Author Archives: David Truss

New achievement unlocked

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In my second year as a teacher, I got to work with Mrs. B, who taught my French class and co-taught PE with me. She was a gymnastics coach and she taught me how to do a muscle-up on the rings. For the next couple years I was the demo guy for this every time the gymnastics unit rolled around. I think the rings muscle-up is easier than doing it on a bar, because on the rings you can keep the rings close to your body, where you have more strength. Think of pulling yourself out of a pool with arms wide on the deck versus just in front of you, close to your body where you have more leverage.

Fast forward almost 25 years and add over 20 pounds to my body and I haven’t tried a muscle up since… and have never in my life tried to do one on a pull up bar.

That changed today.

I unlocked a new achievement. I attempted and successfully achieved a muscle up for the first time ever on a pull up bar. My warm up was some pull-up shrugs, followed by about 5 really high pull-ups. Then I went above the bar and lowered myself down from the top position of a muscle up a couple times. Then I went for it.

I also recorded this first attempt, not because I thought I’d make it, but rather to provide myself feedback to correct any errors. The video is a bit funny to me because I look like I’m in pain even before I started the muscle up. I was visualizing the move, thinking about using my back muscles, and I look anguished rather than focused. 

After my surprise success, I did it a couple more times. The first time I thought I’d try two in a row. I did the first one and didn’t even get close to a full pull-up on the second. Then took a long break and watched the video a few times.

My third attempt was the cleanest, then I stayed on the bar and followed up with 10 pull-ups as high as I could go, which was very high for the first few, degenerating to a struggle to get my chin barely over the bar on the last one.

Still, I couldn’t be happier with the results. I was expecting this to take me a month to six weeks to achieve and I hit it on day one! My new goals will be to be able to do more than one in a row and eventually to be able to do one without swinging my body. But for now I’m going to celebrate the win. My workouts have definitely been building my strength, and I think it’s pretty awesome that this 58 year old body was able to pull this off on my very first attempt.

Who will get us there?

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Stephen Downes shared the following on LinkedIn:

“I was asked, “Please provide a brief abstract that summarises your views on the impact of AI on higher education.”

As far more than the language models that have captured the attention of the world over the last few years, artificial intelligence (AI) represents a significant increase in human capability, augmenting and sometimes exceeding our natural capacities to perceive, reason, create and remember. Ubiquitous access to these capabilities changes the definition of what it means to learn and to be educated. Skills once reserved to the domain of experts are now in the hands of everyday people, while most every discipline is devising new models, methods and pragmatics of work alongside, or teaming with, these new tools. This challenges educators along a number of fronts, impacting how they teach, what they teach, and even what it means to teach. Today’s educator in a world of AI is responsible for far more than passing along knowledge (indeed, the machine can do most of that). We will be responsible for challenging students both young and old to find new ways of seeing and creating, leading them through demonstration of dedication, resilience and passion, and modeling for them the best values of civil and social responsibility, contribution and care.

Thoughts?” ~ Stephen Downes

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Although my thoughts align with K-12 education as well as higher education, these thoughts come to me in the form of a question:

Who is going to get us there?

Who is the ‘We’ that Stephen is talking about when he says, “We will be responsible for challenging students both young and old to find new ways of seeing and creating, leading them through demonstration of dedication, resilience and passion, and modeling for them the best values of civil and social responsibility, contribution and care”?

Because I love this vision of what teaching can become, I just don’t see a clear path to take us there.

‘We’ won’t get there following the guidance of financially lucrative edu-tech business, products, and tools… their locked-in subscriptions will tout measures of success that don’t align with this vision, even when they say that they will.

‘We’ won’t get there like we did with Web2.0 tools in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, on the backs of tech savvy educators leading the charge.

‘We’ won’t get there because of some governmental vision pushing a new AI enhanced curriculum, or even new guidelines that somehow redefine for teachers, “how they teach, what they teach, and even what it means to teach”.

I hope I’m not coming off as a pessimist. I’m excited about what’s possible. I just fear that ‘we’ aren’t going to get ‘there’ any time soon unless ‘We’ align philosophy, policy, and economic support for the transformation of schools into something different.

Short of that, I fear that ‘We’ will be having the same ‘20th century schools in a 21st century world’ conversation in another 10 years… which I’ve heard since getting into education in the late 1900’s.

It takes time to unwind

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It might have been slowed down a bit due to having a cold, but it has taken me a while to unwind this holiday. I always take a short while to get used to holiday mode, and not feel guilty for having a quiet day where I don’t do much.

Today I didn’t do much of anything. I spent a bit of the morning feeling guilty about not getting a workout in, and then late this afternoon I finally felt it… I felt unwound enough to just relax and enjoy doing a little bit of nothing.

The big plans for tomorrow are to head to a beach and rent some bikes to ride on the boardwalk. A busy day compared to today, but also, how chill is that for a day plan?

Now the holiday really begins. Now it becomes guilt free listening to a an audiobook for over an hour. I can just chill, and not feel like I should be doing something else. I can sip my morning coffee in the sunshine and feel like no matter what the day brings, it will be a good day.

I don’t have to fill time, I can just appreciate what I’m doing, while I do it… even if the thing I’m doing is nothing.

Lemon love

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My sister has a lemon tree in her back yard. The lemons on this tree are not normal. First of all, they grow quite large. The phot below show lemons from her tree. The two in my hand are what I’d consider large sized at my local grocery store, the rest are more typical of what comes off of her tree. Secondly, these lemons are sweet. I make a lemonade with them and there is no need for sugar.

