Monthly Archives: October 2020

I’d rather be a sheep than a lemming

Dear anti-masker,

Go ahead and call me sheeple. You might think of me as easily influenced or docile. You might think I’m willing to give up my rights to follow the crowd. Sheep find comfort in community, and the herd helps others to be safe, not just themselves… kinda like masks do.

At least I’m not lemming, running off a dangerous cliff because others are doing the same. I’m not willing to endanger others with my choice of behaviour.

Now in reality lemmings aren’t really suicidal, and people thinking about their community doesn’t make them sheeple. In fact, most communal animals are very community minded and they do their part to keep their community safe.

It pains me to see something like this happening in Toronto. This isn’t community minded, it isn’t considerate of others. It’s metaphorical lemmings, except they aren’t just jumping off the edge, they are pulling the weakest and most vulnerable along with them.

Listen to what they have to say

Last week I wrote, ‘Know your audience‘ and asked, “Are you trying to share your view only with people that already agree with you? Or are you trying to share your view with others who think differently?“

Yesterday I wrote ‘When you live in a democracy… VOTE‘ and quoted Thomas Jefferson, “We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”

Would my message actually reach anyone who chooses not to participate and change their mind? It’s possible, but unlikely.

I’m in education, it’s not that I don’t believe that we can change minds, open them to new ideas, and help people learn… it’s just that I’m guessing my audience already votes. And if they don’t, my post won’t change their pattern of behaviour. This reminds me of a quote that I often share,

“As a general rule, adults are much more likely to act their way into a new way of thinking than to think their way into a new way of acting.” ~Mark Millemann

Adults don’t tend to act differently as a result of hearing new and different ideas. They are not convinced easily, or as easily as kids. So how do we speak to them? In his comment on my ‘Know your audience‘ post, Dave Sands said,

“Perhaps share a your message in a “way” that they will hear it as well. Too often we display an emotional response to those who hold a different view and our egos emerge blocking any chance of reciprocal understanding. Staying logical and intentional with a genuine will to listen goes a long way in seeking to understand as opposed to seeking to convince.“

‘A genuine will to listen.’

Why don’t people really vote? I gave the reasons I thought, but are they the reasons people actually have?

It’s interesting that I originally titled this, ‘How do you speak to them?’ and not, ‘Listen to what they have to say’. But is listening enough? Can listening help me better understand something like a person’s choice not to vote in such a way that can then alter my argument enough to change their minds?

I can’t say that I’ve really tried. So, if you choose not to vote, tell me why? You don’t have to do this ‘out loud’, here is a contact form to share your thoughts privately, if a comment below is too public.

How can I help you act your way into a new way of thinking? Or why won’t I be able to do this?

I’m listening:)

When you live in a democracy… VOTE

I’d like to say 2 things to my BC and American friends:

1. Vote

2. This is your civic duty.

It always amazes me how many people choose not to vote in an election.

“We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” – Thomas Jefferson

Poor excuses not to vote:

“My vote doesn’t matter.”

“No politician deserves my vote.”

“They are all the same.”

“The candidate I like will win/lose no matter if I vote or not.”

“One vote doesn’t make a difference.”

Two reasons to vote:

  • You have the right to do something others have died for in our countries, and will die for in other countries.
  • You squander your civic duty when you don’t.

So do your civic duty… VOTE.

Distractions and interruptions

Sometimes a work day feels like a constant flow of distractions and interruptions, and while I spend the day busy, it seems that little that I hoped to accomplish actually gets done. For the last couple (rather productive) days I’ve noticed a pattern of distractions that I seem to create for myself that slow down my ability to really get things done. Here are two of them:

1. I’m working on a task and some information comes to me (a message or a person) related to another task… and I task switch. At this point, I start on the task that distracted me, even though it isn’t something I can accomplish without more information or work, so it isn’t something ideal to do in that moment. However, from there I let other tasks or distractions keep me from prioritizing or completing the task I was on before the distraction.

2. I let incoming information, emails or Teams messages, derail my attention. That isn’t to say these messages aren’t important, simply that if I didn’t let them distract me, I could have been more effective at getting my original task done.

I have a job that tends to be filled with constant distractions and interruptions. I can’t allow these to derail those moments when I actually have time at my desk to get things done. There is often only a few precious times in the day where I have time to focus on a single task and feel a bit of flow as I get something done… when these moments come, I really need to ensure that I’m not creating my own distractions and task switches. This is a sure fire recipe to having a very busy day, and still nothing feeling completely accomplished.

Conferences 2020-21

I love going to conferences, but I end up valuing the time between sessions, when I talk or interview smart – people I know, or reflect on what I saw with friends and colleagues. Essentially, I try to tap into the wisdom of the room, and not just at the front of the room presenting.

As conferences move online, I’m not interested in hopping into a virtual room to watch a presentation, and then repeat this again and again… I want time to debrief, to connect and have conversations, to discuss ideas in pairs and small groups. I’m not just talking about a 5-10 minute breakout session in an hour long presentation, I’m talking about scheduled time to ponder, discuss, and apply what I’m learning to my context, with people I work with.

The way I see it, digital conferences need dedicated collaboration, discussion, and reflection time built right into the schedule… Digital meeting spaces scheduled into the day. There needs to be opportunities for conversation, serendipity, and reflection.

The spaces between the sessions needs to be recreated in digital conferences so that conference goers can connect and share their thoughts and ideas outside of presentation sessions. We need public learning spaces, recreated hallways, coffee shops, and courtyards.

Do you know of any online conferences trying to do this?

How are you doing?

Really, how are you?

What are you doing to take care of yourself?

Who are you making an effort to connect with, to call rather than text, to see on video rather than just hear on an audio call?

What are your eating habits like?

Are you following an exercise routine? Going for walks?

