Doing STEM

‘Doing STEM’ or ‘Doing STEAM’… there is a saying, “Put lipstick on a pig, and it’s still a pig.”

I don’t want this to sound like a rant, and I don’t want to knock teachers for trying to do STEM projects. I do want to say that if 5 years ago a teacher did a project with kids where they broke them into groups and had them assemble a limited number of straws and a specific length of tape into the tallest possible tower, and if they do it again today it isn’t suddenly a STEM project.

Now, if that same lesson included teaching geometry and/or structural integrity; or if students had to design it such that their design had to have a function such as offices or apartments; or hold a weighted satellite dish; or if it had to factor in wind resistance (such as a blow dryer at close range); or if they had to model their design first and estimate the height they will achieve… if there was some thinking, designing, modelling, or estimating that was required before or even during the build process, well then it’s looking more like STEM.

Hands-on does not equal STEM. Building something does not equal STEM. Group challenges does not equal STEM. Meaningful integration of cross-curricular concepts, where problem solving requires thinking in more than one subject area relating to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math is STEM. It doesn’t have to check all the boxes, but it should include thoughtful integration of at least a couple of these.

It’s about making the cross-curricular connections explicit, or at least thinking through how the outcomes and expectations relate to these connections. It’s about developing competencies in the areas of STEM and not just doing a project that looks like STEM.

Fast and slow

We are having a renovation done and it’s about to move a lot faster. When electrical and plumbing are happening, the changes are incrementally slow, but this week they will start the drywall, and then things will start to move really quickly, adding walls, cabinets, and flooring. Soon we won’t remember what things look like now.

Kids are the same. Day to day you don’t notice them growing up, then suddenly they are adults. Day to day they are just your kids, but blink and suddenly they are their own people, with their own relationships, and work. The transition was slow, but looking back it seems so fast.

When you are building a home, things move both fast and slow.

Change of plans

Before covid hit, I was scheduled for a Mediterranean cruise, with stays in Spain and Portugal. One of my daughters had a semester abroad cancelled. And we are not the only ones that have seen all kinds of changes in plans occur.

Today I took a discretionary day off to assist with a family member having surgery, only to learn this morning that the surgery was cancelled. That’s the nature of what the last couple years have been like… The best laid plans of mice and men…

After build-up and expectations, cancelled plans are tough. I think they are taking a toll on people. It’s not a big deal when one thing doesn’t go as planned, but when plans are cancelled again and again, when rules and expectations change again and again, it gets to be mentally exhausting.

We need to give ourselves the permission to be upset and disappointed, we need to allow ourselves the opportunity to be pissed off. And then we need to take a deep breath and move on. It’s not healthy to stay in a state of disappointment. The reality is that remaining in a state of disappointment accomplishes nothing, except maybe to make us feel crappy.

Living through a pandemic is stressful, but the alternative is worse. We’ll get through this. There will be more cancellations. There will be more rule changes. There will be more upset people acting irrationally. But in the end, we’ll persevere, and as long as we are willing to adapt, and be as thoughtful and safe as we can, we will be stronger from the adversity we’ve faced.

Breaking the routine

I forgot to meditate yesterday. Thats fine if it’s just once and I get back to a routine, if I started a nice long streak today. But that’s my 7th time in a month I forgot, which would normally be how many I miss in 4-6 months. This suggests to me that the habit I had is no longer a habit.

A lesson that I used to follow from Atomic Habits was habit stacking. I used to write this post, then immediately meditate, then immediately do my cardio exercise. I actually started the stack with meditation, but I had to switch because I found that if I hadn’t written first, I spent my meditation actually thinking about writing rather than focusing on meditation.

Recently I’ve been writing at different times of the day, like just before bed. And I’ve been waking up later than planned, or spending an hour of my morning shovelling the driveway… My habit stack, my pattern of accomplishing 3 daily healthy living goals in a row, has been broken.

I’m reminded of this motivational quote, though a quick search didn’t lead to an author to give credit to:

“If it is important, you will find a way. If not, you will find excuses.”

I explained the reason(s) I have been missing my meditation a lot, but ultimately those reasons are just excuses. If this goal of meditating every day truly is something I want to do, if it’s really important to me, I will find a way.

If I break my stack, if I don’t meditate as part of my morning routine, I will immediately set an alarm on my phone to remind me to meditate at night. But the best thing I can do is my morning habit stack, and on that note, I’m off to meditate. Because the best day to start a new streak is today!

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Related: I just remembered that I shared that quote before on my post: Leading Change – 3 Images, which is a concept that I’ve used in presentations, and have thought a fair bit about since writing it back in 2014. I’m going to use the first image to go with this post, (which email subscribers to my blog won’t see unless they go to my blog).

Passion and Compassion

Had a chat with my parents yesterday for their 55th Anniversary. My dad was sharing that he spoke to one of my daughters earlier in the day and her gave her some advice.

“Live life with passion and compassion,” he told her. When you find a job you love, it’s not work, it’s a vocation. And so you can live a life of following your interests with passion. And then, don’t forget to have compassion for your fellow man.

Simple, thoughtful advice. Be passionate about the things you do, and be compassionate to those who are less fortunate or who could use your help or support.

“Live life with passion and compassion.” ~ Abraham Truss

Good advice at the wrong time

“Good advice at the wrong time is bad advice. 

Life is full of seasons and each season has different requirements. 

Know what season you are in, and you can better identify which ideas to utilize.” – James Clear

The first line in this quote really hit me!

“Good advice at the wrong time is bad advice.“

My immediate thought was parenting, and then I thought of teaching. You know when a kid screws up and you ask, “What were you thinking?” Well, pretty much anything you say after that, no matter how good, will not be appreciated or learned from. At this point one of two things is happening in the kid’s brain: Either they have already got your point and now you are rubbing it in, or they’ve switched off.

