Listen up

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I started an audio book today. I think this is the longest I’ve gone without listening to a book in years. March break was the last time I listened to a book. This is unusual for me because I only listen to audio books, I don’t actually read books anymore.

I’ve been an Audible subscriber since 2017 and have 199 books in my library. Less than 20 are not started or fully completed. It occurred to me that I actually haven’t read a paper book since 2018. I’ve read some pages of a few books, but I haven’t completed reading a paper book in over 7 years.

I still end up doing a lot of reading on a screen, but it’s surprising to realize that I haven’t read a physical book in so long. To me audio books are reading. But I’m sure some purple don’t think so.

My dry spell recently involved catching up on some podcasts I like, but books are different. There is something special about ‘digging in’ to a good book. It just so happens that for me, I dig in by listening rather than visually.

The great thing about this is that I know that I’ve never in my life read 10 books in a year, but I’m averaging listening to 20+ a year. At this point I’m not sure if I’ll ever read a full paper book ever again? That seems so weird to say, and at some point I might change… but for now listening is my preferred, and only choice for consuming books.

Last day

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It’s the last day of school for teachers. Summer break begins for them at 3pm today. I can’t help but feel a bit sentimental at the end of each school year. It really hit me at our grad on Monday, and now again today.

I feel blessed to work at the schools I do. I feel lucky to work with the staff that I do.

It our district we tend to see administrative shuffles around 5 years, and occasionally a principal might stay in a school for 7-8 years. This is my 12th year with Inquiry Hub and 13th with Coquitlam Open Learning. Although most of those years I was actually vice principal, I have been the lead administrator for 11.5 years. That’s rare.

The fact that I’ve been here, at these two unique schools, for this long has been a blessing. In all honesty, had I been moved, I probably would have resigned by now. It’s really, really hard to go back into a traditional box after spending so long out of the box.

But it’s not just the schools themselves that have me feeling sentimental, it’s also the staff. I’m truly lucky to work with the teachers and secretaries that I’ve had the honour to work with. It’s pretty special to walk into a building every day and want to be around the people who you work with.

It is great when I get the opportunity to join the staff in the staff room at lunch. It’s special when the secretaries volunteer their time at evening events because they want to be there to celebrate the students. It’s amazing to watch teachers consistently do what’s great for kids in innovative and creative ways.

On this last day of school I feel blessed. And while I’m certainly looking forward to summer, there is already a little excitement about starting the new year… but that’s getting way ahead of myself. First things first… I’m going to enjoy our last day.

Blog post recipes

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I’ve been struggling to get writing this morning and so I went into my drafts folder. There I found a series of half-baked ideas that I hope to expand on at some point. But not today. Each idea is a rough recipe for a post, but missing some key ingredients that would take too much time to expand on. That’s usually what gets them stuck in my drafts.

This is a challenge when I have to squeeze my writing into the time frame of my early morning routine. It’s easy to shorten a workout (another part of my morning routine). I can do a walking meditation on a treadmill, instead of sitting for more time to meditate before my workout. What I can’t do is write on the treadmill, or while meditating.

I can’t rush writing. So on days when I really struggle to get going, writing becomes a challenge. The baking of an idea takes time. Sometimes I can just get started and let the ideas flow, but it’s the getting started that is the hard part.

Half-baked ideas can be a great inspiration, but they can also be a recipe for delay and procrastination. Writing is tricky that way. Sometimes you just need a single spark, just the right ingredient, and the whole post comes together. Other times you need all the ingredients clearly in front of you or the ideas don’t get fully baked.

So on these slow days I reflect on my past few days and search for inspiration. This can again be a spark for an idea, but it can also be a recipe for negative thinking. ‘Have the past few days been that un-inspirational?‘, ‘Do I really have nothing to share?’

These thoughts are a recipe for starting my day off poorly. Often it’s not that I have nothing to say, but that I have nothing to say publicly. For example, I have an old post draft from many months ago about how kids avoid seeking advice from adults, and end up seeking bad advice from other kids. I wrote the start of this draft in late 2024, but if I shared it now there are at least two students and their families who might think they are the recent inspiration for that post… when they aren’t.

