Category Archives: Daily-Ink

Elton John Farewell Tour

Elton John has been performing on stage for 50 years. He has had the opportunity to follow his passion his entire life. Having recently watched his autobiographical movie, it is evident that fame brought him many lows to go with the highs, but not many people get to follow their dreams for 50 years!

And although he is in his 70’s, he put on an amazing show! He was on stage for almost 3 hours, his only breaks being a few minutes between a quick change of outfit, and before his encore. He belted out old favourite songs like he was on tour for the first time. He was gracious to the audience and to his band. And he spoke about his charity to support Aids victims, a charity he started and that has raised almost a half billion dollars.

Not everyone can achieve what Elton John has, but he stands as a model of what’s possible when you follow your passion.

Consistency is the playground of dull minds

I’m listening to the audiobook ‘Sapiens’, by Yuval Noah Harari, and this quote struck a cord with me:

“… Such contradictions are an inseparable part of every human culture. In fact, they are culture’s engines, responsible for the creativity and dynamism of our species. Just as when two clashing musical notes played together force a piece of music forward, so discord in our thoughts, ideas, and values compel us to think, reevaluate, and criticize. Consistency is the playground of dull minds.”

This fits well with some of what I was thinking when I wrote Ideas on a Spectrum. We need discord to compel us forward. We need differences of opinions and rich discourse. Consistently thinking the same thing does not promote learning or progress.

On a related note, sometimes I forget to celebrate the good things that are happening around me because I focus on what still needs to change and get better. Maybe this is a flaw. Maybe I need to focus more on this, if not for myself then for those I work with. On the one hand, celebrating can lead to complacency. It can limit or cloud the perspective that more needs to be done. On the other hand, not everyone is willing to work towards a common goal if they don’t feel valued. It is challenging to put these two ‘musical notes’ together as we move forward.

In moving forward, I often think that, ‘Good is the enemy of great’. Consistency can breed mediocrity. And, striving to make things better is never dull.

Design vs Use

One of our middle schools in the district sits on the edge of a steep hillside. There is a large set of stairs, and to the side of that, a long wheelchair ramp. Between the stairs and the ramp is a steep grassy wedge. There is a huge forested area with trails nearby, but three boys, two with GoPro cameras on their helmets, are riding up the ramp, and riding down the grassy embankment as well as the stairs. You can see a trail down the embankment from continued use… use that was never intended.

I remember reading about a new college or university that didn’t install walking paths until after students had created foot trails through the grassy openings between buildings, allowing form to fit function.

There are so many ways that poor design misses the point that the use of an item is more important than the look. Here in Vancouver, the overhangs in front of malls, stores, and buildings will have massive gaps between them. But these are decorative, not functional. They might ‘work’ in California, but it rains a lot more here in Vancouver, and people would rather be dry, instead of having decorative overhangs that let the rain come through.

Design vs Use in Schools

Schools lack inviting spaces to hang out that result in the use of hallway or stairwell alcoves where kids like to congregate, making the hallways and stairways more of a hangout and much less functional to walk through. Rectangular desks only let chairs fit in 2 of the 4 sides. Library stacks don’t move, making the design of the library fixed in form and function.

Multiple choice tests are easy to mark, but force the focus of tests towards content. “All of the above” answers allow student to be partially correct but not get credit for knowing what they know. The questions are ‘closed’ as opposed to open ended.

The bell schedule with blocks of time push schools into teaching subjects in silos. Blocks limit collaboration between teachers. Grouping students by age in those blocks limits the ability to combine students by passion and capability.

We should always be thinking about designing for use. We should have empathy for the user. And we should celebrate when users make the design work for them.

Go Fish

Isn’t it funny how we can lack perseverance and grit with some challenges while with others our attitude is completely different?

We can learn a lot about this from fishing hobbyists. Anglers will go to a lake or river and cast for hours with no luck. They will try different lures and techniques, and they will move to different areas, but they won’t give up. And then, if hours later they are packing up, and they still haven’t caught anything, well then it was still a good day.

