Category Archives: Daily-Ink

5 ways people are coping with a pandemic on social media.

Just a quick observation about the way people are coping with the Coronavirus pandemic via social media sharing:

1. Complaining/Blaming.

2. Oversharing bad news.

3. Using humour.

4. Sharing the struggle.

5. Sharing ideas, and resources.

The first 2 ways accomplish nothing, except to build anger, excite fear, and actually reduce the ability of others to cope well. What wasn’t done before isn’t as important as what can be done now. I’m not saying everything needs to be positive, but rather that some thought should be put into how much energy is spent spreading negative things that do not contribute to a more positive outcome.

Humour can be a wonderful escape and it can also be biting commentary that invites as much anger as laughter. I’ve caught myself reading some of the commentary on funny tweets and can tell that the joke isn’t always seen as funny. That said, I’ve been sharing some very clever jokes that I think can help us see that we are all in this together.

I’ve also seen some people sharing their struggles and others wrap around them for support. This is really beautiful to see.

Finally, I’ve seen some very informative posts that actually help people cope.

More than ever, it’s a good time to pause and think before you post.

The not-so-normal path ahead for young adults

It’s challenging to look ahead these days and try and imagine what the new normal will be?

My youngest daughter is in Grade 12. In a month and a half she was supposed to have a lead part in her spring musical. I don’t think that will happen as we imagined it would. Next up for her is graduation. Will the dinner/dance happen? Will she cross the stage with her peers? Will parents be invited?

Imagine being in senior year of NCAA basketball and you are a starter. You aren’t good enough for the NBA, so this is your final season playing for huge audiences, and your season is cut short because of a virus?

In the grand scheme of things these might seem like trifle thoughts compared to exhausted health care workers, or people on ventilators and their concerned family members. But to a young adult this is a crushing blow to their plans and aspirations.

The new normal ahead is not one that will be kind to young adults in our community. Let’s remember this when they get restless and feel down. Let’s remember this when they are connecting with friends digitally. Let’s remember this when they join us in talking about the challenges ahead.

Everything we do to bring normalcy to the coming weeks will still be far from normal, and not all young adults are ready to cope with that. Let’s try to be helpful and supportive of them.

Rest and relaxation

It has been a week of being on hyper alert. The Coronavirus, Covid-19, has spread globally, and the news virus has been equally as aggressive. I haven’t payed this much attention to the news in over a decade. So with this being day 1 of my 2-week March break, I gave myself a short time limit to read the news this morning and now I’m going into rest and relaxation mode.

I’m going to stop listening to my current audio book and pick a good fiction to listen to. I’m going to enjoy a walk with my family. I’m going to binge a bit on Netflix. I’m going to take an afternoon nap.

Tomorrow I’ll check in on the world again.

7-Sins-Collage

Here are the 7 Sins, and here come the 7 Virtues?

In January, I wrote a series of posts called the 7 Sins:

  1. Gluttony
  2. Envy
  3. Pride
  4. Lust
  5. Wrath
  6. Greed
  7. Sloth

I plan to write a series of 7 Virtues over this coming week, in addition to my regular daily posts, then auto post them the following week while I take a social media break. I will be deleting my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Apps off of my phone and only using my phone or a laptop with notifications turned off for my sabbatical. On that note, if you regularly read this blog from my Facebook Story or Facebook Timeline, please ‘Like’ this FB page, because during my social media break I won’t be manually adding the posts to my Story or Timeline. You can also get Daily-Ink by email.

Here are 7 Virtues that I am thinking of writing about: (The order might differ.)

  1. Love (including Chastity and Loyalty)
  2. Discipline (including Patience, not just Diligence or Temperance)
  3. Empathy (including Compassion)
  4. Integrity (including Honour and Courage)
  5. Kindness (including Charity),
  6. Humility
  7. Forgiveness

Am I missing anything? Any suggestions?

It’s about saving lives

Chances are that you will know someone who contracts Covid-19. If you are unlucky, you will know someone that this Coronavirus kills. That’s already the case for me. My dad’s cousin, my second cousin, was just a year older than me. She went on holiday from England to Bali, arrived without symptoms, and was diagnosed 4 days later. Six days after that she passed away. She had some significant health conditions which contributed to the affects of the virus. There are many people who do.

You probably keep hearing that we need to “flatten the curve”, what this really means is that we need to save lives.

Here is an excellent, detailed article that goes over the numbers. The reality is that no country will escape the effects of this virus, but some will have significantly higher or lower mortality rates… and we can all do our part to decrease that number by helping slow the virus down. We can’t increase the capacity of our hospitals in a significant way. We can help them not reach that capacity in an overwhelming way.

