Author Archives: David Truss

Lack of integration not information

We have access to more information than we could ever use. The sum of knowledge available to us is far beyond anyone’s comprehension. Creativity and ingenuity do not come from more knowledge but rather two kinds of integration:

1. Integration of understanding.

There is a difference between understanding how an ocean wave works, and knowing when to catch a wave when surfing or body surfing. There is a difference between studying covalent bonds and understanding how two chemicals will interact.

2. Integration of fields of study.

A mathematician who sees poetry in a series or pattern of numbers. An engineer who sees an ant nest and wonders what they can learn about airflow in buildings.

In this day and age, lack of information is seldom the problem, but lack of integration is.

For schools, integration means getting out of subject silos, and thinking about cross-curricular projects. STEM and STEAM education, and trying to solve hard problems without a single correct answer. Integration of curriculum, inquiry learning, iterations, and learning through failure by hitting roadblocks that require out-of-the-box thinking and solutions.

Integration comes from challenging experiences that require base knowledge in more than one field. So, while knowledge and information are necessary, information is not sufficient without integration of ideas from other subjects and fields. The learning really begins where subjects and concepts intersect… and where learning across different fields is meaningfully integrated.

A Quote on Judgement

“We judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions.”

I saw this quote and wondered who said it? I was lead by my search to Stephen Covey, “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.”

This made me think about all the things I have the good intention to say and to do, but I don’t follow through. Looking at this from the outside, there is no action, just unrealized intention. For example, I wanted to show my appreciation or write a thank you card, but never got around to it; good intentions, but to anyone else, no action. In fact, lack of action could actually be judged as lack of appreciation. My intentions were good but…

We very often don’t know another person’s intentions. We judge their behaviours and actions (or lack there of) and assume their intentions. And we know our intentions and don’t always see that our actions don’t represent what those intentions are.

This quote is a reminder not just to think about what another person’s intentions are, but also for us to think about how our actions truly represent our behaviours and actions to others. Are we living a congruent life where are actions demonstrate our intentions? Because good intentions are not enough if we aren’t expressing them.

Broke the mold

I enjoyed television until a couple shows broke the mold. Then, many shows disappointed me because they became too predictable. The shows that changed the watching experience for me were Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. Both of these had me bought in, made me a fan, gave me characters I really enjoyed… then killed them off!

At first this was hard to accept. But then suddenly the show got better. At any moment a favourite cast member could be killed off.

I grew up on Scooby Doo, The Lone Ranger, Magnum PI, The 6 Million Dollar Man, The Rockford Files, Starsky & Hutch Charlie’s Angels, Chips, Hawaii 5-0, The A-Team, the cartoon version of Spiderman, and many more shows that had similar formulas… the good guys always win in the end, and no matter how perilous, the star characters always survived.

As soon as this mold was broken, these shows, and the many series that followed them, seemed terribly simplistic. I mean, they were simplistic before these shows changed the formula, but having gone through the experience of a series with characters that could die at any moment, the old drama/suspense/mystery formula just ceased to be enjoyable.

In July I got into listening to a novel series called ‘The Grey Man’ by Mark Greaney. The Grey Man is a former spy who is a hired mercenary who only hunts bad guys, but is also targeted by the CIA, and his former colleagues.

I was really excited to see that a movie version came out, but it was painfully bad. I know that movies have to take liberties when moving from text to screen, but this movie had the Gray Man do many things that undermined his character. He didn’t work alone. He chose a dangerous hand-to-hand Hollywood ending battle over an easy kill. Essentially, for the sake of a few dramatic scenes, they ignored his true character and put him into the hero mold that most movies have… but it is precisely because he didn’t fit that mold that I and many others liked this character.

I really don’t watch a lot of TV, but when I do I don’t want to see the same boring formula that has been used for years. I want to watch shows where the mold has been broken, and the story isn’t watered down to fit a cliche formula that no longer appeals to me… not that it ever really did, it’s just what was available.

Listen up

I’m currently listening to two books and a long form podcast, and when I have down time I tend to be listening to one of these. Watering the garden, having a hot tub, doing the dishes, walking, riding my exercise bike, each of these are done with headphones on.