I’ve heard it said that ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result’. But sometimes we just need to go fishing a little. Maybe some time, patience, and perspective is all we need… Along with the attitude that a little fishing expedition can be fun, even if the immediate results aren’t what we are looking for.

Daily blogging made easy

On July 6th I decided ‘It’s time…‘, and I (re)started this daily blog. Although I might have missed a day or two early on, it has become a daily routine for me. But that was during my summer holidays and I had time!

Like my healthy living goals, I knew that to make this stick, I need to make it work when I am busy. It’s never busier than September startup in schools. So, how am I adding this to my daily routine? I thought I’d share:

1. I have the WordPress App on the front page of my phone.

(I love the colour option:)

2. I use the app to add draft ideas any time of the day. It can be as simple as a title and a single sentence. I do this very quickly, unless I plan to write the whole post.

3. Set aside a bit of time to write. I usually write after dinner, before bed, or I wake up early if I don’t have a post scheduled the next day. I might write longer posts on weekends but I try to keep writing to 30-45 minutes mid week. I don’t watch TV, so I think of it as a writing ‘episode’, (without commercials😜). If I wake up early, I limit myself to 30 minutes. This isn’t a chore, it’s not work, it is a hobby I want to do. If I am tired, I rely on my drafts.

4. Find an image. I usually start with a search for a meme related to my post, and no matter what, I commit to finding something in less than 5 minutes.

5. Go to the app’s Post Settings and: Add 2-3 related blog tags, add the image, and change the message that gets auto-posted on Twitter, LinkedIn, and my Facebook page. (I usually make this message the post title, my #dailyink hashtag and one sentence about the post).

6. Schedule posts for the next morning. I’m playing with times between 6:45am and 8am. I have no idea what works best? I have a morning routine of meditation, exercise, and listening to an audio book, but sometimes I have time and I re-read and edit my post, or I dream up new draft ideas.

That’s it. Some days I’m spending 30 minutes ‘all-in’, this post has been a bit longer. If I needed more time this would have been popped into my drafts and I’d probably post something else tomorrow.

I’m writing, I’m putting it ‘out there’, and I’m enjoying the mental break from the day. I tried watching TV with my wife a couple days ago…

…I prefer to be creative and add some #dailyink on my blog.

Smart A$$ Responses

Ask yourself, if you aren’t getting the answers you want, are you asking the right questions?

Here are 2 worksheets where students got very creative with their answers.

Did the students give the teacher a response that they wanted? No.

Did the students deserve the response that they got? No.

Regarding the first worksheet, I created this image to make fun of it:

“You’ve got to ‘love’ worksheets typed on a typewriter and copied so many times that parts of the letters are missing.”

Did the student spell any of the 10 words wrong?

What if the teacher said, “Haha, that was sneaky, now look around the room and find 10 more words that you can spell”?

Looking at the second worksheet, what if the student gave the examples shared as their answers? What would the teacher have done then? (And who ‘jumps’ with their family???) The question coupled with the examples makes this a painfully boring task. The musical response by the student actually makes the assignment interesting.

Why the big red X?

“Not the answer I was looking for.”

No it wasn’t, but it is a very clever answer! One that should be recognized as creative.

What if the teacher said, “Haha! That’s great! What other action verbs do you know?”

Is the purpose of a worksheet to get the answers right? Is the purpose of assessment to count marks or to check for understanding? When someone doesn’t give you ‘what you are looking for’ does that mean their response is wrong and deserves a big red X?

Or is a smart a$$ response a wake up call that maybe you can ask better, more interesting questions?

On being present

How much time do we spend ruminating on the past? …Anticipating or anxious about the future? …Thinking about possible scenarios and reenacting different outcomes to decisions or conversations? …Wondering how our lives could be different, if only…

How much time do we spend hiding from the present moment without knowing that is what we are doing? Are we really procrastinating, or are we outright avoiding? Are we creating new possibilities, or are we avoiding inevitable realities? Are we rehearsing alternate options, or creating unachievable fantasies?

