Author Archives: David Truss

Dropping balls

One of the most frustrating things is to realize that you dropped a ball. You are juggling so many things and one falls through your fingers. You miss it.

A good juggler can make the mistake a part of the show. A good leader can’t.

In this specific case it’s not that bad because the only person really let down is me. I can still pick the ball up, I can put it back into play, and the only harm is that everyone saw me drop it. A little embarrassing, but I can handle it.

I can make the excuse that I had just returned from medical leave and I had a lot of balls to juggle, but that’s not accepting ownership, it’s just making excuses. It was something that should have been prioritized. Other things were less important.

I just need to accept the mistake. I need to own it. I need to pick up the ball and put it back into play. The challenge is not explaining, justifying, or excusing, but owning my mistake. Then doing what I can to fix it.

This is harder to do when you let people down. It is challenging to face when others are counting on you.

Excuses are not the way. Own it. Do your best to make it right, and be sure to keep similar balls in the air in the future. That’s the best way forward.

Energy flow

Some things take a lot of energy to perform, and some things give you energy.

Here are a couple opposing examples:

Meeting new people can take a lot of energy. There is the nervousness of not being sure what to say, the struggle to find common interests, the uncomfortableness of awkward silence. Meeting new people can be draining.

Working out requires a lot of energy output, but at the same time there is an endorphin surge that provides a positive feeling. The net energy you have after a good workout is fulfilling.

While both of these experiences require energy, one leaves you feeling depleted, sucking your energy batteries dry, while the other replenishes your batters and leaves you feeling charged and ready to go.

In a way, the cumulative sum of draining versus charging activities determines what kind of day you have. At the end of the day you can feel like the day wiped you out or it left you with some reserves.

You can do challenging things emotionally or physically (or both) and end your day feeling very accomplished or just exhausted. The big question is, did the day just happen to you, were you just a victim of the positive and negative energy flows, or did you help to determine them?

In other words, did you seek to perform more positive energy experiences than negative ones? Did you find moments in your day where you filled your batteries? Did you feed your mind and body with joyful moments that charged your energy reserves? Sometimes it doesn’t take much: a delicious meal, a shared joke, a 5 minute walk, a deliberate conversation, a compliment given, even a few deep breaths.

Simple, intentional things that bring you energy rather than drain energy can be the difference between coming home feeling accomplished and coming home with an empty tank. Be intentional in seeking out things that give you a positive flow of energy during the day.

Here we go

The school year begins. 180 school days.

I am nervous about the balance of things: work/home life/exercise; leadership/management; priorities/budgets; teaching & learning; support & independence; planning & follow through; time & efficiency.

I may be nervous but I can feel the potential… the promise of a great year ahead. Physiologically there is almost no difference between anxious nervousness and excitement. So I’ll reframe my thinking, I am excited.

I hope all educators are equally excited. We are in an incredible occupation. We change lives. We make learning fun and engaging. And our teaching goes well beyond the curriculum. We don’t teach subjects, we teach kids. We teach kindness, collaboration, cooperation, and creativity. We don’t just teach classes, we teach young adults who want to do well, who soar, who struggle, and who do the best with the resources they have.

Some come to us full of support and resources, others come to us with much less. The less the resources, the more compassion we need. The greater the challenge, the more patience we must have. The more we are challenged, the higher we must rise.

We can be the purveyor of the status quo, or we can be the change agents we want to be. It all begins today… here we go!

— — —

I wrote the following in 2011:

My Open Educator Manifesto

‘We’ educate future citizens of the world

Teaching is my professional practice

I Share by default

I am Open, Transparent, Collaborative, and Social

My students own their own:   (Learning)

• learning process

• learning environment

• learning products

• learning assessment

My students belong to learning networks

Every student deserves customized learning

• Student voice

• Student choice

Every educator deserves customized learning

I have high expectations

I Care, Share, and Dare

I am a role model

I am the change I want to see in Education!

Last lazy day

Well today I did a whole lot of nothing. I came down to the basement do a workout 3 hours ago, and I have successfully completed a 10 minute row, less than 10 minutes of stretching, and an abdominal workout that lasted the length of a 2 minute and 40 second song. Hey, this might not be a typical workout… but I didn’t skip the day. Not every workout needs to be at 100%.

I listened to a part of a podcast, watched a few TikToks, and I’m writing this lying on my back next to a magnetic toy where I successfully made a couple DNA strands out of triangles. 