I rarely read anymore, I listen. Sometimes it’s hard to pay attention, but I actually found reading harder. First of all I’m a painfully slow reader. And secondly, the slow pace makes me more susceptible to being distracted. I would often read a book and then realize I wasn’t absorbing what I was reading. After catching myself being distracted, I could often look back 3-4 paragraphs, or even a couple pages, and not remember reading any of it. While I can be distracted listening, it’s usually only when the task I’m doing requires me to think a bit, like when I’m driving.

The first year that I started listening to books rather than reading them I went from reading 3 books in a year to listening to 26. This year I’ll likely surpass 30. Looking at my Audible stats, I listened to an average of over 3.5 hours a day in July.

Since downloading Audible, I’ve listened for over 2 months, (over 1,400 hours). There is no way that I would have read for a third of that long in the same amount of time!

And that’s just my books, not podcasts, which I listen to for a few hours each month. I don’t watch tv, other than an occasional series with my wife, and I don’t follow sports. I listen. Summer was all about fiction, now I’m getting back into books that I learn from. I find fiction too much of a distraction during the school year. When I listen to books I learn from, I get more value out of reading and out of work. But if I get a good novel recommendation, I occasionally switch up and treat it the same way someone else would treat a movie.

Audio books have transformed they way I consume books… I read them with my ears.

The Value of Critical Feedback

It’s so important to have friends and colleagues who can give you critical feedback. Yesterday I did a presentation to all of our students on the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. This was not an overview but just an introduction to the book with a personal story that demonstrated how the book influenced me in a positive way. Over the next few weeks I plan on sharing around 10 two-minute videos to help students develop and integrate one positive habit at school, using the strategies in the book.

After my presentation one of my teachers said, “Really good presentation, do you want some critical feedback?” I replied positively and she shared it with me.

I was sharing a slide about my fitness journey and tracking my workouts, and in my first year of tracking I also tracked intermittent fasting. It wasn’t part of my original plan, but I ended up talking for a bit about this too, and how it really doesn’t do much for you other than reducing calorie intake, but that it did reduce my after dinner snacking and helped me lose some unwanted weight.

This was what I got feedback on. My colleague told me that this part of the presentation wasn’t needed, and that for some of our students weight and weight loss as a topic as could be very triggering.

This was a great point! As I reflected on what I said, I not only agreed with my colleague’s feedback, I recognized how a fairly fit, pretty skinny guy talking about weight loss was insensitive… and again, wasn’t even necessary to make my point. It was easy for me to acknowledge this, see the value in receiving this feedback, and be thankful for receiving it.

This feedback will help me be a little more sensitive and thoughtful in my upcoming videos and in future presentations. I really appreciate working in an environment where my colleagues feel comfortable giving me feedback like this. Critical feedback is essential for growth, and while it can be hard to hear that my presentation might have been insensitive to some, it’s far better to know this than to be ignorant of it.

We also work hard to create an environment where our students can give each other critical feedback, and I know that this is far more likely to happen if adults in the building are also open to giving and receiving it amongst each other. Our students see their peers give a lot of presentations, and they have been getting better and better at giving good feedback, but it can still be challenging for them both giving and receiving critical feedback. The important thing is to make sure the culture is to make critical feedback constructive, even if poignant. What value does the critical feedback provide? If this is kept in mind, then the feedback can be far more helpful than just positive praise and platitudes.

But the relationship is dependent on both the giver and receiver understanding the positive intent of critical feedback. In my example above, I could clearly see my error and appreciate the feedback. That doesn’t always happen with critical feedback, and so when the feedback is not as well received, or not as obvious, that’s when it’s important to have a culture of acceptance and openness to feedback. If the culture is there, then it’s just feedback. When the culture is missing, critical feedback can be demotivating, or even hurtful.

Packaged well, in the right environment, critical feedback is a fantastic way to help adults and students alike learn and grow. It turns challenges and failures into opportunities to improve… and even the process itself holds tremendous value because giving critical feedback well is a communication skill everyone can value learning.

Big lessons from little ones

We can learn a lot from being around small kids:

• The delight and joy they find in the smallest of things.

• The ability to adapt rules to find greater joy in a game.

• The freedom to use a toy or a tool in an unintended and imaginative way.

• The way they can be completely honest without malice, shame, or ill intent.

