Tag Archives: community

WCT 2 – Fellow Hikers

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The West Coast Trail (WCT) is not a beginner hike. That said, there are absolutely crazy people who will attempt to do the 75km trail in 24 hours. And while we met a few people doing the trail in 3-4 days, most people attempt it in 6 or 7 days. Since it’s one-way trip on a coastline that often has challenging weather to go with rugged terrain, people need to pack in 35-45 pounds on their back adding to the difficulty. So, when you meet people on the trail, they are usually very aware of the extended effort it takes, and they are on the WCT for a challenge more than for a typical holiday.

Starting on the south end, after a required orientation, there is a ferry ride to the trailhead. We shared that ride with a few other hikers, not knowing how much we’d see them along the way. The journey starts with a long ladder to get you ready for the challenging trail. The orientation includes a request to only go up and down ladders one at a time, and so that separates hiking groups, with hikers having to wait for the rest of their group to climb, while the group before has already started their journey.

So, other than brief ferry chats, Dave and I spent the first 5 hours alone on the trail, with just over 3 hours of moving time up and down the most challenging part of the trail. We were first to the campsite, and about 1.5 hours later the rest of the ferry crossers started to join us.

There were two groups of 5 that we recognized. One was a dad and 4 girls, although I don’t think all four were his. We didn’t see them again until our last night, after we chose to stay an extra day, because they went very slow as a result of one of the girls twisting her ankle quite badly.

The other group of 5 camped near us and joined us for our evening fire. We spent the next 4 campfires with them as well. There was Martin, and his wife Karena, Karena’s brother Sebastian, and his partner Karen, and a longtime friend of Karen’s (who is also their Financial Advisor), Dan. It was an absolute pleasure to meet these Albertans. They are salt of the earth people, kind, good natured, and caring.

You learn a lot about people sitting around a fire. Sebastian has dreams of opening up a sauna lodge in a quaint BC town, he used to be in quality assurance but now he helps companies shift culture. Funny, he’s also a quick and sharp thinker, and he is ready to listen more than speak. He’s a guy who seems to have ADHD tendencies that he understands how to harness. I don’t think Karen is up for the quaint town experience, but I think their relationship is solid enough that they’ll figure out their plans.

Martin and Karena are moving from Edmonton to Calgary this week. It’s a big move with teenage kids after the school year has started. They are also both looking at career changes, so there is a lot going on for them. It doesn’t help that Sebastian is still in Edmonton and isn’t ready to have his sister move away. Martin and Karena are understandably nervous but clearly courageous, they are ready for change and as a family I have faith that they will find their way.

Dan proposed to his wife on the West Coast Trail, and spoke a lot about his athletic adventures. He seemed helpful and supportive, and fit in well with the two couples.

This crew adopted us, ‘The Two Dave’s’, and while we didn’t travel with them, when it was time to chill by the fire after dinner we were a single community.

On our second night, at the Camper campsite, after sunset and before it got too dark, two trail runners asked if they could warm up by our fire. They had started on the north end at 3am, and were running out by midnight if all went according to plan. So, they had completed 62 km but had the hardest 13 km to go. They were hoping to catch lower tide at Owen Point, a beach trail that is a lot easier than the muddy woods… But still scary to do at night when it’s hard to see which rocks are slippery and which ones aren’t. The tides were not agreeable with us and we had to take the woods, and honestly, I didn’t think that they should have been risking the tides, but they seemed determined, even though they would be cutting it very close. They sat with us for under 20 minutes, ate some food and were on their way.

I love to see people challenging themselves physically, but I couldn’t imagine running this trail with perfect conditions, and certainly not at night. Broken boardwalks, deep mud that needs to be avoided, vine-like tree roots, continuous elevation changes, soft sand, pebbly sand, boulders, and wet slippery rocks are just a few of the obstacles that could prove treacherous because of one bad foot placement. Besides, the best part of the WCT are the beaches, and running this trail would be like running through the Louvre Museum… you’d miss everything worth seeing.

