Author Archives: David Truss

Special events

Last night we had our first real ‘live’ event at the school in years. Last week we did our grad in a local theatre, but yesterday’s event was in our own building. We invited our incoming parents and students to an information session, then we had an outdoor BBQ for them and our PAC, followed by our PAC meeting.

While the PAC meeting went on, a group of our current grade 9’s continued the tour and did activities with our new students. Being a very small school, and having students come from across the district, some students are coming to us knowing at most 3 other students, and in some cases like from out of district, they might not know anyone else. An event like this helps calm the nerves for attending in September.

Before the event, our Grade 9’s were so excited that I thought they might scare away the first few kids that arrived. They were thrilled to be running an event like this. But they settled down and were awesome ambassadors to the school. I loved their presentation to the students and parents. It covered our schedule, the kind of courses we have, the culture of the school, activities, and more than a couple laughs.

After 2 years of feeling very locked down, this event was uplifting. It reminded me of the big events we used to run, like our open house that would host over 200 people, and our all-day event for new students. Next year I look forward to our iHub Talks where we bring in guests and have presentations for students and parents, and hosting an inquiry showcase where all our students present their projects to parents and families.

What’s really unique about these experiences are how much our students do to organize the day. Today our school will be given over to students who are running a LARP – a Live Action Role Play. Student organizers have developed the entire storyline, and have fully planned the day. This is a fabulous way to end the school year, and I’m really excited about what next year will bring.

March to your own beat

I love meeting kids who ‘march to the beat of their own drum’. Not just the kid who dresses quirky, or acts like they don’t care… the kid who knows, ‘I’m different and I don’t care’. The kid that doesn’t know any other kid with the same interests and will still pursue those interests with a full commitment.

Most kids aren’t like that. They worry about what their friends will think. They want the same cloths as their peers, or at least the same style, even if they want their outfit to be original. They want to watch the same shows, like the same music, and have the same interests.

I’m talking about those kids that don’t have a care in the world that they are different, not because of an effort to be different, but rather simply by nature. Kids that think, ‘I know others think this is weird, oh well, I like it’. These kids have a confidence about them that they seem too young to have. They don’t put on a persona that they are something they are not. They don’t try to blend in. These kids aren’t opposed to fitting in, they just don’t care if they don’t.

Do you know a kid like this? Spend time with them. They don’t have the pretences of most teens, or most adults, and that carefree attitude that may seem aloof, or even cocky, is actually a strength that we should foster and appreciate. They will find their way, and their way will be different than most… and not only is that ok, it’s something to be encouraged.

Let down

Yesterday I made a decision not to run an online blended program we’ve run for 6 years. It’s a great course but we couldn’t get the attendance to fill it enough the last couple years. The course required the work of a not-for-profit organization organizing community presentations, and they too struggled with supporting our course with such low numbers.

It’s such a let down to take away something good from our roster of courses we offer. It feels worse because I think I could have done more to promote the course and get more students interested. But sometimes it’s important to recognize what your own personal limits are and not chase after something that requires too much work and energy. Schools already offer a version of this class and it’s hard to promote students taking an online and blended class where students need to go to another school to meet. The struggle to get students interested and enrolled was just too high.

And yet I feel disappointed. I feel I’ve let down people. I feel that I’m the reason we failed to fill the course. I think out of everyone, I let down myself the most. On the one hand I absolutely know I could have done more. On the other hand I feel like this wasn’t a year that I could have put more into anything. This doesn’t soften the disappointment much, but it reminds me that I’m better off giving less things 100% effort than spreading myself thin and giving everything 75% or less.

That’s the lesson, but it still stings.

Early morning silence

There is a special kind of quiet in waking up before the birds start chirping. A stillness. My cat knows it’s too early for me to let him out, and he nestles into my lap. The leaves outside are motionless. Even the air feels still, though not stale.

It reminds me of being at a cottage in Ontario. I can imagine the glass-smooth reflection of the water, the quiet of an open, still space. The crispness of the morning air.

It’s like my mind is taking still photographs, witnessing frame after frame, rather than a continuity of time. The silence is the space between the shots.

Silence is the space in between. In between the night and morning. In between the sound of my fingers typing letters. In between sounds of any kind. Silence is a comfortable solitude. Early morning silence is not lonely, it’s comfortable. Silence keeps me company.

There is no better way to start the day, than with early morning silence.