What do we do to unintentionally avoid the present?

What can we do to intentionally be present?

Stop. Breathe. Breathe again deeply. Feel the oxygen reach your extremities. Smile. Now decide what you will do right now.

To seize the day, you must first seize the present moment.

Sugar Monsters

“Listen to your gut.”

We use phrases like this all the time. But it looks like we might actually be listening a lot more than we realize. Research suggests the bacteria within our gut biome actually influence our thinking. This takes the phrase ‘you are what you eat’ to a whole new level!

What we eat determines the makeup of our gut biome, and our gut biome sends messages to our brain. Our brains literally get craving messages from our gut, and just like a drug addiction, these signals can control our behaviour. One food that acts a lot like addictive drugs do is sugar.

I’m going to issue a challenge. I want you to go into your pantry and choose any 10 items that you enjoy eating. Include condiments, cereal, sauces, treats, and even a few things you consider healthy. Now look for the Sugar in the ingredients. How many of these items have sugar as one of the first four ingredients?

In case you didn’t know, ingredients on labels are ordered from largest to smallest amounts, so if sugar is one of the top 4 ingredients, that likely means there is a considerable amount of sugar in the product. Some labels will also have Nutritional Facts that show how many grams of sugar are in a single serving. And that single serving is likely smaller than what you serve yourself.

It’s almost impossible to avoid large doses of sugar in your diet. It takes effort. With high levels of sugar in so many things, if you aren’t intentionally thinking about it, you are literally creating sugar-hungry, mind-controlling monsters in your gut.

The next time you get a food craving, is it really your mind doing the craving or is it the bacteria in your gut taking control of you?

Luxuries Become Essential

What starts out as a luxury often becomes essential… something we struggle to live without. Think of indoor plumbing. Water when you want it, for drinking, cleaning, and flushing waste. At one point these were things you couldn’t do, later they were luxuries reserved for the rich. Now in a ‘developed’ country indoor plumbing is essential.

Phones used to be a luxury item. Then, like running water, they became essential. Our (personal) phones used to be tied to a single location, our homes. At first the chord was 3 feet long, and we were tied to the room it was in. Then the chords got longer and/or the line to the phone was extended, and suddenly my sisters could make private calls from their bedroom or the bathroom. Then came cordless phones and we could even make calls from the back yard or the garage. Then came the cellphone.

The first mobile phone call happened in 1973. The first commercial mobile phone arrived in 1983 and cost close to $4,000. IBM came out with the first smart phone in 1993. In 2005 the first Blackberry came out. In 2007 there were about 295 million people using 3G around the world. And in 2008 the first iPhone came out.

Now, carrying a phone with you is no longer a luxury, it is almost as essential as indoor plumbing. But is it truly a luxury?

I love having Google at my fingertips. I don’t love the access to work email when I’m home with my family. I love being connected to family on a group Snapchat we share. I don’t love telemarketing phone calls interrupting me. I love having an audio book with me at all times. I don’t love talking to people who interrupt our conversation for a phone call, or an alert. I especially don’t love when it’s my phone doing the interrupting… because I can be just as guilty at times.

In the move from a luxury item to an essential item, our phones have changed our behaviour, our communication, and our relationships to one another in significant ways. We are always connected, always available, and always reactive to a device we take everywhere we go. A cellphone is no longer a luxury. It is convenient but can be inconvenient too. It is definitely a distraction.

Here is a parting question: If cellphones were a species, would this be a symbiotic relationship or would we would be the hosts in a parasitic relationship where the phones benefited more from us than we benefit from them?

Sharing the flame

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ~ Buddha

There is one more element to this quote that I think is worth reflecting on. Not only does the lighting of other candles not diminish your own candle, but the joy of sharing your light increases the brightness around you!

How and where do you share your flame?