Like it was yesterday

April 5, 2007

Yesterday, I was in a meeting with a parent and one of my students, (why do teachers have parent meetings about a teenage student’s education and not have the student there too?)

The parent observantly noted that although her son could be physically in a room, he could often ‘disconnect’ and be elsewhere in his mind. For him to be more successful, he would need to engage more in what was going on. I told him, with all honesty, that I too had that problem to the point that my parents worried that I might have been on drugs (I wasn’t). It took until my Grade 13 year (Ontario, Canada) to recognize that I needed to be a participant in the classroom in order to ‘stay connected’.

As I was talking my student interrupted and said, “I just had a flash of insight, I’m a mop not a sponge!”

He got it! And today he proved it. He was a fully engaged participant in my Math lesson. I can hear myself in upcoming classes, “Remember to be the mop”.

———–

That was from my Pair-a-Dimes blog post, “I’m a mop not a sponge”: Metaphors all the way down. Last night I found out that this young man passed away unexpectedly. It’s so sad to hear news like this about a former student. I immediately remembered this incident, this moment in time when I saw a light bulb light up in a young kid’s mind.

This was my last year as a Grade 8 teacher. There are other memories of this student, but they are more distant, faded… it was over 14 years ago. However this memory, I remember like it was yesterday.

I don’t like the decorations

Before we moved to China, I spent 7 days there meeting the previous principal of the school. One of my tasks was to find an apartment for my family. My future secretary, whose English was pretty good, toured me around 8 or 9 apartments, over 2 days, before we found one that I thought my wife would approve of.

Walking through a few of these places, my secretary remarked, “I don’t like the decorations.”

I thought this was an odd statement, since we would be moving in with our own ‘decorations’. I didn’t understand what she meant until months later. As it turns out, when you buy an apartment in China, the structural walls are the only thing in place. Nothing else. A drain in the kitchen area, and one drain in the bathroom areas.

Almost every apartment I went into in China had a step up to hide the fact that the plumbing for the sink, toilet, and shower all had to be put in after purchase, and had to be directed to a single drain pipe. In fact, there could often be odour issues in bathrooms, with little room for the bathtub drain to have a water trap to protect against gases (and smell) coming up the pipe. When we went on holidays, I’d leave water in our tub and sink to protect against this.

When my secretary talked about not liking the decorations, she was literally talking about the design of the apartment, where the walls and doors were, how the apartment was laid out. You could go into two apartments side-by-side, or even one floor above, in a building and the layout could be completely different.

One apartment we went to had a completely enclosed kitchen with two doors on either end to get to the living room and dining room. Another apartment had a bathroom with access only from the kitchen. I thought I was opening a pantry when I opened the bathroom door. Both of these were places where my secretary didn’t like the decorations. And I didn’t like the layout. Same thing, except what I didn’t know was that the layout was a design (or decoration) feature that the first owner chose, not something the builder did. In this way, the word ‘decorations’ made a lot more sense.

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Related post on my Pair-a-Dimes blog: Slowly by Slowly.

By the numbers

Have a look at this short visual presentation:

Putting COVID-19 Numbers and Vaccinations into Context

It is an insightful, graphic way to look at what has happened to death rates of covid patients since the vaccine was introduced. It helps you understand the scale of this compared to things like yearly deaths by lightning, drowning, and traffic accidents. But these two images really put things into perspective:

Have a look at Covid deaths in the US, especially after vaccine introduction (the box on the right):

And how things would look if vaccines didn’t work, versus the actual statistics:

It’s worth going to the full, short, easy to consume slide show, and grasping all the information shared, by the numbers.

Weekend blues

Sometimes, at the start of the school year, weekends are tough. They are too short, there is work on your mind, and routines are too hard to follow.

This was one of those weekends. It’s not over, and I’m looking forward to my evening plans, but school is on my brain.

It’s moments like these that I feel like a split personality. Part of me longs for a job I don’t bring home. Part of me is so excited about the year to come, filled with potential… and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

I think a 4 day week would be the perfect balance. I’d have a lot less weekend blues. I think my mind would clear more easily, and I’d head back to work fully energized. But that’s not the reality, and I’ll be in bed by 9:30 tonight. And I’ll be ready to start my weekday routine long before the sun rises tomorrow.

Come Together

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Twin Towers falling in New York. I’m guessing everyone over the age of 35 can tell you where they were and what they were doing when they found out about this. I bet they can also describe at least one visual from that incident that clearly sticks out in their minds. A few months later, I got to hear a first-hand story of an educator that was in a nearby building, and what the evacuation was like. Four years ago I visited the museum at ground zero, and what we thought would be an hour-long visit was almost 3 hours.

What strikes me now is not just the horror of what happened, but that this was a defining moment for so many people. It changed their perspective on the world. It made the world a more dangerous place, where just getting on a plane or going to work could cost you your life because of the decision of a few people intent on doing something evil, based on the illusion that they will benefit greatly in the after-life. How many people have died across the world, across the past few hundred years, in the name of a God that wants to punish non-believers.

