Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
“Discipline doesn’t care if you are tired. ‘You’re tired?’
Do it anyway. Right?
Discipline says ‘Oh you don’t feel good.’
Well do it anyway.
Discipline says ‘It’s raining outside and it’s cold. It’s windy.’
Do it anyway.”
It was miserable out today… an ‘atmospheric river’. There is flooding all over the Vancouver Mainland. My buddy Dave and I did our walk anyway. Our 149th Coquitlam Crunch since January 2021.
Excuses are easy. Discipline is doing it anyway… no matter what gets in the way.
Today I’m headed to Surrey to meet with other principals in charge of Provincial Online Learning Schools. My commute is less than an hour, some of my counterparts from around the province had to fly or drive in last night to get to the meeting on time this morning. We will be meeting with a representative from the Ministry of Education in the morning, and also have a full agenda for the rest of the day.
In many ways I have more in common with these colleagues from other school districts than I do with most colleagues in my own district. Being a principal of an online school has very unique demands, policies, and challenges which make our jobs unique. We don’t fit in the box of a traditional school principals, and often when I come across a challenging situation it is these distant colleagues that I turn to for support or clarification.
When we meet as a group it is usually online. But today we connect face-to-face. I can’t express the value it has provided to connect with these principals in person. Over the years I’ve made some valuable friends, and gotten to know some amazing educators thanks to these meetings. I’ve built relationships that would have been much harder to make if we only ever met through a screen.
There is a lot of power in physically getting together for a meeting rather than just doing so online. As a principal of an online school, that’s an important thing to remember and reflect on.
One of my favourite nicknames to give someone is Sunshine. I call both of my daughters Sunshine at different times, and it makes me happy to call them that.
Occasionally I nickname a kid at school Sunshine. It’s usually someone who visits the office regularly and leaves the office staff smiling. Walking in with a happy disposition and leaving a little happiness behind when they go.
One of these kids, who graduated a couple years ago, just connected with me on LinkedIn. Sure she was an amazing student, Valedictorian and Spirit of Inquiry winner (more prestigious in our school than Valedictorian), but that’s not what I remember about her. What I remember is the delightful way she and a friend came to the office daily to spread a little sunshine.
Who spreads sunshine in your life? And are you someone who spreads sunshine?
Another Provincial election is upon us, October 19th, 2024. I voted early, last weekend.
I’ll never get tired of pushing the idea that it is not just a privilege but a civic duty to vote. I wish there were tax fines for not voting. It costs an Australian about $80 to not vote. They get 90% or more people voting. Meanwhile, we’ve been on a decline in BC, which is representative of most of Canada.
I wish people understood how fortunate we are to be able to vote in an open and free election. When I hear things like, “My vote doesn’t matter.” Or, “All the candidates/parties are the same.” Or any other excuse, I feel the speaker is missing the point. We live in a democracy. We have a choice of representation, and we have a duty to cast our vote for the person who represents us.
If we don’t vote, we are literally shrugging off a responsibility we have. We are dismissing a duty placed on us. We don’t do that at work, why do we think it’s ok to do that in our community?
Unsure who to vote for? This non-partisan website, (originally created by a student at our school years ago, and still maintained for elections across Canada), is a great place to start: https://votemate.org
It was a different kind of Thanksgiving this year, the first one where both of our daughters were not with us. We went to my sister and brother in-laws, who were also without kids, and we had paella. It was delicious, I can honestly say that I didn’t miss having turkey.
I want to take a moment and be thankful. Thankful for family and friends. Thankful for good health. Thankful to be living in a prosperous country by global standards, and thankful that it is a democracy. Thankful to live in a beautiful country that is very green and very clean. Thankful for a great job where I can contribute my services to a meaningful cause for a good wage. Thankful for access to delicious food any time that I’m hungry.
It’s when we don’t have these things that we miss them most. The fact that I do have them should not go without appreciation and thanks. I have much gratitude for the life I live, and the people I get to spend it with. 🙏
My old, Pair-a-Dimes for Your Thoughts, blog has some amazing comments on it. There were posts that would get 15-25 comments that would continue the conversation. There were bloggers who would blog response posts to yet further the conversation. Now my blog is just one of several places people see my posts.