Dialogue in fiction

I think the hardest thing to write is fictional conversation. I’m reading (listening to) a book right now that I won’t name. It’s a science fiction and it’s good but not great. The biggest issue is, this writer is a nerdy guy who thinks everyone talks like him and has the same sense of humour… The almost sarcasm that so trite that it needs to be ‘almost’ sarcasm because it just doesn’t have enough bite. It’s predictable, and bland, and every character delivers it in the same way.

It’s really hard to pull off good dialogue in text, and especially good humorous banter. There are certain TV shows that I think have done this well. ‘Suits’ is one of those shows. The two main characters go at each other and they take turns getting the better of each other. The book I’m reading now is so cliché… insert eye-roll here, insert hands on hips there, add a little finger wave, and even “Na-nuh-na-nuh-na-na” (and this last phrase was written by a previous version of the main character in a message to his future Android self). Seriously, the dialogue couldn’t get any more cliché!

That said, I recognize how tough this is. It’s hard to imagine being funny in a way that isn’t your own. I don’t think I’d be able to pull that off. Creating multiple characters that have depth would not be easy. And while it’s easy to read a book and know when characters and dialogue are written well versus poorly, I recognize how hard it is as a writer to be good at this.

I’ll finish the first book in the series, but I’m not sure I’ll make it to book two. Not because the story isn’t good enough, but because the dialogue is a bit too much for me to want to continue listening.

AI generated art: DALL•E

I finally got my invite to use this amazing tool:

You’re invited to create with DALL·E

The wait is over, your invite has arrived! We can’t wait to see what you create.

My first request:

A water colour sunset on a beach with palm trees

This is what DALL•E came up with:

Next request:

A photo realistic image of a chimpanzee with the body of a turtle

Next try. This one wasn’t as accurate:

An oil painting of a man wearing a purple space suit in space with a space ship and a planet behind him

Asking it to paint a painting by a known artist:

A Dali styled painting of people at a party

Playing with a few more:

A pastel drawing of a dreamy world filled with Platonic solids

Pixel art of a surfer on a massive wave

An abstract painting of a watermelon planet

There were a few attempts that I didn’t share, just because they were not very interesting or missed the mark and I didn’t want to retry. Next I tried uploading a few photos, and these were generated:

The bottom left looks like a mix of me and Jerry Seinfeld. 🤣

The original of this next one has the sun as well, it’s just hidden by the ‘original’ banner:

Next I uploaded a doodle:

I think I’m going to enjoy using this tool. It’s hard to believe that each of these renderings are created by artificial intelligence, and that in a few seconds five or six different versions of your request are created. Here is one more that I really liked:

A 3D rendering of a man escaping from a colourful vortex

I think I’ll be using this tool to create some of the images I add to my blog from now on.

Inner voices

Have you ever wondered about that inner voice you hear? Who is speaking? And who is the voice speaking to?

Is the voice lifting you up or pushing you down?

Is the voice helping you make decisions or making your decisions difficult?

Is the voice convincing you to take action or has it convinced you not to?

There are times the voice listens to your body, telling you of hunger, thirst, or need of sleep. There are other times when it listens to your mind, telling you to question, to learn, to problem solve. These are times when the inner voice makes sense, it is a collaborator, an ally. There is congruence.

And then there are times it negotiates with you, telling you reasons you should or should not do something… it is indecisive or in conflict with your instincts. At these moments I wonder who is talking to who? When the scales tips and the decision is made, whose decision was it? Where does the incongruence come from?

Is there a path we can travel where we live in full congruence with ourselves? Can we find a path where our inner voice always acts in our best interest? Where we do not argue with ourselves? Is this a path worth seeking, or are we indecisive by nature and require internal conflict?

What does your inner voice think when it hears this question: Can our internal voice be harmonious?

Is that a realistic goal or an unrealistic expectation?

2 weeks left

This was part of a text conversation I had with a colleague a couple days ago:

Colleague: “… Generally speaking i feel so out of touch. Need some rest this summer I think.”

Me: “Me too! It’s like we are all in pandemic mode AND we have to do ‘normal’ mode on top of that… it doesn’t feel like a shift, it feels like yet another ‘add-on’. I feel like June started 5 weeks ago.”

Colleague: “Oh man – that’s exactly right.”

The two craziest months to be an educator are September and June. Some people (not in education) will ask, “Are thinks winding down as you head into summer?” They don’t realize that there are so many activities to organize, and that we don’t just coast into July. But this year has really been different. I feel like June mode started in the second week of May.

