Author Archives: David Truss

(Re)stacking habits

I used to wake up, write a blog post, meditate for 10 minutes, and work out, all before getting in the shower around 6:45-7am. I used the Atomic Habits strategy of stacking my habits one-after-the-other so that I reduced a lot of friction in my mornings. I’d start writing and the rest of the stacked habits just happened one after the other.

A couple things happened to change this. I have been spending more time writing, stopped meditating, and started spending more time stretching. However, it was the writing time that was the big change since both the meditation and stretching were both 10 minutes long. What I’ve noticed is that my workouts and stretching are getting shorter.

So, I need to unstack my current habits. I need to write most or all of my posts at night, then I can start my morning with meditation, cardio, stretch, then a strength routine dedicated to one or two muscles, which is my usual routine. Essentially I’m not really unstacking my habits, I’m re-stacking them in a way that they give me the outcomes I want without compromising any of them at the expense of others… I just changed the title of this post from ‘Unstacking habits’ to ‘(Re)stacking habits’… Because stacking works, but it needs to work for all the habits, not just some of them.

As a good friend said, I won’t know how well this works until I try it for at least a couple weeks, because a few days aren’t long enough for a pattern to be formed, for a habit to truly become a habit. Let’s see how this goes. If I remember, I’ll give a progress report some time later this month.

Asimov’s Robot Visions

I’m listening to Isaac Asimov’s book, Robot Visions on Audible. Short stories that center around his Three Laws of Robotics (Asimov’s 3 Laws).

• The First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

• The Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

• The Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

These short stories all focus on ways that these laws can go wrong, or perhaps awry is the better term. There are a few things that make these stories insightful but they are also very dated. The early ones were written in the 1940’s and the conventions of the time, including conversational language and sexist undertones, are blatantly exposed as ‘olde’.

It also seems that Asimov made 2 assumptions worth thinking about: First that all robots and Artificial Intelligence would be constructed with the 3 laws at the core of all intelligence built into these machines. Many, many science fiction stories that followed also use these laws. However creators of Large Language Models like Chat GPT are struggling to figure out what guard rails to put on their AI to prevent it from acting maliciously when meeting sometimes scrupulous human requests.

Secondly, a few of the stories include a Robopsychologist, that’s right, a person (always female) who is an expert in the psychology of robots. There would be psychologists whose sole purpose would be to get inside the minds of robots.

Asimov was openly concerned with AI, specifically robots, acting badly, endangering humans, and even following our instructors too literally and with undesirable consequences. But he thought his 3 laws was a good start. Perhaps they are but they are just a start. And with new AI’s coming out with more computing power, more training, and less restrictions, I think Asimov’s concerns may prove prophetic.

The guard rails are off and there is no telling what unexpected consequences and results we will see in the coming months and years.

The task of education today

This quote was shared with us in our Principals meeting yesterday:

“This is the task of education today: to confront the almost unimaginable design challenge of building an education system that provides for the re-creation of civilization during a world system transition. This challenge brings us face to face with the importance of education for humanity and the basic questions that structure education as a human endeavor.” ~Zachary Stein

One of our Assistant Superintendent’s added, “We are trying to build a utopian society in triage conditions.”

There is no doubt that it is much harder to be an educator today than it was when I started my career over 25 years ago. And as we navigate ‘building an education system that provides for the re-creation of civilization during a world system transition,’ we are bound to struggle a bit. How do we mark assignments that are written or co-written by AI? What skills are going to be needed for the top jobs of 2030? How different will that be for 2040?

Ultimately we want to support the education of students who will become kind, contributing citizens. But how do we do this in a world where Truth seems arbitrary to the sources you get it from, and politicians, religion, and corporations are all pushing conflicting information and agendas? I think this goes beyond just working on competencies like critical thinking. It requires mental gymnastics that most adults struggle with.

Meanwhile, the majority of school schedules still put students into blocks of time based on the subjects they are learning. “Let’s think critically, and do challenging problems, but only in this one narrow field of study.” We aren’t meeting the design challenges we face today if that’s what we continue to do.

More than ever students, future citizens, need to understand complex issues from multiple perspectives. They need to understand nuance, and navigate when to defend an idea, when to compromise, and when to avoid engagement altogether. They need to be prepared to say “I don’t know,” and then do the hard work of finding out, when the accuracy of information is incomplete or even suspect. They need to be prepared to say, “I was wrong,” and “I am sorry,” and also be prepared to stick to their convictions and defend ideas that aren’t always the accepted norm.

That’s not the future I prepared students for 25 years ago. It is indeed an ‘almost unimaginable design challenge‘, and as we navigate new challenges we have to recognize that mistakes will be made… but not changing is far scarier than trying.

Left unsaid

I was having a conversation with my daughter yesterday and I mentioned a podcast I was listening to with Dr. Daniel Amen. The point I shared with her was how Dr. Amen talks about killing ANTs… Automatic Negative Thoughts. My daughter liked that idea and added something she has been working on, which is, “Don’t let a positive thought go unsaid.”

I really like this idea and think I’m going to work on the same.

How often do we complain about bad customer service, but we just appreciate good customer service, yet leave those thoughts unsaid?

How often do we get frustrated with a loved one or a coworker who doesn’t do what we expect them to do, but don’t really value them when they do a little extra?

How often do we focus on ANTs, but leave our positive thoughts unsaid?

Do it well

How long will it take… to do it well?

What resources do you need… to do it well?

Who can help you… to do it well?

What can you put off… so that you do it well?

