Author Archives: David Truss

Checkout Votemate to learn about the Canadian election

Developed by a former Inquiry Hub student, Votemate.org is a free site to help inform you about the upcoming election:

*(Great non-partisan resource for students!)

I received an update email:

Hello there!

There’s a federal election on September 20, and if that’s news to you, or you’ve just been finding the politicking, debating, and campaigning profoundly uninformative and useless, VoteMate is here to help.

We’ve created a whole new platform comparison pageallowing you to compare the platforms of each party on the issues you care about. It’s customized to you so you can focus on the information you need, and filter out everything you don’t. We’ve also got profiles on many of the candidates running this election! And we’ll be adding more features soon.

Here are the platforms you can compare:

This is fantastic for learning about candidates in your riding as well as comparing platforms and policies.

As mentioned, it’s also a great non-partisan resource to share and discuss with students. They can break into groups according to policies and platforms they care about, they can learn about candidates in their riding. They can use the rating tool 🙂😕🙁 to determine what Party they support based on platforms.

Check out Votemate.org! As I’ve shared before, I believe it is you duty as a citizen to vote… and it’s wise to make an informed choice.

—-

[Oh, and maybe support it too, (either one-time or once-a-month).]

Kids and sports

I don’t know Trevlyn, but she wrote this on Facebook, I re-shared it 4 years ago, and it came up as a FB memory yesterday.

“One of my friends asked “Why do you pay so much money for your kids to do all their sports”? Well I have a confession to make; I don’t pay for my kids to to do sports. Personally, I couldn’t care less about what sport they do.

So, if I am not paying for sports what am I paying for?

– I pay for those moments when my kids become so tired they want to quit but don’t.

– I pay for those days when my kids come home from school and are “too tired” to go to their training but they go anyway.

– I pay for my kids to learn to be disciplined, focused and dedicated.

– I pay for my kids to learn to take care of their body and equipment.

– I pay for my kids to learn to work with others and to be good team mates, gracious in defeat and humble in success.

– I pay for my kids to learn to deal with disappointment, when they don’t get that placing or title they’d hoped for, but still they go back week after week giving it their best shot.

– I pay for my kids to learn to make and accomplish goals.

– I pay for my kids to respect, not only themselves, but other riders, officials and coaches.

– I pay for my kids to learn that it takes hours and hours, years and years of hard work and practice to create a champion and that success does not happen overnight.

– I pay for my kids to be proud of small achievements, and to work towards long term goals.

– I pay for the opportunity my kids have and will have to make life-long friendships, create lifelong memories, to be as proud of their achievements as I am.

– I pay so that my kids can be out on the track instead of in front of a screen…

…I could go on but, to be short, I don’t pay for sports; I pay for the opportunities that sports provides my kids with to develop attributes that will serve them well throughout their lives and give them the opportunity to bless the lives of others. From what I have seen so far I think it is a great investment!” – By Trevlyn Mayo Palframan

As a former coach this really speaks to me. As a parent, I can say that this applies equally to sport as to dance and theatre when it comes to competition, tryouts, and your kid not getting the part they want and still performing at their best.

Putting kids into activities they love is so valuable. So too is them trying a sport and not liking it, but committing to the team anyway. One of my daughters started a sport and a few months in she realized she wasn’t enjoying it. We told her that her team needed her and that she had to finish the season. She kept a positive attitude and gave her best at practices and games. I was as proud of that as I have been of trophies and awards. And she knew in the end that it was the right thing to do.

Sports aren’t just about learning skills in that sport, they are also about learning life skills, and creating memories and friendships that can last a lifetime.

Disengaged from the socials

It has been a slow process, but I’ve really disengaged from interactions on social media. It has become a one-way transmission tool for my daily blog, and not much else. Well, other than 30 minutes of TikTok that I watch instead of TV, but that’s entertainment rather than engagement. My only social media comments tend to be responses made to my posts about my blog.

I think the disengagement started with US political news dominating everything a few years back. I got fed up watching post after post that had no real connection to me as a Canadian, but still angered and upset me. I got tired of the childish anger and upset. Then came the pandemic, and more (digital) yelling and screaming about how to handle it… with healthy doses of ignorance and bickering about the science. But this fighting isn’t between professionals and real experts, it’s between doctors/scientists and ‘armchair experts’ that demonstrates how expert they are at spewing stupidity and ignorance.