It’s a good idea to share, but maybe in August when I haven’t been in a school for over a month. That’s the challenge sometimes. I have the ideas, the recipes for a blog post, but feel like I can’t share without seeming to reveal something too personal to others, or sometimes to myself.

So the drafts sit unbaked, and I’m left wondering what I can share this morning, or tomorrow morning? The challenge on these wondering-what-to-write days is that I can leave myself wondering why I have nothing to share? Do I hang up my daily writing hat and retire this practice?

No. Not yet. But I must admit that days like today really make me wonder if this cookbook of writing ideas hasn’t reached its last page.

Officially counting down

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Report cards go out tomorrow and Friday is the last day with staff to end the school year… and I’m done! Yes, I’ll be in next week, and there’s a fair bit to clean up before it’s officially summer, but I’m feeling checked out.

Not much left in the gas tank.

It started in June, people asking, “So, are you counting down to summer yet?” I probably heard that question a good 10-12 times in the first three weeks of June, and I always responded with a version of ‘Not yet’. I was being honest, I am not really someone who counts down to big events until they are very, very close.

Well, ask me today and my response is, “Absolutely, I’m counting down!”

I’m ready for summer.

Going to miss them

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We had our grad event last night. Seven performances, mostly from Grade 12’s, and student speeches that left me teary eyed. This one hit me harder than most. These grads feel more like family than students.

I’m realizing that I’ve got some work to do to connect with the other grades next year because it seemed that any time I was out of my office, this was the cohort I gravitated to. Every year seems to offer something a little different. Many students in this group would visit the office almost daily. Grade 12’s need to sign in when they don’t have a first block class, and my secretaries would have full 5 minute conversations with these students. Inevitably I’d get pulled in too.

I get a little nostalgic every year around this time, but I have to say that this grad class was really something special and I’m going to miss them!

Writing a grad speech

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It would be easy to repeat a previous speech, but I can’t. It would be easy to get AI to do it for me, but I can’t. I enjoy writing. I like to personalize what I say to a group of grads. I want the message to be uniquely from me.

This year I mixed an unrelated story and a quote together. This made it a lot tougher to do. I think I’ve got something that will work and be appreciated. But in the end our grad is about the kids performing and that’s what students will remember.

A grad speech is a tribute not a lecture. It’s a small part of the celebration… but it’s still something I like to make unique every year, and this year is no exception.

Progress and stagnation

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The invention of wheels made the movement of objects and ourselves so much easier. And they also assisted us in moving tools of war.

Machinery of mass production made life easier. And we also produce an over abundance of weapons that we use on both foreign and domestic lands.

The scientific method has led to innovations in fields like medicine. And we also make tools of mass destruction, with the soul purpose of maiming and killing each other.

We are innovative, technological, and creatively brilliant. And yet we are divided and we concoct global issues created by old religions, tribal lines, and broken ideologies.

Humanity chooses to be inhumane, and to develop propaganda to justify our actions. We do it for country, for money, for power, and for ideologies be they economic, political, or theological.

We have innovated. We have modernized. We have claimed to be civilized… but in the matters of being human we have stagnated. We have not evolved, we have merely advanced and innovated ways of perpetuating our barbaric tendencies.

Technology progresses. Humanity stagnates. History repeats.

Old School Internet

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Our students decided on ‘Old School Internet’ as the theme for this year’s school yearbook. But of course at a maximum age of 18, none of our students actually knew what it was like. So, for my principal’s message, I tried to give them a little taste of what they missed.

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It’s fun for students today to have something like ‘Old School Internet’ as a Yearbook theme, but as someone who ‘lived’ it, let me tell you that you don’t know the pain it caused. Here’s an example: A little-known fact about me is that I designed and patented a bicycle lock. To do this, I had to do a lot of research because a patent can not infringe on other previous patent designs. So back in the old internet days I would have to log onto the internet using my phone (cue the retro sound for this that brings back instant but not gratifying nostalgia)… then I’d go to the slow and clunky US Government Patent Office website and every search would take 15-30 seconds to load. Then I’d see a patent I’d be interested in and that would take 15-plus seconds to load. I’d read about a patent that seemed interesting to look at and I’d try to load the first image to see what it looks like… If I was lucky, it would load in 45 seconds and often it took over a minute. Sometimes the image wouldn’t give me enough information and so I’d have to check the next image… cue the elevator music going through my brain as I impatiently wait and wait and wait for the next image to load… Then I’d realize that I wasn’t interested in that patent and would need to start all over again… And then my wife would need the phone and I’d have to disconnect from the internet so that she could make a call.