Also travelling the same route as us were Hale and Maria. Hale, a physiotherapist student, is from BC, Maria, a Math teacher, is from Greece. They live in Greece where Hale is attending school. They joined our campfire on the third night. It was interesting when Hale was telling us about proposing to Maria, Maria tried to stop her from sharing the story. She was worried because her family doesn’t know yet and it sounds like her experience in Greece is not as open and accepting as here. I told her to enjoy that their story can be told here, and I think that comforted her.

Hale and Maria were the only two other people on Tsocowis beach on our second to last night, it was Hale that suggested this quiet campground rather than staying at the far more popular falls for a second night. While we had much fewer conversations with them, these two were wonderful and we enjoyed their company. When we moved to the next camp site, they decided to keep going and end the trail, so they left us a parting gift of the tea they had saved for their last night. Hale also took some great photos of us crossing the river to the last campground.

I did the trail 29 years ago, (half my life ago) and there is a restaurant shack along the way that was named for the owner, ‘Monique’s’. I remember chatting with her and her husband. Now the place is owned by their granddaughter, Katrina, and she named it Nytom after her grandparents Monique and Peter Knighton. When Dave and I arrived at Nytom, Katrina had some helpers building a winterized cabin for her, this year she plans on living there through the winter, even though the WCT closes at the end of the month.

We had burgers and coleslaw, and enjoyed chatting with Katrina. My previous WCT visit to this restaurant on the beach was earlier in the day and I had breakfast with a beer. This time we just had pop, Katrina has been sober for 18 years and would rather not serve alcohol. It’s not just to keep away the temptation, the trail gets harder heading south, (where we came from) and Katrina said she wouldn’t feel good having a hiker get injured because of alcohol she served.

Katrina really loves serving the WCT hikers. She says everyone is always happy to see her and the atmosphere is always positive. We felt the same way about Katrina.

I previously mentioned the 3 kind hikers we met at the Adirondack chairs, who gave us the wonderful photos they took of us, served us coffee as we sat in the chairs watching whales feed, and who also gave us extra food to help us stay an extra night. Well, I can’t mention them without also mentioning two more people. We met Marie and her daughter Savana at the Crab Shack. This is new since my last visit. Carl, the owner, is the ferry operator at Nitinaht. He’s in his early seventies and has been operating the ferry for the WCT for over 50 years.

I had a great chat with him while we waited for a halibut, crab, and fully loaded baked potato meal. I also spoke to Marie and Savana, but the memorable conversation with them came on our last night, when they camped next to us.

In our conversations Marie, a seven time traveller on the WCT said something several times…

“The trail will provide.”

This really hit a chord with me. Time and again we saw this. We got food and drinks from others, Dave provided a muscle relaxant to Dan, another hiker shared his Garmin watch charging adapter with Dave and I, I gave a charging cord to Hale, we shared the warmth of our fire with trail runners… time and again the trail provided. But the truth in that statement is that it was fellow hikers who provided. The West Coast Trail isn’t just a trail, it’s a community.

It finally feels official

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My last full day at work was in the first week of July. My last official day was July 31st. But the first real hint that I’ve retired was felt this past Wednesday, when all my Principal and Vice Principal colleagues headed to our board office for a full day of meetings… and I didn’t have to go. It was positively anticlimactic, because I treated it like any other day in my summer holidays.

I did receive an early morning text from a friend and she said, “First day back today. Going to miss trying to find my buddy in the crowd. Enjoy your day!!!!” So I had a frame to set up my thinking about the day and how different it was going to be. Still, I felt no pangs, nor did I feel any celebratory inklings. It just felt lucky to keep going with my summer.

The next big moment will be the first day of school. My Everest the Crunch buddy, Dave, and I are planning a hike on that day. Then just over a week later we are headed to Tofino, and then to do the West Coast Trail (WCT). Just over a week after we return from that, I’m headed to Ontario for 3 weeks in October.