In this article by NPR, Drew Harris, the population health researcher at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia who created the widely shared graphic below, compares the concern about overburdening our hospitals to rush hour on a subway. We need to get everyone on the subway trains/in our hospitals when they need to be there. However, missing a train is different than not getting a respirator when you need one. Italian doctors are already doing wartime-like triage in hospitals, deciding who lives or dies because there isn’t enough equipment to save everyone.

Do your part to flatten the curve and you will be doing your part to save lives!

*UPDATE – These simulations show how to flatten the coronavirus growth curve – From the Washington Post

Good people

While you wouldn’t know it from watching the news, our world is filled with many amazing people. Some gestures are big, others small, but so many people are inherently good.

In the last 24 hours:

  • I watched a video of a senator in the US demanding that testing for Coronavirus be free regardless of a person’s medical coverage.
  • I saw a news clip of exhausted doctors and nurses working tirelessly in hospitals in Italy, where the Coronavirus cases are growing exponentially.
  • My wife received an adorable thank you letter from a student, thanking her for ‘pushing me to my limits and above’ and for being ‘a teacher I will always remember and love’.
  • I received an update from a former student who is going into family medicine because she ‘loves the idea of getting to know patients over a long period of time… and being the ‘first line’ of care’, and thanking me for my influence.
  • A subscription-based podcaster emailed to say that if the pandemic puts anyone into financial need, they can email for a free subscription.

We are heading into a time of uncertainty, when our social and medical services will be stretched. Some people will be scared, others desperate. I hope that the good in people shines through, and that people will come together to support those in their community who are in need.

A lesson taught with dignity and respect

My grandfather, Leon Bernstein or ‘Papa B’ as he was known, was an amazing man. As I shared at his funeral:

Papa B. is a Giant!

Like many of you, I know this because he told me so.
Papa wasn’t boasting when he said this, he was just telling you the way it is. If you were to measure a man by the legacy he leaves behind Papa would come as big as they get. In this way he is still a giant and always will be.

Here is a lesson that he taught me, wrapped inside of another lesson. It speaks to his character, and to the kind of person I want to be, that I strive to be. It’s a lesson he taught me when I was about 14 years old.

It happened at a family gathering at our house, it was the weekend and both sets of grandparents and a few aunts and uncles were over. It wasn’t a special occasion, our family often connected without a specific reason. I specifically know that it wasn’t a special occasion because I went for a bike ride with a couple friends, and if it was a special occasion, like a birthday, I would have had to stay at the celebration.

When I finished my ride, just before dinner, I came home and I remember that I was going very fast. I reached my driveway and I didn’t slow down. I made the sharp turn on my neighbour’s shared driveway and kept my speed up as I headed to the garage. But at the speed I was going I couldn’t make the turn and I hit Papa B’s car. My handlebar scraped across the car door leaving a scratch longer than a ruler, over 12 inches or 30cm. Then I fell to the pavement and scraped me knee.

It wasn’t a bad scape but standing up I looked at the scrape on me knee and then the large scratch on my grandfather’s car and I started to cry. I went into the house crying and I told my story of riding up the driveway and hitting the car. I didn’t admit to going too fast.

A few adults came outside to look at the car. I still had tears in my eyes as we looked at the large scratch on the front passenger car door. There was a remark about how big it was and the tears flowed. My grandfather spoke up, “It’s all right boy, the important thing is you weren’t hurt. Your knee will heal and the scratch can be fixed. All good.”

And with that we all went inside, me hobbling with exaggeration behind everyone that came outside. I got a bandaid from my mom, and the scratch on the car wasn’t mentioned again that night. I had convinced myself when I scraped the car that I was going to get in big trouble, but my grandfather said it wasn’t important, what was important was that I was ok. It was ‘All good’.

A couple days later Papa B came over and he asked me to come outside. He took me by the hand, something only he could do to a 14 year old in a way that felt natural. Holding hands was something Papa B did with all his grandkids. We walked to the passenger side of the car and he pointed. “See that,” he said pointing to the scratch I had made. “The scratch is horizontal. You were going too fast. If you were going a safe speed, the scratch would have pointed down as the bike fell, but you turned too fast and this scratch tells me so. It’s ok, I know it was a mistake, but I wanted you to know that I know you were going too fast.”

That was it. We went inside and it was never mentioned again.