I usually share the whole post (unless I hit the size limit) on LinkedIn, and I share excerpts on Facebook, as well as links on other socials, and these open the links in their apps, to keep you on the app. And so the majority of comments now are scattered across the internet rather than sitting under my blog.
What I miss about the ‘old times’ is that these comments and conversations added a lot of value to what was said. They still do, but they aren’t archived together and so they tend to be one-offs rather than full conversations. Still, I enjoy getting them, and love it when someone contributes something that really adds to what I say… contributes something of value, that enriches (or challenges) my thinking.
Manual Are posted a gem of a response to my post yesterday. I wrote a very short post, a rant really, about doors being locked when a store is open. Then on LinkedIn, Manuel responded with a beautiful poem that first of all probably took him a lot longer to write than I spent on my post. And secondly, captured my message better than I was able to express it. So here it is… (with permission and thanks to Manuel):
The Locked Door
I reached the store with eager stride, A gentle pull, but locked inside. The sign said “open,” yet it stayed, This door that blocked the path I made.
I tried again, a second time, But still the latch refused to climb. A simple thing, an easy task— To open wide is all I ask.
Doesn’t it speak to what’s in store, This stubborn, unwelcoming door? The message sent, though small it seems, Can shatter trust and spoil dreams.
For what’s a shop that keeps me out? It stirs up doubt, it breeds some doubt. If I am here, then let me through, And show me care in what you do.
Unlock the door, let me inside, A gesture small, but full of pride. For in that act, you say to me: You’re welcome here, come in and see.
The smallest thing can set the tone— To feel at ease, to feel at home. So if you open, heed this plea, Unlock the door, and welcome me.”
How do you feel when you are walking into a store, a mall, or a restaurant, you reach for the door and give it a good pull only to discover that it is locked? Have you ever tried the same door on the way out, only to have it reject your efforts a second time?
This is a pet peeve of mine. If your business is open, and you have two doors, unlock them both! Let my first experience with you be pulling on an open door. Let me feel welcome. This is such a low bar of expectation, and yet it isn’t met time and again.
If your business is open, unlock both of your doors… please!
In “Manufacturing Consent,” Noam Chomsky argues that the mass media in the US serves as a propaganda tool for powerful elites, shaping public perception to maintain the status quo. I think that era has ended and one of the key points of our time is that social media now ‘manufactures dissent’. It permits lies to spread faster than truth, and is driven by the power of outlandish claims to draw attention and clicks, views and advertising dollars.
The irony of what I’m about to share would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
I clicked and read the article on the UK’s Independent (independent.co.uk), a media site that I’m unaware of so I was careful to watch for accuracy versus misinformation.
For example, even when the article quoted a tweet by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a person elected to Congress whom I think acts like telling the truth could cause an anaphylactic response, I still followed the link to fact check it…Even though her ridiculous claim was easily within the scope of believability.
The article states,
“Yet despite the clear and evident risk of real harm, people like Greene are making hackneyed comic book villain claims about secret weather machines – and the internet has been rife with misinformation about the upcoming disaster. Accounts on Twitter/X have claimed that state and federal officials are preventing people from accessing hard-hit areas, that the government is basing its provision of aid on political affiliation, and that the entire thing is an elaborate land-grab scheme.
Many such posts have received millions of views, and few if any are being taken down. Why would they, when the site’s owner is in the mix – yes, even Elon Musk has been getting in on the fun, tweeting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has diverted critical funds from hurricane relief to illegal immigrants.”
Later it continues,
“Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “spreading misinformation about a natural disaster that has the potential to kill hundreds – perhaps thousands – of people is reprehensible, and in a sane world would be a criminal offence”, but you would in fact be mistaken. You see, we don’t live in a sane world. We live in a world where being that reckless with other people’s lives isn’t just acceptable – it’s actually a core part of the Republican political strategy.”
But shortly after reading that quote I passed an ad in the article that proves that ‘We live in a world where being reckless with other people’s lives IS acceptable’ and not just by people on the right. The ad, which I refused to click on stated, “Jagmeet Singh Suffers Fatal Accident On Live Television”.
