Author Archives: David Truss

Negative conjecture

Part 1: The world is out to get me

I was fairly new to administration and I was dealing with a student who had parents who seemed to believe the entire world was out to get them. Everything that happened to them and their child was not by mistake or circumstance, or by choices made by their kid or themselves, these things were planned and designed to make their life difficult. In my dealings with them I too was part of the problem, I was an extension to the system trying to knock them down. So were the teachers and youth worker. We were all, in their eyes, conspiring to make their lives miserable.

Imagine living your life thinking and believing that you were a victim of the world. How would that impact your daily life? What would your thought process be when something, or in your eyes everything, doesn’t go your way? Imagine believing that everything that happens today is simply evidence of the continuation of everything bad that has happened before.

Part 2: The things we didn’t do

I spent a lot of (younger) years wishing I had taken up karate. My uncles and an aunt trained and I watched them. Now decades later they are instructors and leaders in their club back in Barbados. I was a tiny 7-year old kid when they started, and my mom didn’t want me getting hurt. Later, in high school, I took up water polo and that led me to some amazing experience that I wouldn’t trade for the world. Coaching water polo is what inspired me to become a teacher. I’m not sure I would have followed either path had karate been my thing as a kid. I no longer look at this as a regret.

How many people do you know that define the world by what they didn’t do, on what they missed out on… on what could have been. How many people imagine the life choices they didn’t take, and see that life as so much better than their own?

I remember an English teacher in Grade 10 who told us how he was good friends with Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, and how Jim asked him to join along on this new venture. This teacher told us he didn’t regret his choice, but it was late enough in the year and we knew him well enough when he told us this, that we could hear the regret and disappointment in his voice. Strange that this is just about the only thing that I remember from this class.

Regret, disappointment. These thoughts define some people. People who live in a world that could have been, and never will be.

Part 3: The things that never happened

How many scenarios have gone through your head after you dealt with a scenario poorly? There was the thing you did and said, and there were so many other things that you could have done, could have said. ‘I wish, oh how I wish I could have handled that differently’. But your imagination doesn’t stop there. No, you go over the scenario again and again. Each time something different, something better happens in your mind. Your mind is filled with events that never happened; un-lived experiences; fictitious, more successful experiences.

Epilogue

Today is a new day, with new choices and new opportunities. We are shaped by our past, but our past is not our present. We learn, we grow, we make new choices. The world does not conspire against us. New opportunities will present themselves. Our choices we make can be different and better than the choices we made in the past. We are better off living our lives with positive conjecture… The world will conspire with us, not against us.

The great disconnect

I call it the best book I never read. It’s called Bowling Alone and the premise is that we used to have communities that tied us together, church groups, book clubs, and bowling leagues, but now we don’t participate in these communities so everyone bowls alone. This is a fascinating idea, it seems very relevant, but the book itself reads like a boring textbook and I put it down once I got the premise.

I think this is why dating apps have done so well. If you are young and single, and don’t meet someone you are interested in at work or school, you are essentially bowling alone.

But I think the disconnect goes beyond dating and meeting a partner. I think there are too few opportunities beyond the work week to feel connected to friends. Connecting isn’t usual, it’s reserved for special events. Remember in the pre-cellphone era when people would quite literally ‘drop by’ because they were in the neighbourhood? When is the last time that happened?

Now, meeting for coffee is something planned a week in advance. A dinner? Let me check my calendar… How’s the 15th sound, does that work for you? No? Ok, the 22nd then?

It’s interesting that while technology has in many ways brought us together, we’ve slowly moved apart. I live far away from my family, and many of my friends. I don’t pick up my phone and call them nearly enough. I plan opportunities to connect far in advance. I don’t bowl, and yet I bowl alone.

Homework (again)

I wrote this about Homework, 11 years ago today.

“I question the value of most homework.”

The post shared a scenario where a Math teacher gives homework out and only 30% of the class gains from the practice. Do the math… That’s 21 out of 30 kids not getting much value out of the assigned the work.