Between politics and pandemic, I’m really done engaging on social media much. That said, these topics still reach me, and I still find myself talking about them here on my blog. Now there is a Canadian election, but I tend not to discuss who I’m voting for and why. Instead, I prefer to focus on encouraging people to get out and vote. I think it’s our duty as citizens to exercise our right to vote, and even want to see tax related fines for those that don’t.

I might be disengaged from social media. I may not like the news that I see. But I believe we should all be appreciative and respectful of living in a democracy, and that we should participate in a democracy if we want to keep it. If we value having a voice, we should use it in a vote… before worrying about what that voice should be saying on social media.

First Day of School

I’m genuinely excited about the year ahead. I know things are far from ‘back to normal’. I know safety is still a primary concern, and we’ll be wearing masks for quite some time yet. I know there will be unexpected challenges that come our way…

But the first day of a school year always holds so much promise! There is so much potential for us to do awesome things, and to watch our students shine. It’s an opportunity to look forward knowing that as educators we make a difference in people’s lives.

“With great responsibility comes great power”… that’s the reverse of the Spiderman quote, “With great power comes great responsibility”, and a teacher, John Sarte at Inquiry Hub, uses this to explain to students that while we give them a lot of time to work independently (a lot of responsibility) that comes with a lot of power. This is something that teachers understand, because they are given the great responsibility to teach, and they have tremendous power over what that experience looks like.

And collectively we have so much power over what the year ahead looks like… Let’s keep our optimism up, and make this school year exciting, engaging, and full of meaningful learning for everyone (teachers and students alike).

Mind occupied

Yes, it’s the long weekend before school starts, and I should be resting up for what promises to be a challenging year… but I’m not able to let my thoughts of the days to come out of my mind. I’ll be going into work today, and making sure that everything I need to do the first couple days goes seamlessly. I know there will be distractions. I know there will be a lot of conversations and connections that will take time. I know that there are new members to the team that I’ll need to support, and that need to know how easy it is to get support. And ultimately, I know that no amount of planning will make the coming days go exactly as planned.

That’s why I’m going in today. I want the students first visit to the school this year to be something that makes them feel welcome. I want my first staff meeting to demonstrate that I was prepared and ready to support my staff. I want to be ready in such a way that when unexpected interruptions to my plans happen, things can still go smoothly.

I could sit at home and think about work all day today and tomorrow, or I can go to work, fell like I’ve fully prepared myself, then take tomorrow completely off. If my mind is going to be occupied with work, I might as well use my time effectively.

Keeping the IKEA streak alive

It’s not a streak to brag about. Every time I build IKEA furniture I do something wrong. Tonight I put a piece on backwards and taking it off took much longer than putting it on. Added to that, a cheap plastic fastener that holds one of the shelves together broke, and another trip to IKEA will need to happen. Fortunately, I had a lot of good help from my daughter and wife, and it was my wife that caught the mistake before I went to far ahead.

https://twitter.com/datruss/status/1434409327616421889?s=21

That may not be a steak that I’m too proud of, but here I am at midnight making sure that my steak of daily blogging stays in tact… something positive to go to bed thinking about. I hope to break the bad IKEA streak soon, but keep my Daily Ink streak going!

Lesson not learned

In February I broke my bow. I carelessly shot it without an arrow in it. When you dry shoot a compound bow, the force that usually goes to push the arrow forward ends up reverberating up the strings and the cams get the full brunt of the force. It sounds like a gunshot as the string gets stretched to great tension and breaks. I know this sound well because yesterday I heard it (and felt it) again.

Two days ago I planned to shoot after work. I had a dental cleaning then went back to shoot in my empty gym. But when I got back to work I kept working until almost 7pm and got too hungry to stay and shoot. At my dental cleaning I found out I had lost a small filling and was able to book another appointment yesterday.

So yesterday before my late appointment, I got my ‘to do’ list done at work and raced to squeeze in some archery before the appointment. I was going to have to rush to get a scoring round in. Rushing was a bad idea. I didn’t do my ritual setup when I took the bow out of the case. So I got to the shooting line and realized that I had not adjusted my sight scope, something usual done well before this point.

Instead of stepping away from the shooting line, to do my setup, I stood there and made the adjustment. At this point my usual shooting procedure was completely broken. I made the adjustment, then fired my bow, in the rush I was in, to get a scoring round in.