Are you getting enough sleep?

Are you asking for or seeking help if you need it?

We have more to offer others when we first care for ourselves.

Share your work

Here is a wonderful (first) blog post by Marcus Blair (@MrBlairsClass):

Teaching Ancient Greek Philosophy in a 21st Century Classroom

The lesson shared is on Stoicism for Grade 12 Philosophy, but there is a bigger lesson: Share your work!

I’m sure that to create this post Marcus had to reflect far more on his lesson than he had any time before writing. So, in the process of writing, he not only helps others, but helps himself too.

He made a fan out of me, but even if no one read the post, it still would have been a valuable exercise to write it. The fact that others like myself get to benefit as well is a positive by product of sharing work on a blog.

Keeping Derek Sivers idea of ‘Obvious to you, amazing to others‘:


I think one of the best professional development opportunities educators have is to share their work… so get blogging!

Broken sleep cycle

I just had a long afternoon nap. Long enough that I’m going to struggle sleeping tonight. It’s a vicious cycle when my sleep patterns get messed up. It never starts intentionally, a late night where I can’t fall asleep is all it takes to start me off. Then suddenly everything goes out of whack.

This afternoon I set an alarm to stop me from sleeping too long, but I turned it off and didn’t get up. That’s not like me, and so it tells me that I needed it. But now what? What happens tonight when I try to get a decent night’s sleep?

I’m someone who used to do well on 5-6 hours a night, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve needed more. I fought it for a while, but realized I was less productive and so let myself sleep longer. Over the summer I was getting closer to 7 hours and very frequently waking up before my alarm. Now the alarm is essential, and my time in bed is much longer than my time actually sleeping.

It’s hard to battle because part of it is insomnia that I seem to have no control over, and part of it is the patterns I end up following that promotes rather than reduces my insomnia… so I don’t help myself.

Workouts help, routines help, and discipline helps. I’m sharing this because I’ve learned that if I want to change something, making it public is more effective than trying to quietly convince myself that I’ll change. I need to share that I’m going to work at building consistency into my schedule, and therefore help rather than hinder my sleep struggles.

Changing routines on weekends, (like writing this so late, and still not having had my workout), doesn’t help. Late night scrolling on my phone when I can’t sleep doesn’t help. Long naps do not help. Sharing this with you now does. Wish me luck fighting this recent bout of insomnia.

Know your audience

Social media is filled with people who are ‘preaching to the converted’. There is nowhere that this is more evident than in politics and religion. I’m amazed at the blindness with which people spew their ideology.

Basically, what I (mostly) see are two ignorant camps:

1. I don’t care what you think.

2. You don’t think like me, so you are an idiot.

Neither of these deliver a message that comes remotely close to convincing anyone of anything. Neither of these pander to an audience beyond those that already agree with the perspective being shared. Neither of these promote thought or dialogue.

Sure it might feel good. Yes, it’s nice to be in the company of others that completely agree with you. But social media shouldn’t just be about screaming into an echo chamber, and there should be opportunities for dialogue that goes beyond winning a point against a foe whom doesn’t even acknowledge your point.

I keep coming back to the realization that ideas lie on a spectrum, and the reason I keep coming back to this is because most of us don’t sit on the extremes, even if that’s where we argue our points from. We don’t really wish ill of those that oppose our view, we don’t really believe that our neighbours are unneighbourly because they view things differently than us, politically, religiously, or ideologically. Yet that’s what it looks like on social media.

Are you trying to share your view only with people that already agree with you? Or are you trying to share your view with others who think differently? If your answer is the latter, then think about your audience, and share a message they can actually hear.

Whose problem is it?

A couple thoughts about assessment:

1. I taught Grade 9 Math for a year then after a year of only Humanities I went back to teaching Math, but for Grade 8’s. After about 5 years of teaching Math 8 I caught myself saying something as I started my unit on Exponents. I said to the class, “Every year this is the hardest unit and the hardest test that I give you.” I had to say it out loud to realize what I was really saying.

What I was really saying was one of two things, either I wasn’t doing a good enough job teaching this unit, or I was giving students much too hard of a test. Looking carefully at the test, I realized it was a bit of both. Because I had taught Grade 9 and new what was coming, when I looked at the test I realized that I was expecting students to know the content at a Grade 9 level… I was ‘preparing them’ for what’s to come. In every section of the test I had questions that started out with basic Grade 8 outcomes, but questions got gradually harder and always ended up with a couple (or more) questions that expected them to exceed what was required in the curriculum.

It was my problem, not theirs, that they struggled. I was pushing them to learn hard concepts at a very high level and testing them so that they all had to be competent at a higher grade level just to get a decent mark. My intentions were good. The outcome and experience for students who were not strong in math were not so good. I reworked my test that year, and some of my teaching as well.

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2. This isn’t one I’ve done, but my daughter has faced this. Last year in her university French course, the professor said, “Nobody gets an ‘A’ unless they are native speakers”. He then proceeded to give my daughter ‘B’s in every assignment, no matter what she did, and what feedback she used to improver her next assignment… that is, until her final exam. In her final exam, the marking was blind (the teaching only saw a number, and not the students’ names). On that exam, my daughter got an ‘A’.

If our job is to teach students, and improve their work, then what are we telling them if our message is, “You aren’t good enough to get an ‘A’.” … Is this not also saying, “I’m not a good enough teacher to help you improve.”? What message does this give to a student who is always striving to do her best and is a high achiever? What message does this give to a student who is struggling? Whose problem is it when every student that comes to your class isn’t good enough for an ‘A’ both before they arrive in class, and also after you have been their teacher for a semester?

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Assessment isn’t just measuring progress, it’s also measuring teacher expectations, and it’s up to us to make sure those expectations are realistic and fair.