The post also talks about how ‘equal’ is not equal to ‘fair’, and giving the same homework to every student isn’t fair when one student can do it unassisted in minutes, and for another the same homework would take an hour with help.

In August of last year I shared another post on homework and imbedded a Tiktok where a parent basically says the purpose of homework is to condition students to do unpaid overtime at home. And then I list: “When is homework a valuable use of a child’s time?”

My first response on the list: It usually isn’t.

It usually isn’t. 11 years later I still question the value of most homework. Let kids be kids at home. Want them to do homework, create something they actually want to do at home. Otherwise, teach them what they need to learn at school.

Teach them how to manage their time well. Teach them it’s ok to ask questions when they don’t understand something. Teach them to focus on something for a concentrated amount of time and then to take a brain break. Teach them to teach something in order to learn it. Teach them habits that help them get work done when it needs to get done. And then let them be kids at home.

Stuck again

I have this Murphy’s Law thing that always seems to happen to me. Whenever I am holding any kind of chord that is dragging behind me, or that I’m pulling, it will get stuck. Pulling an extension cord from behind the couch, it wedges underneath the couch leg. Pulling the vacuum into another room, the hose catches on some furniture forcing me to retreat. Holding my laptop and moving to another room, the power cord slides under the door.

It’s not an occasional thing, it happens all the time with anything from a loose thread, to a garden hose, to an article of clothing in my hands, to the dangling latch on our garbage can. If it can catch on something it will.

The thing is, I will probably always think that this happens to me more than to anyone else. In reality that may not be the case, because I don’t have a reason to remember the non-examples, the times I actually get away with pulling something that doesn’t get stuck. These non-events do not create a memorable moment. I don’t think, ‘Wow, it didn’t happen that time’, I simply don’t notice and don’t remember it not happening.

However each time it does happen it is self reinforcing:

‘See, it happened again.’

”This always happens to me.’

‘Damn it! Really? Come on.’

‘Of course.’

‘#@<&!’

My question is, is the cord or hose getting stuck again, with the universe conspiring against me to ensure it happens to me more than anyone else, or is my mind stuck focusing on these instances as if they are occurring far more often than they should?

What exactly is getting stuck?

Subtle shades of difference

Yesterday I went for a bicycle ride with a friend whom I hadn’t connected with in months. We had a great ride and we talked about a lot of different things going on in the world today. Our views differed on a scale from slightly to considerably. There were some topics we talked about that tend to spur arguments in public discourse, but for us it was just good dialogue.

That’s a huge challenge today and news media makes the situation worse. The news does not try to make stories nuanced, media stories work to polarize views. Subtle shades of difference don’t draw attention and clicks, conflict and contrast does. The result? Every story is a problem, and every conversation is a debate. The middle ground is a no man’s land that is attacked by the extreme views on both sides, and everyone is either for or against a view.

Nuance is missed… and not just by news media, by me, by my friend, by you! We all get stuck looking at issues from the extremes and not seeing the complexities of issues that are very nuanced.

My friend and I were able to break down a few hot topics into the complicated issues that don’t sit on the extremes. We were able to partially agree and disagree with each other. We had a conversation, not an argument. Discourse rather than disregard.

It was refreshing to have this conversation. I hope that we can figure out a way to make public discourse more about sharing different ideas and less about defending extreme points of view without being able to see the spectrum that ideas fall into.

I know that the first place to start is with myself. It’s not good enough to blame the media, it’s important to recognize how I’m triggered by listening to polar opposite views, and for me to hear other perspectives without getting too hung up on how those perspectives differ from mine. I need to look for nuance, and recognize that there can be middle ground that becomes the starting point for good discussion and discourse.

Just show up

I shared this in an email home to parents recently:

While I know this has been a challenging year for many students and families, I think it’s important this time of year, as we head into a report card next week, to remind families of how important attendance is at our school. Students with significant absences tend to fall into a very unhealthy loop that includes:
Falling behind in work; Telling parents they work better at home, but missing key instructions to help them at home; Not getting the support they need; Not feeling good about being behind and finding reasons to avoid school.