Bang, ow. I instantly knew my mistake.

I’ll go to the archery store this weekend to see if my bow cams are salvageable or not. If they aren’t, I know the lower cam is not available to be replaced… it’s the same brand and model as my old bow, not made anymore. If I have to buy a new bow, I’ll be sure to buy one that has been dry shot tested, some of the newer bows don’t explode when you make this mistake.

Both times I did this, I was in a rush and careless. Both times I have reminded myself that I’m still a rookie. But most archers don’t make this mistake, and even less make it twice. It’s an expensive lesson that I hope I have finally learned.

A quick thought on the new school year

For a large number of us the new school year brings excitement and possibilities. There is so much potential in a new school year, so many future opportunities to learn and grow.

It’s just good to remember that this is also a time of great anxiety and nervousness for some students. It’s a time of unknowns, and unfamiliarity, and fear.

It’s easy to get lost in the enthusiasm of students who are excited, and while this is wonderful and fully encouraged… remember that someone hesitant to join in an activity isn’t necessarily being difficult or noncompliant. Sometimes just coming to school is all the effort they can give.

We don’t always know what a kid is capable of, or what a kid needs, until we get to know the kid. And for some kids, it takes a while to get there… time they deserve to be given. A school year is a marathon rather than a sprint. Let’s make sure we give the slow starters the time, encouragement, care, and support they need to get to the finish line. Because it isn’t just getting to the finish line that’s important, it’s the journey there that really matters.

Living in the ‘Information’ Age

Like this funny TikTok suggests,we are living at a time when we have access to so much information… and that’s the problem.


I am dumbfounded by the news that people are self-medicating using a drug to treat livestock for parasites in order to ‘prevent’ or ‘cure’ themselves from covid-19… despite this being dangerous.

This is just batshit crazy. There is a large population of people that won’t take the vaccine because they don’t know what’s in it. Vaccines have been around since 1796, and have saved countless lives. Vaccines are proving that they are working, with drastic differences in Covid-19 hospitalization and deaths between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. The stats are so easy to see…

But these people will follow the advice of crackpots on Facebook and take a medicine designed for large livestock animals in unknown doses. These people are the same people that call anyone who gets the vaccine a sheep. Let that thought sink in.

These are people who get their information from that one crackpot doctor who knows more than every conventional doctor. They know someone, who knows someone, that this worked for. They know the government is out to get them, to strip them of their rights and freedoms and control them. And they skip by the articles on their crackpot pseudoscience news websites about chemtrails and alien created crop circles to get to the anti-vaccine ‘science’… not realizing that most people don’t get their facts from places where they have to choose their own conspiracy adventure.

We live in a world of easy access to too much information and miss-information, which feeds anyone’s beliefs. Information isn’t neutral… facts aren’t evenly distributed. I think that critical thinking might just be the most important skill of this century. Our biggest job in schools these days might just be developing kid’s bullshit detectors… before they start taking medication designed for bulls.

Feed your focus

In my morning meditation’s lesson, as part of the Calm App‘s daily 10 minute meditation, this quote was shared:

“Starve of your distractions, feed your focus.” – Daniel Goleman.

This is a wonderful quote, but it is easier said than done. It’s challenging because our distractions often bring us joy or at the very least, entertainment. But this goes well with the idea that, ‘Your priorities are not your priority‘. What is your focus? If your focus is just getting work done, or completing a series of tasks, that’s not really something to focus on. It’s analogous to having many priorities, which in turn is not a priority.

What’s your focus? What do you want to accomplish? If you find that thing that drives you, that makes you want to wake up earlier in the day to achieve or that you will stay up late trying to finish. If you find that kind of focus, well then it’s easy to feed. It’s then easier to starve your distractions… or at least limit them.

Things that I do:

• A morning healthy living routine to feel a sense of accomplishment before I start my day.

• Time limits on apps that I enjoy, and that entertain me. (This way I can still get some joy out of distractions, but the time spent on them fit within a threshold that doesn’t suck my time away mindlessly.)

• Calendar time to do the thing I really want to get done, and not just the things I have to do.

All that said, I still go through times when I seem to lack focus, or forget what I truly want to focus on. I still have bouts of procrastination and distraction. There are times when I have to intentionally starve my distractions. But in combining teo ideas, if I choose a single priority that I want to accomplish, and I also feed my focus on that priority… I get stuff done, and it feels amazing.