This has shaped the way I have spoken as a teacher to students in my class, and now as a principal to students in my office. Papa knew all along, but he didn’t want to share this in front of an audience. He waited and taught me a lesson with dignity and respect. It’s easy to be angry and heated and forget to be like this.

That isn’t to say that I always choose to deal with things this way. And sometimes it’s good for students to see you upset, or disappointed with some emotion. But my default is to strive to be like Papa B. To choose a moment that isn’t public. To be gentle and respectful, but also to face the issue rather than let it pass.

Students make mistakes. People make mistakes. I make mistakes. When I remember this story, I remember that how we react to a mistake can be as much of a lesson as the lesson the mistake has to offer. Others deserve the same respect that my Papa B gave to me.

How long is a year? It’s all relative

We recently celebrated my wife’s birthday, and it made me think about what that meant in our solar system: One year means that our earth has circled the sun and is in the *same* position that it was a year ago. What that really means is the same position relative only to the sun.

Not only is every other planet in a different position than the year before, but the sun itself isn’t anywhere near where it used to be.

Watch this video: Skylight: How Does Our Solar System Move Around the Milky Way?

“As our spinning planet revolves around the sun, we’re also speeding through the galaxy at 230 kilometres per second.”

So, while here on earth we are in the same relative position to the sun that we were a year ago, the sun itself has travelled:

230km/second x 60 seconds in a minute x 60 minutes in an hour x 24 hours in a day x 365 days in a year: The sun and earth are approximately 7,253,280,000 Kilometres away from where they were a year ago. We are quite literally only in the same place we were a year ago relative to the position of the sun.

Happy birthday = Happy single rotation around the sun… while the sun is racing through the galaxy, taking us 7+ billion kilometres away from where we we a year ago!

Oh, and by the way, this just factors in the way our sun moves within the galaxy. Our galaxy is also moving through the universe… all this movement is relative.

As a final thought on the relative length of a year, a year of fighting cancer is significantly different than a year of sabbatical on a tropical island… no matter how far we may travel through the cosmos in that time.

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This video shows us the actual travel path of the sun and planets through the galaxy: The helical model – our solar system is a vortex

Biohacking human abilities and the future of CRISPR

We are comfortable altering our bodies to maintain our abilities: laser eye surgery, hip replacements, hearing implants… What about genetically enhancing our abilities? Is this different?

Imagine three men, all of them 82 years old and generally healthy. But they are all quite different.

The first man is mostly bald with gray hair over his ears, hunched over, walks with a cane, wears thick glasses, has hearing aids, has bent fingers from arthritis, and his hands shake slightly… and although he has a couple stints in his veins, he has no life-threatening ailments. Unless he meets an unexpected or untimely death, he will likely see his 85th birthday.

The second man has had his genetic makeup altered by CRISPR, taking advantage of human genes being altered to reduce the effects of aging. He looks 55-60 years old, with a full head of hair, greying near his ears, an upright posture, 20-20 vision, good hearing, and steady hands, unaffected by arthritis… his cardiovascular health is like that of someone fit and in their 50’s. He has no life-threatening ailments. Unless he meets an unexpected or untimely death, he will likely see his 100th birthday.

The third man has had his genetic makeup altered by CRISPR, taking advantage of animal and plant genes being altered to enhance his life. His hair is naturally jet black, and has an attractive but unnaturally beautiful shimmer. His eyesight is as good as a hawk’s, 20/2 vision, meaning he can see something 20 feet away as if it is just 2 feet away. His hearing range is more like a dogs than a human… His muscles are huge and he has the physical and cardiovascular health of a man in his late 30’s. He has no life-threatening ailments. Unless he meets an unexpected or untimely death, he will likely see his 125th birthday, and he will still have the mental acuity of a man 1/3 his age.

My hunch is that you are not bothered at all by the health improvements of the second man, but the idea of the third man is a bit disturbing. We are ok with the idea of reducing the effects of aging… skin creams, laser eye surgery, cochlear hearing implants, plastic surgery, knee and hip replacements. All these things to help us hold on to our youth, and if we can do these things genetically, that’s great.

But the third man seems unnatural in a way that is scary. He seems more than human. He seems to be an enhanced species. And here is the truly scary thing… he is inevitable. We now live in a world where people consider themselves biohackers… self-taught amateurs who are DIY (Do-It-Yourself) biologists. And the technology is becoming easy enough for a person in their basement to alter the genes of a human being.