It was also a time to come together. To feel a common pain, and to support those that needed help. It was a time when political affiliation and religion gave way to being a good samaritan, a good human being.

Why do we need a man-made catastrophe to make us come together? I think now more than any time since 9/11/2001 we could have people find a way to coexist with their neighbours/neighbors in a tolerant and caring way… no matter their political or religious ideologies.

If we don’t come together now, there will be a man-made reckoning soon… because we live in a world where a few crackpots can weaponize and wreak havoc on a scale that will make global news. And so I’d rather we find a way to use tolerance rather than violence to move us out of false dichotomies. I want to see us come together before the under 35 year-olds are put through their own defining 9/11 incident. I fear that if we don’t, the incident might be more divisive rather than unifying, and that scares me.

Checkout Votemate to learn about the Canadian election

Developed by a former Inquiry Hub student, Votemate.org is a free site to help inform you about the upcoming election:

*(Great non-partisan resource for students!)

I received an update email:

Hello there!

There’s a federal election on September 20, and if that’s news to you, or you’ve just been finding the politicking, debating, and campaigning profoundly uninformative and useless, VoteMate is here to help.

We’ve created a whole new platform comparison pageallowing you to compare the platforms of each party on the issues you care about. It’s customized to you so you can focus on the information you need, and filter out everything you don’t. We’ve also got profiles on many of the candidates running this election! And we’ll be adding more features soon.

Here are the platforms you can compare:

This is fantastic for learning about candidates in your riding as well as comparing platforms and policies.

As mentioned, it’s also a great non-partisan resource to share and discuss with students. They can break into groups according to policies and platforms they care about, they can learn about candidates in their riding. They can use the rating tool 🙂😕🙁 to determine what Party they support based on platforms.

Check out Votemate.org! As I’ve shared before, I believe it is you duty as a citizen to vote… and it’s wise to make an informed choice.

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[Oh, and maybe support it too, (either one-time or once-a-month).]

Kids and sports

I don’t know Trevlyn, but she wrote this on Facebook, I re-shared it 4 years ago, and it came up as a FB memory yesterday.

“One of my friends asked “Why do you pay so much money for your kids to do all their sports”? Well I have a confession to make; I don’t pay for my kids to to do sports. Personally, I couldn’t care less about what sport they do.

So, if I am not paying for sports what am I paying for?

– I pay for those moments when my kids become so tired they want to quit but don’t.

– I pay for those days when my kids come home from school and are “too tired” to go to their training but they go anyway.

– I pay for my kids to learn to be disciplined, focused and dedicated.

– I pay for my kids to learn to take care of their body and equipment.

– I pay for my kids to learn to work with others and to be good team mates, gracious in defeat and humble in success.

– I pay for my kids to learn to deal with disappointment, when they don’t get that placing or title they’d hoped for, but still they go back week after week giving it their best shot.

– I pay for my kids to learn to make and accomplish goals.

– I pay for my kids to respect, not only themselves, but other riders, officials and coaches.

– I pay for my kids to learn that it takes hours and hours, years and years of hard work and practice to create a champion and that success does not happen overnight.

– I pay for my kids to be proud of small achievements, and to work towards long term goals.

– I pay for the opportunity my kids have and will have to make life-long friendships, create lifelong memories, to be as proud of their achievements as I am.

– I pay so that my kids can be out on the track instead of in front of a screen…

…I could go on but, to be short, I don’t pay for sports; I pay for the opportunities that sports provides my kids with to develop attributes that will serve them well throughout their lives and give them the opportunity to bless the lives of others. From what I have seen so far I think it is a great investment!” – By Trevlyn Mayo Palframan

As a former coach this really speaks to me. As a parent, I can say that this applies equally to sport as to dance and theatre when it comes to competition, tryouts, and your kid not getting the part they want and still performing at their best.

Putting kids into activities they love is so valuable. So too is them trying a sport and not liking it, but committing to the team anyway. One of my daughters started a sport and a few months in she realized she wasn’t enjoying it. We told her that her team needed her and that she had to finish the season. She kept a positive attitude and gave her best at practices and games. I was as proud of that as I have been of trophies and awards. And she knew in the end that it was the right thing to do.

Sports aren’t just about learning skills in that sport, they are also about learning life skills, and creating memories and friendships that can last a lifetime.

Disengaged from the socials

It has been a slow process, but I’ve really disengaged from interactions on social media. It has become a one-way transmission tool for my daily blog, and not much else. Well, other than 30 minutes of TikTok that I watch instead of TV, but that’s entertainment rather than engagement. My only social media comments tend to be responses made to my posts about my blog.

I think the disengagement started with US political news dominating everything a few years back. I got fed up watching post after post that had no real connection to me as a Canadian, but still angered and upset me. I got tired of the childish anger and upset. Then came the pandemic, and more (digital) yelling and screaming about how to handle it… with healthy doses of ignorance and bickering about the science. But this fighting isn’t between professionals and real experts, it’s between doctors/scientists and ‘armchair experts’ that demonstrates how expert they are at spewing stupidity and ignorance.