I’ve said for weeks now, when people ask how I like retired life, “Ask me in November, when I’m home and my wife is going to work. Until then, I’m just having a nice extended summer.” That has been my assumed threshold where I figured the experience of retired life would really hit me. But I now feel it has come a little early.

Today I went for a long walk with Dave in my new hiking boots to get ready for the WCT. We walked from his place to the Crunch, did our first crunch since Everesting it (37 times up in less than 2 days, to reach the hight of Mt. Everest), then walked to Starbucks.

The one person in front of me in the line was old, wheelchair bound, and extremely slow. Twenty seconds or so after his transaction, while putting his wallet away, he got confused and pulled it out to pay again, until the cashier politely told him he already paid. Then I waited while he re-put-away his wallet and finally wheeled off. In all honesty, despite my thoughtfulness about his age and challenges, a process like this will often send negative thoughts through my head. I’d think things like, ‘Of course I only have one person in front of me and he takes more time than 3 people.’ Or something else unkind, not because I don’t understand or empathize, but because I’d take in a Murphy’s Law kind of belief system where I’d think I’m always the sucker that has to wait in the slowest lineup.

Today I realized I wasn’t in a rush. I didn’t have to run off to work or a meeting. I wasn’t pressed for time, on the clock, with places to go and people to meet. I could take the time to notice things like the barista asking this elderly man by name if he was eating in or outside so that she could bring him his drink and food when it was ready. And I could see the patience and kindness of the teller when she told this man he already paid. This wonderful man was a regular and this was his community coffee shop.

And I’m not in a rush. My head isn’t overflowing with plans, and my calendar isn’t filled with consecutive appointments. I am not on anyone else’s schedule. I can pause and appreciate a senior in our community being taken care of in a coffee shop by caring service workers who look out for him… And right then I really felt it. I’m retired. I didn’t have to wait until November.

Career spanning wisdom

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When I shared this story with my Principal and Vice Principal colleagues this morning, I joked that I’d blogged about it previously. However, while I was able to find a couple references to the story, I realized after a search of my blogs that I have not shared the full story before.

This morning was our final face-to-face meeting of the year, and our assistant superintendents shared a few words about retirees before each retiree got a chance to say something. I shared this story.

~

It was early on in my teaching career, long before I knew if I’d ever get into administration, and so I didn’t know the impact this conversation would have on me.

I was teaching a class about 10-15 minutes after lunch when a good student, Garrett, showed up at my door. He didn’t show up after lunch and I just assumed he signed out, this is not a kid who would skip a class. I looked up at him as if to ask ‘Where were you?’ And his face sunk as he said, “I got in trouble.”

We had the attention of the whole class and I didn’t want him to have to share what happened in front of everyone. “Have a seat,” I said, “We’ll talk about it later,” and then I caught him up on what he missed. The day ended and I totally forgot to follow up with him, so around 4pm I headed down to the office to learn about what Garrett had done.

When I got down to the office our Vice Principal, Gary Kern, was just finishing up with a student. I didn’t teach this student, but I knew of him. In fact, just a couple months before this, I saw this student being arrested with a man, who I think was his dad, outside of a neighbourhood grocery store. As this student walked out of the office, Gary trailed behind him, shaking his head with a bit of an exasperated expression on his face.

I asked what Garrett got in trouble for? Gary said it wasn’t a big deal, he and a friend were horsing around at lunch and Garrett pushed his friend, who fell back and hit his head on a tree. It was witnessed by a noon-hour supervisor who brought the kids to the office, and the only follow up was an apology. Then Gary said something and I carried this ‘lesson’ with me for my entire career.

Gary said, “This job has taught me a new respect for the kid I’d never want to be.”

He continued, ‘Your kid, Garrett, I’d trade lives with him… Good family, respectful, plays hockey, good friends.’

‘…This other kid? No way I’d want his life. This job teaches you to provide a kid, who you’d never switch lives with, with forgiveness, understanding, and respect, because if you wouldn’t want to be them, they deserve a break.’

