Today I found a beautiful little spot to meditate and behind me a river was roaring softly. It drowned out the sound of cars and the hum of civilization. It took over my sense of hearing.
The white noise of a fast traveling river is very soothing. It calms the mind and softens your other senses. When I hear this sound, I am reminded of different places that have set a similar mood for me. My racing mind slows, and I feel calm.
All this from simple sound of running water.
I’m almost at the end of the novel ‘A Fine Balance’, written by Rohinton Mistry and narrated by Vikas Adam on Audible. Length: 25 hrs and 49 mins… it’s a fictional tome.
From the publisher’s summary, “With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975.”
It’s a wonderful story of different lives crossing paths and creating bonds. It is a story of hardship and of people making the most of what they can out of life, when life options and choices are painfully minimal. The main characters live lives where sadness and loss prevail and yet they find friendships through kindness and appreciation for what little they have.
It’s a fiction, but it reminds me that so many people live with less. So many people face hardships like I’ve never experienced. A book like this reminds me to appreciate what I have.
I realize that by nothing more than luck, I was born at a time and in a place that allows me privileges beyond the imaginations of many before me, and many born into different circumstances, in different parts of the world.
I won the birth lottery. If you are reading this, you probably did too.
Have you ever had a medical scan? Have you looked at the scan afterwards? While it’s easy to look at an X-ray and see a broken bone, something like an MRI is much more difficult to read and interpret. And while an X-ray is a single shot at each angle, an MRI is numerous shots of the same angle in many layers. MRI’s create a massive amount of data for a technician or a doctor to look through. Already there are computers using Artificial Intelligence (AI) that are better than humans at finding anomalies that doctors would want to know about.
In education there are AI tools being developed that can make incredible diagnostic and pedagogical decisions to help a learner. An example is in Math: A student solves a math problem and gets the answer wrong. The AI looks at the error and recognizes it as a common mistake made by a certain percentage of students, and then suggests a tutorial (interactive) video that helps over 95% of students who make that error learn from their mistake. Just in time teaching based on responsive feedback from the learner.
AI can be a great teacher for computational thinking problems, teaching algorithms, and content-based information. If that’s all a teacher did, that teacher could be replaced. But that’s not all a teacher does! Algorithms can inform us of a real world problem, like climate change or air pollution, but they won’t necessarily help us solve these problems.
AI is decades away from being able teach us to be more collaborative, better citizens, or creative problem solvers. These skills are what teachers of the future will focus on. Let AI teach kids the basics of math, but then use that math to solve interesting problems – “The way to teach your kids to solve interesting problems… is to give them interesting problems to solve.” ~ Seth Godin
We need to help students solve interesting and messy problems, we need to give them voice and choice, we need to help them develop their leadership and collaboration skills. We need to foster creativity, and allow students the opportunity to think outside the scope of questions that have a single answer.
If we don’t do these things in education, then not only are we going to give up our jobs to AI that can teach basic knowledge better than we can… we are also doing a disservice to our students, who deserve to learn skills that make them better, more useful, and adaptable citizens in an ever-changing world.
It’s a simple formula: Get to know your students and they remember you. They might remember one awesome lesson you did, but in more examples than not, it’s not only about the things they learned but the relationships you’ve developed.
Many high schools are opening with less face time with students and/or shorter semesters. There will be an appetite for teachers to ‘get to business’ and to ‘cover the curriculum’. But the start of the year is a great time to ‘get to know your students’ and to work with them to ‘uncover the curriculum’.
Spend time connecting with students. Let them spend time exploring and discovering what they must learn. Do this and not only you, but also the things you have taught, will be remembered.
Morning meditations, writing, and workouts have started back for me as I head into the routines of school days. While I’ve enjoyed the time to sleep in, and move my schedule around, I also missed the consistency of starting my day in the same way. What I haven’t yet done is get through the routine in a timely way. Yesterday, I started working right when I got up. Today I spent a fair bit of time distracted.
I know I’ll get ‘dialled in’ soon, but it has been a slow start for me. It’s weird how this is totally something I want to do, yet it’s still taking me time to get to it. What is it about our nature that we like routines yet we take so much time to get into them? Is it just me, or do others find the same?
I have been on Alexa with my in-laws for over an hour trying to help them set up a wireless printer. We just got disconnected after they tried to take Alexa over to the router. This is way harder than it should be. It’s worse than trying to load disks and follow the instructions, so that I could access the internet through AOL… back in the late 80’s!
I just reconnected with my in-laws and they’ve had enough for the night. I’m not sure if they are truly done or if they just feel that they are taking too much of my time… they aren’t but I’m guessing that’s playing on their minds anyway.
Here’s the thing, none of this is easy and I’d probably struggle a bit even if I was there. It wasn’t just me trying to help them navigate a simple menu, it was a confusing set-up. The tiny keyboard gave limited buttons that my in-laws struggled with, having to hit the 1/2 button twice for 2 and the 3/4 button twice for the number 4. It’s a complicated 10-digit password on the wifi that is the default set-up. It’s the printer asking for a PIN rather than Wifi Password as the default, with PIN instructions buried somewhere in the tiny font instructions.
It’s not just this printer. I recently spent an hour and half helping my daughter switch to a new iPhone. I couldn’t load a purchased app on my TV to let it screen share easily from our Apple products. I spent about 30 minutes trying to sync two bluetooth speakers that have a ‘friendly’ app to help me.