I’ve spoken about playing with geometry before, this ‘playing’ was the most productive part of my day.

Tomorrow is Day 1 of the new school year and the pace for the next month will be anything but lazy. So, I look at my 3 hours of ‘wasted’ time as time very well wasted. Today was the calm before the storm. Batteries are charging, and I’m taking full advantage of my last lazy day, not even caring that I’m mixing my metaphors. 🤪

Now off to pick up pizza, ain’t no way my wife and I are cooking tonight! 😀

—-

To all the educators out there, I wish you a fabulous year of teaching and learning ahead!

What’s cooking?

My sister was in town helping my aunt settle in after her move from Toronto Ontario to Richmond BC. This created an opportunity for a family gathering with my cousin and his family, and my nephew who also recently moved here.

I made 3 of my favourite dishes to make for guests, a rice stir fry, steak, and salmon cooked on the bbq on a cedar plank.

Two out of those 3 dishes posed a problem because they are both recipes that require a considerable amount of cilantro and my sister hates cilantro… so I sort of made 5 dishes, duplicating these two dishes with basil replacing cilantro.

It would have made sense to just make them with basil and skip the cilantro altogether, but I love cilantro and it’s not like I couldn’t just duplicate steps when it was time to add this wonderful herb that some people think tastes like soap, (these poor people really miss out!)

The food was wonderful if I do say so myself. My wife also made a couple yummy salads and our guests brought delicious chicken wings and cheesecake. We all ate to our heart’s content with generous portions of leftovers to be enjoyed at a later date.

The only thing better than the food was the company. I hadn’t seen one of my cousin’s daughter’s in close to a decade, which is a bit embarrassing when you consider how close we live. We could have had leftover pizza and it still would have been a great gathering… but sometimes it’s wonderful to cook up a feast, and share it with family.

(And yes, my cousin looks like he could be my brother!)

Different kinds of smart

Some of the smartest people I know didn’t do well in school. Two in particular got into trades are are both very successful and run their own business. Both have more saved for their retirement than I ever will. Both have a common sense intelligence that is superior to mine.

I have a sister who is street smart. I’d say she’s also people smart. She can read a situation and read people better than others can read a book. She builds strong friendships with people who will do anything for her, because they know she’d do the same for them. Lucky things happen to her because she creates her own luck, with no expectations of an outcome. Some people do a kindness expecting praise or accolades, she just wants to do good, and good things happen to her as a result.

Have you ever meet someone that your pet was drawn to? They share a bond with animals that seems effortless. I’m not just talking about someone who goes out of their way to connect with an animal, but rather someone who the animal reaches out to. They seem to communicate with animals nonverbally.

There are many forms of giftedness. Many natural talents that can be fostered and developed. Sometimes it seems connected to a disposition, a positive outlook. Other times it can be intuitive, a knowledge that seems unlearned yet fully acquired. And still other times it can be connected to perspective, and seeing things from points of view that others miss. Some of this can be honed and learned, and some of it just seems to be a natural intelligence.

None of these kind of smarts limit someone from being a good student. But sometimes intuitively or creatively smart people don’t do well in school. We need to recognize peoples gifts independently from their grades. We need to recognize that there are different kinds of smart.

Battling the inner demons

I’m listening to a book now that has two main characters who are both cautiously interested in each other and doubting that the other person is interested in them. It’s a little painful because they should have recognized the other’s attraction by now. So, while as a reader I’m waiting for the inevitable, I do appreciate the author’s perspective on both characters self-doubt… and how they are fighting their inner demons about their own appeal, their own value of what they can offer to the other person.

I wonder how many relationships flounder not because of lack of interest, but rather lack of confidence? How many people don’t initiate intimacy for fear of rejection? It happens in books all the time. Is that indicative of what really happens, or is it more likely that the attraction is one-way? Is it more if an external imbalance of interest in one another or more internal conflict holding back advances?

How often do people succumb to their inner demons and not move forward? Not just in relationships, in their studies, in their jobs, in sports, and even in hobbies?

“I’m not good enough for that team, why even try out?” (Or worse yet, “Why practice more, it won’t make a difference.”

“They won’t want to hire me.”

“They don’t see my value, I’ll get rejected if I ask for a raise.”

“My photos aren’t good enough to submit in the contest.”