Ever get in an argument with someone you love and live with? When you are right, and you know that they know you are right, is that enough to let it go? Do you let it go?

When advice, lessons, corrections… no matter how wise… are tossed around at the wrong time, how effective is it?

“Good advice at the wrong time is bad advice.“

Let’s be careful out there

For the last couple days the roads have been snowy, icy, and very slippery. My advice to my kids regarding driving in snow is to go slower than they think they need to, and leave more room than they think they need to. With both kids, part of teaching then to drive was having them feel the vibration of ABS breaks, because if you don’t know what that feels like, the initial response to the feeling could be to release the breaks because something feels wrong.

I grew up in a pre-ABS era and was taught to pump the breaks in a slide on ice. The first time I was in a car with ABS breaks, I still pumped when I felt a side, and a friend in the car asked me, “Why are you doing that? The car does it better and faster than you.”

Our city is hilly, and I’ve seen a lot of people skidding and sliding over the past couple days. Most slides that I’ve seen have been little fish tails as people pull out of driveways and make turns. My wife was heading up the big hill to her school yesterday and the person in front was actually going too slow, which can be a problem going up hill, but more likely to get stuck than the idiots who feel their tires slipping and stepping on the gas.

I learned to drive in the snow in Toronto, with some fierce winter weather. My wife grew up in Nelson,BC, where it snows many feet more per year than the Vancouver Lower Mainland. Living here now, we can see the struggles of drivers who have little experience in the snow. It can be a challenging thing when you have experience, much less when you don’t.

So, no matter your skill, caution is probably better than confidence… and today is supposed to be pretty bad out, so be careful out there!

Shovelling Snow

I remember I time when I didn’t know what snow was. Sure, I’d seen it on TV, but it didn’t make any sense. I grew up on a tropical island and a party-sized block of ice was the largest concept I had for something cold that didn’t sit inside of a fridge or freezer.

My first snowfall (except for a spattering of sleet) was a cartoonishly slow snowfall of giant flakes that made me question how real the world was.

That was Grade 5. By Grade 9 I was absolutely done with snow and knew I was not going to live in Toronto the rest of my life. When I came to Vancouver as a water polo coach in ’93, I knew that I was going to move here, and leave Toronto and the snow behind.

Well, I didn’t quite leave it behind, and this morning I was shovelling my driveway (for the third day in a row) before 6am. But it was quite enjoyable. I had my headphones in, listening to a book, the only other sound being my shovel against the driveway. At one point my mind drifted to what I was actually doing:

Snow falls and gets in the way of our daily living. We take shovels and move it aside. It then melts away, with no indication that it was ever there. Snow falls…

I’m reminded of this silly gif of a man shovelling water and tossing back into the same puddle.

I’m also reminded of how we are at the whim of nature. This year in BC we’ve had forest fires and torrential rains that have completely affected our lives with road closures and damaged homes, even loss of life. The raw power of the natural forces around us is incredible.

And, in this part of the world, we have snow. White fluffy stuff that falls and gets in our way. Sometimes, like the fires and floods, it can wreak havoc, other times it is a mild inconvenience… and we scurry around moving it out of the way with shovels, then we watch it melt away.

Sticking to what works

On New Year’s Eve I shared my Healthy living goals reflection 2021. In this post I essentially said that I’m sticking with my old goals, with just a couple minor adjustments. Since then, this decision has bugged me a bit. I have felt a bit like I should have been more ambitious.

But this morning I realized that my goals are great. I have worked hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle the past few years and I’ve done far better than I have for a couple decades before that. Why should I add to this and push myself in a way that makes it hard to meet my daily goals?

I need to realize that when it comes to self care, maintaining a good plan is better than constantly striving to do more. It’s better to stick with what works than it is to push myself to a point where it gets too hard to achieve daily. Working out can include tougher workouts if I’m inclined, but I just had a few workouts that were really hard, then my body was begging for a rest. The soreness actually affected my sleep. That’s not healthy.

I’m not saying I won’t push myself every now and then, but I do need to realize that maintaining a good plan is better than creating a too challenging plan that I’ll give up on. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

My healthy living goals are really good. They have worked wonders for me for the past 3 years, and I need to accept that sticking with the same goals is an achievement, and not something I need to feel disappointed about because I didn’t add more to them.

The laugh track

Growing up, every sitcom I watched had a laugh track. In fact, I think most of them had the same laugh track. My wife was watching a show and left the tv on. What followed was a new show I’d never seen before. The humour was bad, and the laugh track made it even more painful. I think the last sitcom to use a laugh track that actually didn’t take away from the comedy was The Big Bang Theory. But even there, I think they could totally have pulled it off without one.

Then came the commercials. Wow, they are awful. I really don’t watch a lot of TV, and when I do, it’s usually Netflix or some other streaming service that I don’t have to watch commercials on. Is there some sort of strategy whereby really bad commercials somehow work better than good ones?

Bad laugh tracks, bad commercials, bad sitcoms. How is TV going to survive in the next 5 years? Streaming services will be the way everyone watches their shows. I think most TV stations are going to go the way of the laugh track… and it won’t be a funny thing for them.

On the other hand, the old sitcoms I used to watch, like Friends, Seinfeld, and Cheers, are now the shows that my daughters are watching, or have watched. What’s funny about that is that I missed a lot of the shows because I didn’t see them on the night they played, and didn’t catch all the re-runs, but my kids watch episode by episode on demand. And that’s the difference now, shows can be watched any time, and without commercials.

The laugh track will live on in re-runs, but I think the days of the laugh track are long gone, and any good quality comedies of the future will rely on good humour and not a fake audience to cue the laughter of the viewer.