An article that is simultaneously debunking misinformation of a right wing political party, with the author asking, “The thing that really baffles me about all of this, though, is what exactly there is to be gained here.” …Which also shares an ad that blatantly lies about the death of a left wing Canadian political party leader, is painfully ironic.
I then checked The Independent on the Media Bias / Fact Check website which stated that “Overall we rate The Independent Left-Center Biased due to story selection that moderately favors the left. We also rate them Mixed in factual reporting due to several failed fact checks.”
This demonstrates a clear case of the kettle calling the pot black. Bash the right for spreading misinformation on a left leaning site, while advertising using blatant misinformation. I want to call this unacceptable, but it’s the norm.
Propagating lies, evoking anger, selling out for attention, baiting clicks with misinformation, and manufacturing dissent. We can no longer trust social media, and we must question mainstream media too. The truth is unnecessarily elusive, it’s lost in a sea of lies and inaccuracies. The above news article isn’t inaccurate in its conclusions, rather it’s simply encapsulated in the same misinformation propagating media machine it professes to be struggling to understand.
“The hallmark of expertise is no longer how much you know. It’s how well you synthesize.
Information scarcity rewarded knowledge acquisition. Information abundance requires pattern recognition.
It’s not enough to collect facts. The future belongs to those who connect dots.”
Pattern recognition and synthesis are the path to innovation, ingenuity, and invention. The collection of knowledge is not enough. Wisdom comes from recognizing how to make connections across different fields, how to make meaning out of relationships that not everyone sees.
Artificial Intelligence can give us the knowledge we seek. It can dumb down the ideas to our level of understanding, and even teach us with relevant examples when we are stuck. More information won’t be what we seek. Instead we will seek new connections, patterns, and relationships.
The desired experts of tomorrow are probably not the siloed experts we once sought. Instead they will be information generalists who understand how to take information from different fields, identify relationships others don’t see, and synthesize information such that they can tell a story others won’t know to tell.
How are we preparing the next generation of learners for this new future? How will schools need to change to help students prepare for the future in a world of abundant and easily accessible information? It certainly won’t be by feeding them content. Instead, the future of education lies in creating challenges where students need to synthesize information and recognize connections and patterns across different fields of study.
I had to make a bit of an embarrassing phone call yesterday. I metaphorically dropped the ball. A parent needed permission to get a student signed up for an online course and had tried to contact me a few times. I never got back to her. She had a similar (but not the same) first name as another parent I was dealing with, and her son wanted a similar (but not the same) course as the other parent’s son. I still mixed them up, thought they were asking about the same issue, and only responded to the latter parent. The error was due to a careless error on my part… 100% my fault.
I remember the day last week when I dealt with the other family, then saw a message from my secretary after the fact and thought, ‘Oh, I just dealt with that’, brushing off the message rather than reading it fully.
Considering the first message from this parent was the week before last, maybe even the week before that, she’d been waiting quite a while. When I called at the end of the day today, I was expecting to speak to an upset person. I introduced myself and immediately apologized for my lack of timely communication.
The response I got was a parent happy to have finally reached me, and she immediately explained the situation. As it turns out, this was a situation that was clear cut and actually didn’t even need my approval. I explained how she could register, and gave the name and number of my secretary to connect with if she had any issues. I followed up with an email, and also let all my secretaries know that this person might call for help today, if she had any registration issues.
Yesterday was a long day of back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings that left me with gaps of under 20 minutes of free time to get things done from 8:20am to almost 4pm. I did have a long and enjoyable lunch meeting in there, but that was also a working lunch, and so I couldn’t even look at my growing inbox the whole day.
Seeing the message about this parent and realizing my mistake was something that made me want to crawl under a rock as I sat at my desk at almost 5pm. But I figured this poor parent had waited long enough and I’d just take the complaint hit on the chin before heading home. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to hear a relieved parent who recognized that I was going to help her son get registered for the course he’d been waiting for.
Interactions like this just want me to pay it forward. I’m left wondering how I can engage with someone else in a more positive way? How can I interact with someone in a better way than they were expecting? How can I provide an unexpected positive interaction with someone when that’s not what they’d expect from me?