• The comfort that they feel with their bodies and their appearance.

• The easy way in which they share love and affection with people they care about.

• The curiosity and desire to know, to understand, and to question.

It’s a shame that as adults we have let some of these little life lessons slip away.

Updating my profile picture

When you live it, you don’t see it. Maybe you feel it… we are all getting older. I had my photo taken for work recently and realized that I look quite a bit different from my online profile pictures I have been using.

The one on the left is not from too long ago (2018 or 2019), but long enough that I’m no longer that guy. More grey, higher hairline, a few deeper lines. These things are beyond my control.

What is within my control is that I’m fitter than that guy. He had about 15 unwanted pounds on him and yet weighed less than I do now. I’ve lost the unhealthy weight and added muscle.

I can’t stop time, and my face will show my age in the coming decade much more than it did in the past decade. I accept that. But I’m working on being Younger Next Year, and slowing down the ravages of time on my physical and mental health. Part of that is not pretending I’m something that I’m not… so a new profile picture is something I plan to do a bit more frequently than every 3-4 years.

Wait for it

Anticipation is a funny thing. When you look forward to something that you are excited about, the anticipation can work in your favour or against you. It can be a big part of the event, the buildup actually becomes part of the experience. It can be more fun than the actual event, like planning a surprise party for someone else where the organizing and conspiring brings great joy. It could also ruin the event when expectations exceed outcomes.

I have never been someone that gets overly excited in anticipation, and so it always fascinates me to see others build up anticipation. When my kids were young, I used to fake anticipation to play along with theirs. I didn’t want my lack of anticipation to be something that took away their joy in looking forward to an event.

I remember when we lived in China, my wife and her sister planned to surprise our kids on a visit to Thailand. My sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and their two kids were going to meet us in Chang Mai, and our kids didn’t know. The day came after a lot of excited planning and we went to a night market knowing they would be there too. The surprise was amazing. It was a wonderful reunion!

After the holiday we were flying home and one of my daughters said, “I wish that I knew they were coming so that I could have been excited longer.” I wasn’t expecting to hear this. Upon reflection of the surprise, she thought it would have been more fun to know in advance and be thrilled in the knowing. It wasn’t like she was sad, she really loved the time together, she just wished the knowing and anticipatory waiting was part of the event rather than the surprise.

That little conversation helped me appreciate the value of anticipation more. It helped me see that if you don’t build it up too much anticipation could be part of the fun. They say good things come to those who wait, but maybe sometimes the wait itself is a good thing.

Starting a new school year

As a kid I didn’t enjoy the first days of the school year. I feared getting into a class without any of my small group of friends, and then even if we got in the same class, the seating plan would separate us. I worried about who my teachers would be and if I’d like them.

Once in class with all my updated supplies, I always found it hard to start writing in a new workbook.

Even after writing my name and the subject on the cover that first blank page was daunting. My first words written were not the start of a new adventure, but rather the destruction of something perfect… and the start of a lot of work ahead that I wasn’t very excited about.

Now as an adult, I get excited about the metaphorical ‘blank page’ that the new school year brings. The year ahead has no blemishes, only an open book to be written in. The empty pages hold so much promise. The adventure ahead is real, unknown, and unrealized.

The year holds potential, it has promise, and it sits before us, students and educators alike, waiting for us to seize it. There are some nerves, even a little apprehension, but the open book is there before us and it is exciting… we just have to get the first few words out of the way.

Animal instincts

Sometimes I remind myself that we are all animals. We come from a heritage of nonverbal primates, some of whom were more like orangutans and chimpanzees than modern man. I remind myself this when we are tribal; when we fight over land; and when we are cruel and violent towards each other.

Our frontal lobes are bigger, we have the power of speech, but we are still animals. Posturing, aggression, and violence are tools rooted in our DNA as mechanisms to protect us and our community from outside threats.

I remind myself of this when I wonder how we still fight to protect borders, made up lines on a map to mark the territories of different groups of us. I remind myself of this when men are violent towards women. I remind myself of this when we hoard resources while others are left without. This is not humanity at its finest, this is humans as apex predators with an alpha male dominance hierarchy.

If this wasn’t the case, the world would be more peaceful, more equitable, and less damaged. These are things we must strive for, despite our animal instincts.