I know my colleagues understood this when I shared it with them. I went on to share how this impacted me. And I thanked all of my colleagues for their understanding of this idea. I thanked them for not treating kids like life is baseball and knowing when a kid deserves more than 3 strikes. I thanked them for being a student’s advocate and for treating a kid with dignity and respect, even when the kid’s parent didn’t treat them the same way. I thanked them for all they do to support the needs of the students in their community, and thus making our entire community better.

~

I can’t tell you how many times I thought of this conversation with Gary in my career, but I will say that this was a frame of reference that I held with me, and reminded myself of time and again. It gave me strength when I felt frustrated. It allowed me deal with angry people, and to not take a kid’s attitude personally.

Now, at the end of my career, I can say that Gary was absolutely correct, “This job has taught me a new respect for the kid I’d never want to be.” Because that’s the kid that needs us to be their advocate.

The last dance

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Today I head to an all day meeting of Provincial Online Learning School (POLS) principals. This is followed by an Executive Meeting of our Principal’s organization and the opening of the Digital Learning Conference which goes until Friday. This marks my last face-to-face meetings with these groups, and my last conference before I retire.

I’ve been involved with online learning since 2011. I’ve been on the executive since 2014. This is a special group of educators, and looking back, I don’t think anyone in this group of principals was around when I started, although at the conference I’ll see many educators who have worked in this field longer than me.

It’s a real special bunch of principals and educators who work in online learning. We are a unique group who have far more in common with each other than we have with educators and leaders in our own districts. Our challenges are common, and our relationships to things like audits and Ministry of Education criteria are lived in a way that typical principals and educators have no idea about.

And so for me this is a bit of a last dance. It’s a farewell to a group of colleagues whom I’ve shared a very special bond with. We’ve faced similar challenges, we’ve fought similar battles, we’ve called each other up for support, and we’ve openly shared to make our practices and our schools better. Upon retiring I’m going to miss this group… but for the next few days, I’m going to thoroughly enjoy their company.

Who will get us there?

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Stephen Downes shared the following on LinkedIn:

“I was asked, “Please provide a brief abstract that summarises your views on the impact of AI on higher education.”

As far more than the language models that have captured the attention of the world over the last few years, artificial intelligence (AI) represents a significant increase in human capability, augmenting and sometimes exceeding our natural capacities to perceive, reason, create and remember. Ubiquitous access to these capabilities changes the definition of what it means to learn and to be educated. Skills once reserved to the domain of experts are now in the hands of everyday people, while most every discipline is devising new models, methods and pragmatics of work alongside, or teaming with, these new tools. This challenges educators along a number of fronts, impacting how they teach, what they teach, and even what it means to teach. Today’s educator in a world of AI is responsible for far more than passing along knowledge (indeed, the machine can do most of that). We will be responsible for challenging students both young and old to find new ways of seeing and creating, leading them through demonstration of dedication, resilience and passion, and modeling for them the best values of civil and social responsibility, contribution and care.

Thoughts?” ~ Stephen Downes

—

Although my thoughts align with K-12 education as well as higher education, these thoughts come to me in the form of a question:

Who is going to get us there?

Who is the ‘We’ that Stephen is talking about when he says, “We will be responsible for challenging students both young and old to find new ways of seeing and creating, leading them through demonstration of dedication, resilience and passion, and modeling for them the best values of civil and social responsibility, contribution and care”?

Because I love this vision of what teaching can become, I just don’t see a clear path to take us there.

‘We’ won’t get there following the guidance of financially lucrative edu-tech business, products, and tools… their locked-in subscriptions will tout measures of success that don’t align with this vision, even when they say that they will.

‘We’ won’t get there like we did with Web2.0 tools in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, on the backs of tech savvy educators leading the charge.

‘We’ won’t get there because of some governmental vision pushing a new AI enhanced curriculum, or even new guidelines that somehow redefine for teachers, “how they teach, what they teach, and even what it means to teach”.