Between politics and pandemic, I’m really done engaging on social media much. That said, these topics still reach me, and I still find myself talking about them here on my blog. Now there is a Canadian election, but I tend not to discuss who I’m voting for and why. Instead, I prefer to focus on encouraging people to get out and vote. I think it’s our duty as citizens to exercise our right to vote, and even want to see tax related fines for those that don’t.

I might be disengaged from social media. I may not like the news that I see. But I believe we should all be appreciative and respectful of living in a democracy, and that we should participate in a democracy if we want to keep it. If we value having a voice, we should use it in a vote… before worrying about what that voice should be saying on social media.

First Day of School

I’m genuinely excited about the year ahead. I know things are far from ‘back to normal’. I know safety is still a primary concern, and we’ll be wearing masks for quite some time yet. I know there will be unexpected challenges that come our way…

But the first day of a school year always holds so much promise! There is so much potential for us to do awesome things, and to watch our students shine. It’s an opportunity to look forward knowing that as educators we make a difference in people’s lives.

“With great responsibility comes great power”… that’s the reverse of the Spiderman quote, “With great power comes great responsibility”, and a teacher, John Sarte at Inquiry Hub, uses this to explain to students that while we give them a lot of time to work independently (a lot of responsibility) that comes with a lot of power. This is something that teachers understand, because they are given the great responsibility to teach, and they have tremendous power over what that experience looks like.

And collectively we have so much power over what the year ahead looks like… Let’s keep our optimism up, and make this school year exciting, engaging, and full of meaningful learning for everyone (teachers and students alike).

Future Tech: Prescription Glasses Metaphor

It’s the early 2030’s and you are walking downtown, heading to a specialist appointment. You don’t know where the office is, but you aren’t looking at a map on your phone. You haven’t done that in a few years. No, instead, you are looking through a contact lens that is like a heads-up display giving you augmented reality directions. There is simultaneously an arrow flashing 3 times in your view, showing you that you need to turn right in 15 meters, and a haptic vibration from an implant in your right elbow. The vibration you feel in your elbow has a pattern of long-short-short, which you have set to let you know is a map direction.

Had the vibration been in both elbows with a short-short pause short-short vibration, then you would know that it was a phone call from one of your chosen favourites, and your heads-up display would have shown you the name and/or photo. You have it set so that you need to look down and right to see the name and face of the person calling, but it could have been set to come up right into your line of sight. If the call was from an unknown number, you would not even have been bothered. Instead the call would have been answered by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistant that (for voice phone calls) sounds like you, but with a decision tree to decide if the call is worth bugging you, leaving you a message for later, or even blocking the call if it determines it is spam. Since you are just walking, it might have offered you a text version of the message on an augmented display, but if you were in the specialist’s office, the AI would have waited until your appointment was over to notify you of a message.

You arrive at the specialist’s office and because you connected on LinkedIn, your AI has identified the secretary from her profile picture, and her name pops up above her head so that you can greet her appropriately. You wave your hand over a scanner, stare briefly at a ‘Yes’ box to indicate that you want to share your personal medical information, and you are done signing in. Because this is a medical specialist, that data includes the last year’s worth of bio information like heart rate, blood-sugar levels, and even blood pressure. A small implant collects this data in a just slightly more sophisticated way than the current apple watch. If the doctor didn’t want to run some specific tests on you, all this would have been done remotely, with the Zoom call actually happening through your contact  lenses and an implant in your ear. To get around the fact that you don’t have a camera on your face, the person you are talking to sees a perfect rendition of your face, and even if you were watching, you wouldn’t know that is wasn’t actually you. It even uses your voice intonation to help determine the emphasis on facial expressions, so if you said the same thing twice, it would look subtly different, rather than robotic.

Is this a future you want? Because it’s coming… and you will embrace it. You will participate in it. Because to not do so, would be to have a disadvantage.

When my youngest daughter was 9, we took a trip to England and France. In Paris we went to the Eiffel Tower, and it was there that we learned our daughter needed glasses. We had just come back from China, where we had been living for 2 years, and we hadn’t had eye exams in almost 3 years. We got to the top of the tower and my wife started pointing out things to look at, and my daughter couldn’t see any of them. At 9, she didn’t know that she couldn’t see well. She thought everyone saw the way she did. Distant hills were supposed to be blurry. What about street and store signs? Who needed to see those, they were in Chinese anyway, and we couldn’t read them. Once we returned home, we went to the optometrist and our daughter has worn glasses or contacts ever since.

The future I shared above is a future with a metaphorical 30/20 vision. It is the ability to see and feel things that people today can not see or feel without augmentation… and this will be the new version of 20/20 vision. The same way that my daughter was disadvantaged without her glasses, any person not augmenting their lives with technology will be disadvantaged compared to those around them. They will be less connected, less informed, less able to see. It would be like my daughter realizing that she couldn’t see like everyone else, and still deciding not to get glasses. Augmented reality will be the prescription glasses of the future, and you can choose to use the prescription, or stay in the dark.