The juice of two lemons fills half of a tall glass. Add water, (or if I’m feeling fancy, soda water), a little Angostura aromatic bitters, and some ice and I’ve got the most delicious lemonade I’ve ever tasted.

The lemons in the photo produced a litre of juice. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some lemonade to make.

Duffy and Crab

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Today was a wonderful first day of holidays, visiting my mom and sister in Tustin. We went for a cruise on a Duffy boat then enjoyed a bag of seafood at a restaurant called Kicking Crab.

What’s a Duffy? It’s a fully electric boat that travels at 5 mph at its maximum speed. I got to captain it, with my wife, sister, mom, and an aunt who I haven’t seen in over 25 years. We circled protected a harbour in the boat, then drove around the beaches before going for a crab, shrimp, and clam feast.

A late afternoon nap was the final part of a wonderful day. I could get used to this!

…And crash

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Day three of March break and my eyes and nose are streaming. The good news is that I don’t feel sick other than a little congestion. The bad news is, even if I’m not feeling awful, I’m still sick.

I’m tired of the pattern of getting to a holiday break and my body crashing. It’s a pattern I’ve seen too often and it has decided to repeat on my last March break.

Oh well, it got me again.

As I was reminded be a retired friend, March breaks from now on will be times to avoid holidays rather than go on them. My upcoming retirement will include not travelling at the most expensive times, when everyone else is travelling.

Now it’s off to bed with a handful of tissues and cold medication. I’m hoping some sunshine and rest will hurry this runny nose along. And I’m really hoping to avoid these kinds of crashes in the future.

Are you sure?

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Today is the day that I officially announce to my district that I’m retiring. The deadline is the end of the month, but I want to do it today so that I don’t have to think about it on my March break, which starts tomorrow. So, a couple months ago when the process was sent to us as a reminder, I threw the instructions into a calendar reminder for today. I have obviously never done this before, but I’m told that as part of the process you are asked, ‘Are you sure?’ …not once, but twice.

This is neither a light nor a small decision, but it’s one I’ve made with clarity of mind. This June, when I see my students off for the last time, it will indeed be for the last time. I am moving on. I am confident that this is the right decision for me.

‘Are you sure?’ Yes.

‘Are you sure?’ Yes.

That one song

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I’ve realized than when I workout certain tasks require a specific song. I get ready and think, “I need my music for this!” Not just any music, that one song that gets me going. A 10 minute stretch starts with Enya’s ‘My! My! Time Flies’… twice. If I’m going to do a plank, well then it’s Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’.

Time to push my max weight or go for a personal best? I’ve gotta listen to ‘Higher Baby’ by Sean Brown. What about when I’m about to start a set I’m not a fan of doing? Well that’s easy, I just put on ‘Remember the Name’ by Fort Minor. And those time I need to cool down, or slooow down a set and work on technique? Then nothing sets the tone quite like ’He Got Game’ by Public Enemy.

What’s a workout song you can’t live without?

And what other activities do you find require a song?

Must do vs want to do

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I can tell it’s close to March break because I feel like a holiday is due. The biggest signal in my brain for this is that I can feel the shift in my thoughts move from, ‘What do I want to get done?’ Move more to, ‘What do I need to get done?’

At this point I’m wanting to efficiently and effectively get through the ‘must do’s’, checking off the tasks and responsibilities essential to do a good job. But those other things I really want to do, the special projects I created for myself, the extra tasks I envisioned getting out of the way before the break… these things are no longer feeling like priorities. They’ve been put on hold until after the break.

I’ve written a lot about the difference between leadership and management over the years, and the challenges of a principal’s role to do management well enough that there is time for true leadership. I can often express the importance of the role being about the leadership beyond the management, getting the things you want to do to lead done, and not just getting lost in the things that need to get done to run an organization.

What I haven’t admitted yet is that sometimes the energy level just isn’t there… like a few days before a two week holiday. Which also happens to be a time when you aren’t the only one looking forward to the break. And at these times the most important thing is to get what needs to be done off of your plate.

There are still ways to lead, to show gratitude and appreciation for others, and to be present with others… but at these times it’s perfectly ok to put the ‘want to do’ projects and plans on hold. What you can’t do is disconnect from the important things that still need to get done.

Come back from the holidays refreshed and ready to take on the world. But if you drop the ball on the ‘must do’s’ before the break, the catch upon return will keep you farther still from the ‘want to do’s’ you love about your job.

So, don’t feel guilty about putting those special projects on hold, but also don’t forget about all the things that you can do now to reduce the friction and workload, and prime yourself for the stuff you know you want to do when you return after the break. Manage all the tasks you can, focus on being productive, and you’ll pave the way for more inspired work when you return.

Upside down

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I’m currently lying on an inversion table. I have no idea if this will help with my sciatica pain, but while I wait for a pain clinic appointment I’m willing to try anything. The meds given to me don’t seem to help, and I’ve stopped taking them. I do my physio exercises religiously, and still I’m uncomfortable any time that I stand for more than a few minutes.

So upside down I go for a few minutes at a time. I’ll try to do this a couple time in the morning and in the evening over the next week, and hopefully by the March break I’ll feel a little relief. It’s so challenging to live moving from seated position to seated position. Up until now, I’ve spent most of my life avoiding sitting and now it’s my relief.

The good news is that the pain level is tolerable as long as I’m not put in a position where I need to stand for a long time. The bad news is that I’ve been dealing with this since December, and I’m not sure if the end is in sight yet?

So, upside down I go again.