I hope I’m not coming off as a pessimist. I’m excited about what’s possible. I just fear that ‘we’ aren’t going to get ‘there’ any time soon unless ‘We’ align philosophy, policy, and economic support for the transformation of schools into something different.

Short of that, I fear that ‘We’ will be having the same ‘20th century schools in a 21st century world’ conversation in another 10 years… which I’ve heard since getting into education in the late 1900’s.

Parents as Partners

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This week we had a student IEP (Individualized Education Plan) meeting with a family. It was a meeting that really could not have gone better. It involved both parents and an advocate, myself and three teachers. From start to finish the meeting was focused on one thing: how do we work together to provide the best possible environment for their child/our student to thrive?

When everyone has the same objective, it almost always makes a meeting go well. But sometimes it’s clear that it isn’t just the objectives that are similar but also the approach, and then it’s easy for strategies to be put into place and for everyone to come out of the meeting feeling like we truly are partners working together.

Way back in 2009-10, when I was living in China and working as a principal in a foreign national school, I shared a series in my school newsletters that I called ‘Parents as Partners’. While some of the links I shared no longer work, the messages still hold true.

I started the post saying this:

“I firmly believe that “It takes a community to raise a child” and so without cooperation and communication between a school and their parent community, ‘we’ cannot fully support our children and their learning. That said, I often wonder about how we can more meaningfully engage parents in a way that they want to be engaged.”

You can head to that post to see some of the ideas I shared… and you are welcome to use anything there for yourself, editing as you see fit.

Share less tragedy

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We don’t have to feign naivety and pretend something horrible didn’t happen. Sad things happen in the world and we need to understand this. What we don’t need is a constant flow of news and a detailed account of the event pushed on to us, and more importantly pushed onto kids.

This was some professional advice shared with me 14 years ago, after a tragic suicide in our community that was followed shortly after by a school shouting in the US.

  • Refrain from sharing images or video of the incident.
  • If discussions do take place within the classroom, we recommend they be limited to a brief sharing of facts.
  • There will understandably be some anxiety around this incident and staff and students may have some level of emotional impact from the news.
  • Please watch for any changes in behaviour, particularly among vulnerable students, and refer appropriately to your school counsellor as needed.

Children don’t need to see report after report about a tragic incident. It doesn’t have to be the topic of a current events discussion. And nothing needs to be shared about a perpetrator of a horrific crime. Not even the perpetrator’s name. Not at school, not at home.

I could go on, but I’ve share a lot on this already, many years ago:

‘Care or Fear’

Excerpt: We often get results based on the pictures we fill our young impressionable  students’ heads with. Tomorrow, I fear that well-intentioned teachers could stir up thoughts of fear for personal safety in young minds, as concerns about Newtown are discussed. As I said, ‘I’m willing to bet that hundreds of thousands of students that might have felt safe in their school, and would not have questioned their own safety, will now think of that question (Am I safe?) and perhaps be more frightened than if that question did not get discussed.’

And then I followed up with ‘A new tragedy of the commons’

Excerpt: The fact is that we know, both through research and from historical evidence, that glorified stories perpetuate the very sadness we are appalled by. But that doesn’t stop a major national magazine, MACLEAN’S, from glorifying a killer on their front cover page. I’ve shared the cover below, but took some creative liberties with a red pen to prevent this very post from doing what I wish others wouldn’t.

When I see a cover page like this, I’m left wondering what we truly value in our society?

It comes down to this: We need to care for those who are concerned, we don’t need to amplify concern. The less we share tragic stories as a community, the more care we are showing for that community.

Keeping the faith

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Religions around the world are losing followers. But people are seekers, they want to believe in something. And while there are downsides to religion, including fanaticism and blind following of misguided faith leaders, there is also a warmth of community, a comfort of shared values, and a wonderful sense of belonging.

Atheism and often the path it can lead to nihilism don’t fill the voids a loss of religion can leave behind. And I think that’s why we see blind faith emerging that doesn’t seem to make sense to many.