I’m used to sustaining this pace for 4-5 weeks but I’ve been going at it for 6 weeks already and my body is signalling that it’s time to crash for the summer. Right now 2 more weeks feels like an eternity… and simultaneously like not enough time to get everything done.

In the end, I will get everything done. Some things will get pushed to July, and that’s ok. But I’m going to be reflecting on how and why June mode started so early this year, and figure out how to shorten it next year, because I don’t want another year to end like this.

Two weeks. I’m not usually a count-down-the-days kind of person, but this year I think I’ll make an exception.

Kids will rise

We held iHub Annual last night. It’s our combined grad and award ceremony. Being a small school, we combined these two things so that our grads would have a larger audience. We’ve grown a bit and this year we decided that our grad families would be the only ones invited to watch live, and we hosted YouTube Live video show as well for the rest of our students and families.

Overall the event ran very well. I’m so often impressed by the students who run these shows in the background, the presenters, and the performers. There’s a certain feel these shows have when they are student run. Kids aren’t perfect, but the step up, they rise up to the occasion… and frankly, they often do so better than the adults. Case in point, I had the biggest flub of the night, not any of the kids.

One of the things about our award ceremony that I like is that we focus the awards on how students contribute to the community. Using our motto of ‘Dream, Create, Learn’ we title the awards under those words, looking at: how students Dream up ways to make the school and world a better place; how students Create outstanding projects; and, how they demonstrate their Learning.

Looking at a school with just 81 students, it’s great that we had 24 of them nominated for awards. Seeing the kinds of things they do in school is nothing short of amazing. These kids really put efforts into their projects and their passions. They are all on journeys to do great work and share their accomplishments.

This isn’t a school where kids spend all day following their teacher’s assignments and handing in work that looks like everyone else’s work. This is a school where students get to explore interesting self-chosen projects, and the results show that this is what’s valued at our school.

I was originally against the idea of holding an award ceremony. They are often just about highlighting the already successful kids that get recognized by their marks, and everyone knows who will get an award. But last night, and at our previous award events, there were students mentioned that normally wouldn’t be recognized in a traditional award ceremony. Students who have been given the freedom to explore their interests and students who step up to make the school great… even if they don’t shine academically.

By showcasing that contributions to our community matter we get kids wanting to contribute to our community. By sharing how important that is to us, other students see that we value it, and they too rise up.

I was worried that after 2 years of pandemic mode, and keeping kids separate in individual classes, that we’d lost the community feel of the school. But a couple weeks ago we had a cross-grade project that all our students participated in. Then last night seeing the students work together to run the event, and seeing the student projects shared, and the performers giving their all, I realized that we still have a strong community. And, our students are still stepping up and contributing to be creative and do good work.

If you create the time, space, and expectation for students to be creative and do great work, they will. I can’t wait to see what’s possible next year, when things go further back to normal. I suspect that next year the kinds of things we’ll see from our students will be far from normal… they will be exceptional.

Back to (almost) normal

Tonight, at the Inquiry Hub grad, will be the first time in a few years where I’m going to be talking to a live audience larger than a classroom. This is just another example of things going back to normal… except in 2019, when I spoke it was to an audience of most of the students and parents from our school. This year we only invited the grads and their parents, not the whole community.

The reason for the bigger audience in 2019 is that our grad isn’t just a grad, it’s an annual celebration with awards and we used to invite everyone. But the school was smaller and in 2020 we were planning to move to a bigger venue before the pandemic cancelled the big event. For 2022, after 2 years of grads crossing the stage individually with just their family in the audience, we chose this year to host only the grads at this event and to stream the event live for everyone else.

This is probably something we’ll do from now on. Times change. Traditions change. What’s ‘normal’ changes. That’s the theme of my speech, that normal changes, and this could be a good thing. We don’t have to go back to what used to be pre-pandemic. We can change things up, make things better, blend old and new.

When my family moved to China it was a major culture shock. Things changed for us drastically, and we adapted. When we returned from China, that was a really stressful point in my marriage. My wife and I fell back into old habits, but we weren’t the same people anymore. It was a major adjustment and a lot of work to create a new connection and relationship that wasn’t just the version from two years previous.

This is an exciting time to be living in, we’ve just had a very foreign two year experience, and now we’ve got to decide what do we keep from the pre-pandemic experience, and what do we change, for the better, thanks to living through the pandemic experience?

What’s the new normal that’s better than the old normal?