Some jobs just need to get done, others should only be done if they are done well. The work is rewarded with a job well done. So give it the time, put in the resources, get the support you need, and put forward an honest, concerted effort… to do it well.

Halloween fun (again)

Last year I shared my Halloween Fun post about the high school principal’s costume contest. The theme was TV shows/sitcoms from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. Well our Carol Burnette Show lip sync of a skit was the clear winner, and so this year my team got to pick the theme. We chose Super Heroes.

We lost a principal, Rissa, to retirement and Judy stepped in. Stephanie, who chose the theme, also chose The Greatest American Hero as our hero. We decided that all 3 of us would play the hero, rather than playing different characters in the show, and yesterday we took a few photos in costume at lunch.

After 20 minutes of photo editing in PowerPoint (where I took the background off of a few pictures), and a few more minutes finding a couple computer screen wallpaper backgrounds to superimpose us onto, I had what I needed to embed us into the opening credits of the show.

When I got home from I spent about 40 minutes in iMovie and came up with this:

A few editing tricks I used were: a simple smashed glass sound byte and an image of a broken glass sticker for the crash; slowing down the video clips of the hero flying; and, reversing the clip of the hero falling back so it looked like he was getting up.

The odds of us winning the contest 2 years in a row is almost zero, and this was far less effort than we put in last year, but we had fun and I think we will get a few laughs with our attempt.

Happy Halloween to you all, enjoy the festivities.

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(Setting this to publish at noon, after our submission to the contest.)

Blind spot

I saw a Neil deGrasse Tyson video where he described our galaxy as thinner than a pancake. He said it is more like a crepe. Our galaxy is more than 100 times long as it is wide. One result of this is that it limits our ability to see the universe.

We can’t look beyond our galaxy along its length. There are so many stars in our own galaxy that they prevent us from seeing anything beyond it along this thin plane. Essentially our galaxy creates a blind spot for our visible universe.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to see along this axis. We can look at our closest neighbouring solar systems and explore our own galaxy, we just can’t see beyond our galaxy nearly as well and as clearly as when we view the universe from an angle other than along the plane of our flat crepe galaxy.

It’s interesting because while this flat shape creates a bit of a blind spot for us, it also makes a lot of the universe easier to see, because our galaxy does not get in the way of a lot of the sky. If our universe was more spherical, it would be a greater impairment to the universe beyond. Our blind spot creates an advantage elsewhere.

There is a metaphor there for our own personal blind spots. Blind spots might limit what we see in some areas, but how do they allow us to see more in others? We observe our world from eye level. We can learn more about our surroundings by seeing a bird’s eye view, but it wouldn’t be an advantage for us if that was the only view we had.

We all have blind spots, I just wonder what insightful perspectives they give us compared to if we didn’t have them?

Practice not information or knowing

I have weekly conversations with my uncle. Most days we talk about geometry, but today our conversation was more wide-ranging. One topic we discussed was meditation. My uncle is a practiced meditator and I am on a journey to a really meditative state that seems elusive to me.

I’m better at naming the experience rather than just embodying the experience. I understand the journey, I haven’t truly travelled it like he has. And the fundamental difference is practice.

I don’t spend enough time practicing. I have travelled the part of the journey from being angry every time my mind drifts or focuses on a thought to understanding that this is a natural part of meditation. However, I have not travelled the next part where I’ve truly experience the letting go, and feeling fully in a meditative state. I’ve knocked on the door, but haven’t stepped in.

What’s preventing me? Practice. Making time, and giving myself time to meditate. Instead of a 10 minute guided meditation that is really 4-6 minutes meditating with a little lesson, I need to give myself more time. I have to practice for longer than the point where all I’m doing is bringing myself back from distractions, back from wondering and wandering thoughts.

I know what I need to do. I’m not lacking information, I’m just lacking time, the time to practice. Until then while I can name the experience I will not truly embody the experience.

The enemy of knowledge

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” ~ Stephen Hawking

The illusion of knowledge is more ignorant that just being ignorant. This idea is more relevant today than any time in history. Examples:

1. Every religion starts with the premise that their religion shares true knowledge and all the other religions share illusions. So every devout religious person loves their own illusions, or at the very least believes anyone of a different faith lives in an illusion of ignorance.

2. Anyone who believes in a flat earth, or thinks no one ever landed on the moon lives in an illusion of knowledge. They perceive themselves as more knowledgeable than scientists, experts, and even general employees in the flight and space industry.

3. AI is already generating incredibly persuasive deep fakes and while we used to use a discerning eye to catch a lie, soon we will need to be more discerning to catch the truth. The illusion of knowledge will be more rampant than actual, factual knowledge.

We are moving from an era of knowledge seekers to an era of illusions and ignorance.

The truth is out there… it’s just a lot harder to find, and even harder to defend.

Error correction

“When you tolerate an error, you rob yourself of learning.

When you ruminate on an error, you rob yourself of happiness.

Notice it, improve it, and move on from it.” ~ James Clear

I really like this quote. It is very insightful. We don’t learn unless we make an effort to adapt, or improve after a failure or an error. But perseverating on our errors isn’t healthy.

Notice, improve, and move on. But how many of us can easily do this?

How many of us repeat mistakes? How many of us spend too much time ruminating and don’t move on? How many of us spend more time worrying about our errors and less time celebrating our successes?

Notice, improve, and move on.

There would be far less learning if we spent more time avoiding mistakes. There would be less improvement, and less to move on from. And so while we are learning from our errors, we need to remember to feel good about the learning we’ve done, and the journey we are on.