So enjoy the nostalgic ‘Old School Internet’ pages in this yearbook, but make no mistake, you are extremely lucky that you don’t have to live in this retro era of internet access… Where you were tethered to a very, very slow phone wire, and every click tested your patience.

(Yearbook cover by Ena S.)

Existential Drift

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We aren’t getting rid of doctors, or plumbers any time soon, but large organizations have already started to reduce staff in areas that we thought only humans could do. Not only are robotics and AI taking over manual labour, intelligent agents are also taking over white collar jobs. The CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, recently said, “AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years”. Marketing and content production, data analysis, bookkeeping, and customer support are just a few key areas where layoffs have already begun. This isn’t some sci-fi future prediction. Rather it is a reporting out of current trends.

A combination of AI, robotics, and automation are redefining work. The cost to society is ever-increasing layoffs and unemployment statistics, leading to jobless members of society, with little or no prospects of retraining or alternative careers. What does our society look like when unemployment hits 20%?

At some point we are going to have to start thinking about Universal Basic Income, and ways to ensure that massive unemployment doesn’t lead to poverty and an ever-widening gap between those that have financial success (or at least comfort) and those that are barely surviving. But even if these low or no income people are provided for and supported, another question arises:

How does a large unemployed segment of society cultivate personal purpose and meaning?

Many people see purpose or self worth through their work. Creative expression and acts of service will fill some of the gaps but there will also be a fair bit of existential drift.

I think we are already seeing this drift occur. Work isn’t enough. I remember about a year ago I saw a video of a girl who got out of school, got a job in her field she studied for, and was questioning her entire existence. She couldn’t afford to rent a place in the town she worked in. She spent almost 2 hours commuting, 8-plus hours at work, and came home exhausted, barely making enough to pay for rent, food, and paying off her student debt. The comments were contrasted between people saying ‘welcome to life’ and others admitting that it’s definitely harder to make ends meet now than ever before.

So we have a growing number of unemployed and a growing number of people losing sight of the purpose of working just to barely make ends meet. Where do people find purpose and meaning? How is meaning being cultivated?

I have concerns rather than answers.

Worshipping the algorithm

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It’s inescapable if you are on social media: The click-bait, the over-promising ads, the fake-reality plots made to look (almost) real, the recycled and revamped cliches and attempts at comedy. Are you entertained yet?

You aren’t the target audience, the algorithm is. Yes, it’s your click, your view to the end before you scroll that is wanted, but what’s really targeted is the algorithm. What’s going to get the most amount of views. Sometimes the byproduct of this is a very clever video, a brilliant caption that plays on a well known meme, or even accidental authenticity or charm. But it’s not you, it’s the algorithm that matters.

Play the game, feed the algorithm, and the attention will come. Whose attention? Yours, but that doesn’t mean it was made for you. No, it was made because that’s what is feeding the algorithm right now. It’s the algorithm on the alter, the false god being worshiped. Not for some promise in the future but for right now. Burn the candle quickly, consume the flame as fast as it is produced.

Your stream is what is working for the algorithm right now, it will change, the rules will be different, and the productions will have to chase it. If not, the attention will go elsewhere. So when the strategy is working, the algorithm gets fed. Not for you, but for maximum attention.

You are an algorithmic statistic. The algorithm wants only attention, not any one person’s, not yours. All hail the click, the pause in scrolling, the ‘like’, and the comment. The algorithm does not care if you are entrained or angered, heartened or disheartened, happy or sad. The click, the pause in scrolling, the ‘like’, and the comment are all that matter, all that is worshipped in pursuit of feeding the algorithm.