Ultimately, we can’t help students that aren’t here at school, and the best ‘medicine’ for a student with too many absences is a dedication to getting to school as long as health conditions don’t prevent it. This isn’t a problem we can find a solution for without parent support. Please contact us if you’d like to discuss attendance further. I, or one of our team, will be contacting some of you after report cards go out.

—-

Report cards have now gone out and I will be calling a few parents to talk about concerns we have around poor attendance.

We live in a society now where there is so much pressure to do well; to be your best; to shine. It’s not easy. But sometimes the message doesn’t have to be ‘you are awesome’, ‘you have so much potential’, or ‘push yourself’. Sometimes the message of ‘just show up’ is all we need to hear.

  • Don’t plan an hour workout, just show up at the gym.
  • Don’t worry about how much you have to do, just start.
  • Don’t create a huge ‘to do’ list, pick 2-3 things you know you can get done and check those off… even if showing up is one of those things!

It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than thinking your way into a new way of acting. ~Richard Pascale

Just show up!

Earth Day

I remember watching this video years ago, on a large screen, in a gym filled with middle school students. It gave me goosebumps when the shark jumped into the air and there was a collective sigh of awe from the kids.

Our planet is a thing of marvel. While I have no doubt that with billions of stars in the universe, there are other blue planets out there that inhabit life, there is also no doubt that we are still a statistical anomaly. I’m sure that we will discover more and more planets in the Goldilocks Zone, where we can find an atmosphere with liquid water that isn’t too hot or too cold, but none will be just like earth. None will have the same reign of dinosaurs for millions of years. None will have a perfectly proportioned moon to influence the tides just like ours. None will have the same species of flowers, beetles, butterflies, and Beluga whales.

We live a one of a kind existence on a one of a kind planet. Let’s do our part to keep it spectacular.

A socialist democracy

I think I’ve missed voting in one local election since I became voting age. We went on holiday and I neglected to vote early. Other than that one mistake, I’ve always seen it as my civic duty to vote. I’m in favour of giving every voting age citizen a tax break if they vote, promoting full civic participation.

Here in Canada we are a socialist democracy, especially compared to the US. I watched a news clip yesterday and a rather conservative US reporter was equating social democracy to stealing tax money from the middle class to support the poor. Then I saw a Tiktok that quoted the article ‘Three Cheers for Socialism‘, and I thought this quote was very interesting:

“Americans are, of course, the most thoroughly and passively indoctrinated people on earth. They know next to nothing as a rule about their own history, or the histories of other nations, or the histories of the various social movements that have risen and fallen in the past, and they certainly know little or nothing of the complexities and contradictions comprised within words like “socialism” and “capitalism.” Chiefly, what they have been trained not to know or even suspect is that, in many ways, they enjoy far fewer freedoms, and suffer under a more intrusive centralized state, than do the citizens of countries with more vigorous social-democratic institutions. This is at once the most comic and most tragic aspect of the excitable alarm that talk of social democracy or democratic socialism can elicit on these shores. An enormous number of Americans have been persuaded to believe that they are freer in the abstract than, say, Germans or Danes precisely because they possess far fewer freedoms in the concrete. They are far more vulnerable to medical and financial crisis, far more likely to receive inadequate health coverage, far more prone to irreparable insolvency, far more unprotected against predatory creditors, far more subject to income inequality, and so forth, while effectively paying more in tax (when one figures in federal, state, local, and sales taxes, and then compounds those by all the expenditures that in this country, as almost nowhere else, their taxes do not cover). One might think that a people who once rebelled against the mightiest empire on earth on the principle of no taxation without representation would not meekly accept taxation without adequate government services. But we accept what we have become used to, I suppose. Even so, one has to ask, what state apparatus in the “free” world could be more powerful and tyrannical than the one that taxes its citizens while providing no substantial civic benefits in return, solely in order to enrich a piratically overinflated military-industrial complex and to ease the tax burdens of the immensely wealthy?”

Wow.

