remember to find time for (harmless) humour and fun!

Change of plans

Starting today I was going to write a 7-day series on 7 Virtues, like I did on the 7 Sins. I totally don’t feel like doing that right now. Also, I thought I was going to give myself a social media break… but I kinda want to stay connected now, so I’m not doing that either. What I am doing is leaving my phone behind on family walks… but I’m not going dark now when Social Distancing for Coronavirus is making feel disconnected enough.

So what now? I’m going to experiment with getting connected with people online and doing some video chats and podcasts. I might put out some quick videos. I’m going to share my #SDFitnessChallenge progress.

What I’m not going to do is lock myself into 7 days of writing on specific topics. And while I’ll put my phone away for parts of the day, I’m not locking myself away from digital connections. This is a time to experiment, do some new things, stay connected… and learn.

The time for regular routines will be back soon enough, for now I’ll keep things open, and try something new on a regular basis. Tonight, it will be handstand push-ups, inspired by Kelly Christopherson (@kellywchris).

If you’ve been letting ‘Social Distancing’ isolate you, it’s time for a change of plans… reach out to someone, reach out to me… connect, learn something new, get fitter… enjoy the time you never thought you would have. Be great.