How often do our inner demons prevent us from trying?

The photograph

Five unruly cousins on a park bench. Our uncle taking the photo. No chance of us all sitting quietly and smiling at the same time.

“Ok, here’s the deal,” my uncle says. “Pose for one nice one then I’ll let you do anything you want for the next picture.”

Here we are about 45 years later and only one of those pictures survived. Only one mattered enough to be blown up and framed. The smiles long faded to distant memory… but ‘anything you want’ was exactly want we wanted, and what we still want.

It’s amazing what you get when you let kids be kids.

Being different

I’m lucky.

I’ve been an odd duck my whole life but I’ve rarely suffered consequences that many odd ducks do. I was 4’11” at the end of grade 9, the runt of the litter. But I had good friends that protected me from the bullying I could have faced.

My friends grew up looking at cars and dreaming about which ones they wanted. I looked at cars and the biggest difference I noticed was their colour. I couldn’t even identify their logos. I didn’t feign interest and so my friends would chat about acceleration and horsepower and didn’t care that I wasn’t contributing.

I saw the original Star Wars movies in theatres but was with a friend last night who was showing me all the sequels beyond the original 6 movies and I’ve barely seen any. I’ve also not seen most of the Marvel comic movies that everyone I know has seen. Not even most of the ones with my favourite character, Spiderman. And I only know of Thanos from 1 minute clips and memes.

I live in Vancouver and can’t name 3 current hockey players on the Canucks. Heck I can’t even name one. I’d struggle to name the cities of some of the expansion teams. I also don’t know the names of any current American or CFL footballers and can only name Messi in soccer because he’s in the news, but right now I can’t even think of his first name?

I grew up a scrawny kid that wasn’t good at playing sports, I didn’t know cars, didn’t stay up to date on movie lore, didn’t follow very many sports, and to this day know the lyrics to very few songs beyond Happy Birthday. I’ve also always been quite comfortable when I’m alone. When I put it this way, I sound pretty damn boring. 😂

Sure I wasn’t completely out of it. I did become a Maple Leafs fan and would go see hockey games with my buddies. I went to see movies with my friends, like Breakfast Club, Meatballs, and Back To The Future. And, I could tell the difference between a Pontiac and a Porsche. But when I look back I really didn’t fit in.

I joined water polo in my Grade 11 year and I was un-athletic and lacked any game sense, which made me (deservingly) the last person off the bench in games. But I was willing to work hard and was accepted despite my poor abilities. That acceptance allowed me to improve quickly and so despite my late entry into organized sports I got to play and coach competitively, and connected to some amazing people.

I also have pretty thick skin. I can get teased and it really doesn’t bug me. You want to pick on a weakness or a flaw, go ahead and I’ll laugh along with you. I am really only sensitive about being misunderstood. I dislike assumptions that people make, not actual things that make me different or odd.

I seldom if ever spend time trying to fit in. Yet over the years I’ve developed amazing friends that accept me for who I am. That’s why I started out by saying I’m lucky. I am. I could easily have been the odd duck, the outcast, the loner. But I’m just quirky old me, and I’m surrounded by wonderful, caring family and friends.

I’m just different. So are you. We all are. Enjoy your uniqueness and enjoy being different. I do.

Hard to build routines back

I should have written this an hour ago. I was up, but I kept myself distracted. I should have worked out already, but I haven’t started. I’m probably going to do my meditation on my exercise bike to reclaim some time.

It doesn’t really matter today, because I can stroll into work at 8:30am and still spend a full day there. Only my secretaries will be in the building and my first meeting is at 11am. So it’s not like this wasted time hurt my schedule. But it hurts.

It hurts because it’s going to take a while before my routine is automated again. It hurts because it’s me pushing off things that are good for me. If this was next week, I’d have to skip my workout right now.

However the nice thing is that it’s not next week. It’s not like I have to scramble or miss anything. I’m just acknowledging that routines take time to develop and redevelop. It’s not easy leaving my routines for a full summer then jumping right back into them. But once I get my routine going again it feeds itself.

I feel the benefits of getting a whole list of things done for myself before I even start my workday. Writing, meditating, stretching, and working out, all done before I even shower to start my day. The only hard part is now, it’s when the pattern isn’t set and I actually have to make an effort to do it. By early next week it will just be what I do when I wake up: Routine initiated.

Today it was a slog.