I don’t think Canada has the correct mix of social democratic policies, but I think that we better understand how a wide social net protects those that need protection, and lifts our entire society as a whole… as compared to the US, but not compared to some European countries. Lessons can be learned from other countries, but I fear that US political and news influences are misleading about terms like socialist democracy, and it’s easy to get lost in what is essentially propaganda.

I’m back to thinking about the blind man analogy, and wondering how we can create a vision for democracy in the future that is more all encompassing, that is less capitalist and more socialist? The true lessons of capitalism as I see them aren’t to maximize growth of wealth, but to create competitive cost efficiencies that reduce costs for public good. Bloated social programs that cost too much hurt us all. This is where the lessons in the business world can help with the public good.

But to many the perception of a socialist democracy is a step towards communism. It’s a step towards giving up freedom to a more controlling state. It’s the start of the collapse of a capitalism… It’s actually more like the collapse of exploitation of the vast majority of the working class, but that’s not the narrative. I fear that the narratives we are exposed to are convincing more and more people that capitalism and democracy share the same principles, they don’t. A true democracy is a government chosen by the people for the people… not corporations.

How can I add value?

I have a friend who asks this question a lot. When we connect, if there is ever anything to be done together that’s the question he asks, “How can I add value?”

It’s simple and direct… I’m here to help, and happy to add some value to what is being done.

When I taught leadership to students, sometimes I came across a kid who was like that. They didn’t really see themselves as leaders, but they were. They were not necessarily the kids who wanted to run the show, but they were the ones who arrived to an event early, they stayed late to clean up, and if they saw someone working on something like stacking chairs or creating a poster, they went to help without being asked. They found places to add value.

People like this don’t always get the recognition they deserve… if you know someone like this, take the time to thank them, to appreciate them. It’s a special kind of person who doesn’t look for the attention or limelight, but is always there to help.

We are all blind

The blind men and an elephant

A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: “We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable”. So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, “This being is like a thick snake”. For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, “is a wall”. Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.

How different is my sight compared to a colour blind or fully blind person?

My wife hears notes one off of perfect pitch, and can name notes played on a piano without a reference note. I have a hard time determining if a note is higher or lower than a reference note. My daughters can hear sounds at frequencies that I can’t, and at decibels lower than I can.

Some people are intuitive about other’s feelings. Some people can feel when it’s going to rain, others can smell rain coming. Still others can list ingredients in a dish simply by smell. Our senses vary considerably, as do our observations of events.

In a way we are all blind, or at least we are limited by our senses. We don’t observe the world objectively. Instead we hold tremendous subjective bias. Our upbringing, our beliefs, our politics, our limited senses obscure the world.

We touch the world like the blind men touch the elephant. Partially, and with tremendous bias.

Try to convince someone that is depressed that they only need to look at life though rose coloured glasses. Convince someone with devout faith that there is no omnipotent God. Convince a conspiracy believing flat earth evangelist that the world is round. Try to convince anyone who sees the world completely differently than you of anything you hold on to steadfastly, when they see the world very differently, and you’ll appreciate how blind we really are.

It’s no wonder that so many people fight over ‘subjective truth’ because they think it’s ‘objective Truth’. Try to convince the tail-holding blind man that an elephant is more like a pillar than like rope. You probably won’t. In his experience, he is not wrong. The pillar and the rope perspectives are both true to the observer.

Our own subjectivity makes it easier to see where others are blind, much harder to see where we ourselves are blind. We are blind to our own blindness.

How different is a life where we touch a single part of an elephant and call that part an elephant compared to a life where we take in all the other perspectives and create a composite view… while being careful not to listen to the blind man standing in elephant dung because his view is simply not as valid. We need to be open to other views, while also being careful of those that throw dung around. Just because we are all blind, doesn’t mean that all of our views are equal.

Copernicus, Newton, Einstein; These men saw more of the elephant than most. They convinced others who could not see like they could see. But in our day-to-day lives we do not meet such people. We don’t discuss such deep topics. We mull around in the dark, sharing small parts of the elephant we are aware of, and believing we see the entire animal. Blind to our own blindness.