Stop and really think about that for a moment. An amateur biologist can alter the genes of a dog, and there is nothing to stop him from attempting to do the same to himself. This isn’t science fiction anymore. And if a DIY, basement biologist alters their own genetic makeup, then decides to have children, those genetic alterations will become part of the human genome. We are going to see altered and enhanced human abilities added to the genetic makeup of our future generations… with no oversight!

The question isn’t if this will happen, it’s how soon, by whom, and with what unforeseen consequences? Will biohackers be designing super humans? Will being an unaltered human 75 years from now be disadvantageous? Will these disadvantages be enough to be considered a sub-class of a super being… An upgraded human that is smarter, stronger, healthier, and lives longer, with more vitality in their later years, which will make a regular human being seem weak, and perhaps stupid too.

This is the stuff that science fiction is made of, and it’s happening right now. It’s happening in biomedical labs bound by ethics boards; And it’s happening unsupervised in the basements and garages of biohackers with both good and nefarious intentions. That’s both a very real and very scary concern to think about.

Novel ideas can spread from a novel virus

I travelled to China during the early H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic in 2009. Concerns were low in Canada and there wasn’t a travel warning at the time. On my flight to Japan there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. However after leaving Japan, when we landed in Chana we were asked to stay on the plane and remain seated.

A team of people masked and dressed in white came on board and used an infrared thermometer to take our temperatures. Two rows in front of me a person that was coughing and unwell, and her husband, were escorted off the plane first. I remember thinking, ‘Oh man, sucks to be you!’

I thought that was it, but after leaving the plane I guess that we passed a heat sensor camera because I was tapped on the shoulder and pulled aside. A lady in a mask, shining a red light on my forehead, took my temperature and said, “Too hot.”

To say that I was freaked out is an understatement. I was visiting for 1 week to learn about my future job as a school Principal, and visions of quarantine in a foreign country, where I don’t speak the language, swirled through my head. Fortunately, a second reading was done and I was fine. I think a coffee right before landing, plus the fact that I run a little hot anyway, might have been the initial trigger.

Still, that shook me a little. I wondered about why these measures were not happening elsewhere? The response in China seemed preventative, while in other countries it seemed merely reactive. I’m not sure too many lessons were learned and the novel Coronavirus currently spreading across the world will likely have a significant impact on our globe before things get better. Yet I don’t mean that to sound like foreboding, and ominous foreshadowing. This virus will run its course, then some valuable lessons will be learned that were not learned by viruses like this in the past. Lessons that will hopefully help prevent the severity of a future pandemic.

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I read in interesting article, “How the coronavirus will shape the future” and want to expand on one section as it relates to schools and education:

If the growing novel coronavirus outbreak becomes a lasting pandemic, it could accelerate fundamental changes in the economy, politics and the workplace...

Going remote: Videoconferencing and remote work have exploded as the virus has spread.

  • According to Kentik, a global provider of network analytics, videoconferencing traffic in North America and Asia has doubled since the outbreak began.

  • Led by tech firms like Twitter and Facebook, companies are encouraging and even requiring their employees to work from home, both to slow the spread of the disease now and prepare for the worst should offices be closed in a quarantine.

  • Many experts believe business leaders will come to see that central offices and face-to-face meetings are less vital than they thought. “We’re going to see that work can be tied to productivity anywhere rather than putting time in an office,” said Peter Jackson, CEO of the digital collaboration company Bluescape.

At Inquiry Hub Secondary every assignment is already available online. Students have access to Moodle, Microsoft OneNote, and Microsoft Teams from any connected computer or mobile device. The Microsoft tools also have immersive readers and dictation tools to support students no matters where they are learning from.

Using Teams, I can invite colleagues or students into a virtual classroom, sharing video including either my or a student’s screen, and we can all link to resources in the Chat. Students could collaborate and do presentations, submit work, and get feedback without entering a school. That creates a lot of opportunities that weren’t previously available. I have no idea if this is something that will become necessary in the coming months, but in some parts of the world schools have already been closed, and so the idea that this is possible becomes a topic of discussion.

Discussion about the possibility of remote learning invites questions about blended learning where some of the work, both asynchronous and synchronous, is done remotely. It also invites conversations and questions about what we should be spending our time on when we do get together?

We might not have to change anything to deal with the Coronavirus, but the fact that this virus is impacting the world the way it is might impact how we think about operating our schools and businesses in the future. What excites me isn’t the idea that more work might be done remotely, but rather the ideas behind what we do when we connect face-to-face, and how we use that time? Will we focus more on collaboration, team building, social skills, construction and creation of projects, and more personalized support? How will we engage students in learning when they might not be coming to school every day?