How is it that in this day and age of connectivity, nothing likes talking to each other and every connection takes so much effort?
Sometimes it’s ok to just go through the motions of a workout. Put your time in and get it done.
Maintenance.
But other times need to be dedicated and focused. Maintenance doesn’t move you forward. Status quo doesn’t invite growth.
Sometimes what needs to be consistent is effort. Sometimes dedication means putting in extra time, extra energy, extra focus.
I guess that I’m not just talking about working out.
I don’t pretend to understand economics, but I’m beyond confused about what’s going on in the world? Countries are printing money like mad, but inflation is in check and so are interest rates.
It’s a seller’s market in real estate and price wars are happening. Family members got over asking price for a condo just north of Toronto. A friend of mine just got $100,000 over asking for a townhouse in Vancouver without inspection/conditions.
I understand why companies like Microsoft and Amazon have highly valued stocks, they have truly benefited from remote working/learning and lockdowns, but why is the whole stock market doing well, while retail companies and restaurants are laying off staff and imploding?
I’ve just tried a couple times to explain these patterns, but deleted each attempt. They are pure speculation on my part.
My fear? An eroding middle class and a world divided between the have’s and the have nots. Is this how it starts? It’s shocking how many people live paycheque to paycheque, and I’m not sure those numbers are getting better? Is this upside down and inflated economy going to last? And if it doesn’t, how will this effect the poor? The middle class?
I hope someone is paying attention and looking to the future, because I don’t think I’m the only one that sees this as a big, puzzling mystery.
A number of years ago, I wrote this:
I am not Tech Savvy! If I had a pair of dimes for every time someone said, ‘Dave, you are good with computers, can you help me with this…” then I could retire early. I’ll explain this with a tangent example: The fact is that I happen to be a very good driver. Put me behind the wheel of a car, even in a snow storm, and I’ll get you to your destination safely. However, don’t ask me to do anything more to the car than put gas or windshield washer fluid in it… maybe check the tire pressure… that’s it! Give me a working computer and I can do pretty good there too! Not because I’m savvy though… just because I spend hours trying things.
Yesterday @AubreyDiOrio tweeted:
PSA
Tech savvy teachers don’t know everything. They just start playing & clicking until they figure it out. Sometimes they google to figure out how do do things. A lot, we reach out to others to test out different ideas.
Just start clicking! You can do hard things!
— Aubrey DiOrio (she/her) (@AubreyDiOrio) August 20, 2020
And I responded:
Whenever someone tells me that I’m ‘tech-savvy’, I disagree with them… I’m just patient and willing to try things without fear of breaking things that can’t be fixed. https://t.co/zKd16pKP6z
— Dᴀᴠɪᴅ Tʀᴜss ∞β (@datruss) August 20, 2020
Then @RobHeinrichs replied to me saying:
Mind set is so important. I believe I can figure it out when it come to tech. I can’t always do it, there is a lot that is beyond my level of knowledge. Many people have that same level of confidence but in different areas. I like to remind them of what they are good at & why.
— 𝗥𝗼𝗯 𝗛𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗵𝘀 (@robheinrichs) August 21, 2020
We are all good at different things that we are also not necessarily experts in. Our mindsets really do matter. Our willingness to be patient, ask questions, and tinker also matter.
When I say I’m not tech savvy, it means that I don’t know how to code or do programming. It means I can’t build a computer without a manual, a dozen YouTube ‘How to’ videos, and phoning a friend. It means that when I see an error, I can only fix it with the help of Google… if I can fix it at all. It means I point people to tech support after I’ve failed to help.
Yet I’m asked tech questions all the time. I’m looked at to solve problems that I don’t know how to solve when I’m asked. But I’m willing to put in the time, research, and energy to figure it out… and I’m not afraid to ask for help myself. That’s not savvy, that’s patience and effort, all dressed up to look like savvy… it’s a fun outfit, and you can wear it too.
We had an incredible holiday planned this summer before COVID-19 hit the world. A trip to Barcelona, a cruise with stops in Spain and Italy, and a week in Portugal. This didn’t happen, but we still had a wonderful summer with BC based destinations. I had my email vacation auto reply set up, and for the first time in years I really ‘let go’ of work.
This week we’ve already had a few virtual meetings and I have one more today and tomorrow, before kicking it into high gear next week. But I have to admit that these meetings, where we are planning for September, have my mind racing as I think about the new school year.
The biggest things in my mind are:
1. For Coquitlam Open Learning – how do we maximize support and appropriately staff for an unknown influx of students?
2. For Inquiry Hub Secondary – how do we maximize the learning experience while focusing on safety, and also considering possible changes in phases?
In the end, much decision-making is out of individual control as our district makes a concerted effort to meet the needs of all learners. But unlike other schools, COL and iHub are different, and need special attention and considerations.
I don’t have answers to many questions yet, but I’m getting more comfortable in not having immediate answers, in living with ambiguity. But as High MacLeod says, “‘Learn to live with ambiguity’, but do not live in it.”
As we get into gear planning the new school year, I’m sure we are bound to find ourselves with more questions than answers. Patience, thoughtful questions, and priorities around care and safety of our students will help us find a good, supportive path for our schools and our learning communities.