Why on earth would someone in 2026 join a community of flat earthers who have to literally ignore volumes of data in order to believe what they believe? Maybe because the community is so inviting to anyone who believes?

Why would someone defend unnecessary violence, or even terrorism in the name of God or country? Maybe because they feel othered, or fear being othered. Maybe they feel hurt and seek vengeance? Maybe they feel the government is too heavy-handed or not heavy handed enough?

Why would someone follow a leader who does things they would previously have been upset about? Maybe there is one pillar that leader stands on that supports their beliefs more than any other transgression that leader might be accused of? Maybe they feel community, shared values, and a sense of belonging are all missing in their lives because their waning beliefs in a broken religion can no longer fulfill these needs.

When people can’t seem to hold onto their religious faith, where else do they put their faith?

It seems today that it goes to all the wrong places.

We need a new kind of religion, one that is inherent in most faiths already, but often masked by evangelical fervour, threats of secularism, misinterpreted scripture, literal interpretations of metaphors, among other reasons justifiable by the keepers of the faith. That inherent idea common to all faiths, the somehow lost idea, is that we are all the children of God, and that we should be kind, caring, and even loving to all God’s children.

If that was the underlying premise of ‘our belief systems’ (intentionally plural) then the best thing we could do is to keep the faith. But when religions and more specifically religious people, focus on differences, and when charismatic leaders decide that hate, separation, and false prophecies are the goal, well then our belief systems rise only to crumble.

This is the path we are on, not an increase in atheism, because atheism is not a belief system to swap another religion for. A thing to ‘not believing in’ is not a replacement for a faith. And so what we are seeing is a rise in people looking in all the wrong place to feel safe and then blindly, misguidedly keeping the faith.

Taking for granted

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A couple nights ago I flushed the toilet and the fresh water looked a light yellowy-brown. I waited and flushed again, it was the same colour. Then I went to the sink and ran it to discover that it wasn’t just a toilet issue but an issue with the water coming into the house. I called the city emergency line and spoke to someone about what was happening, and he asked for our address. Moments later her confirmed that maintenance crews were working on our waterline in the neighbourhood and they were aware of the situation.

He said that what I was seeing was iron deposits, and that I should wait 30 minutes, because the work wasn’t completed yet, then run water for 20-30 minutes and my water would be clear. And he said not to worry, that the water was still chlorinated and safe. It was late, so I waited until morning to cycle the water and it was clear in seconds.

This made me think about how lucky we are to turn on our taps and just expect clean and safe water. I’ve lived in this house for 27 years, and this is the first concern I’ve had about fresh water… and it was a minor issue that was over almost as fast as it arose. Then I thought of so many things we just take for granted:

  • Reliable electricity
  • Food availability
  • Food safety
  • Good roads
  • Hospitals
  • Safe schools
  • Safe communities
  • Emergency services 

The list goes on and on. We live in one of the best countries in the world. We operate from a position where we just expect things to work… and they do. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a marvel that we can go through life not thinking about the safety and reliability of basic services, only recognizing that we take these things for granted when an anomaly happens. Because for the vast majority of our lives we are blissfully unaware of how lucky we are to have not just basic necessities, but comforts of life that we just expect to be there.

How lucky are we?

Accept and place

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I heard this phrase and it really struck a chord with me:

“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.”

There are 2 really big ideas here.

First, we are often quick to want people to change, and the disparity between who people are and who we want people to become is often too large of a gap. Step one is accepting people for who they are.

The next step is a bit more challenging. We often spend way too much time on people that are not worth our time. We don’t ‘put people where they belong’. We take amazing people for granted and we focus too much attention on people who aren’t worth our time.

The task sounds simple: accept people for who they are, then place them in your life accordingly.

There are people who would do anything in the world for you. And people who you in turn would do anything for. When that’s the same person, well then you need to prioritize your connection to that person. They deserve a special place in your heart and in your life. They deserve your attention and time. Not the person that cut you off in traffic, not the annoying co-worker, not the friend in need that is never there when you are in need.

“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.”

Wise words to live by.