Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
About 17 or 18 years ago when my oldest was 5 or 6, she asked me a question and I responded, “I don’t know?” So, she walked into our office and went to our desktop computer and asked Google. She didn’t think twice about it, she just went to find the answer on the search engine that became a verb: ‘Have a question? Just Google it.’
Now social media sites are the new Google, articles like this one, ‘Many Gen Zers don’t use Google. Here’s why they prefer to search on TikTok and Instagram,’ explain that for many searches the younger generation are bypassing Google and going directly to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and even Pinterest to look for things that older folks would Google.
Looking for makeup tips? TikTok or Instagram. Looking for help changing your car’s turn signal light? YouTube. There are many reasons to trust either your network or people using appropriate tags that you search on social media more than some website that has maximized its SEO and finds itself at the top of a Google search… with little reference to what you are actually searching for.
It’s now an era where a Google search is just one of many search tools that might be used to answer questions you might have. Social networks and platforms are taking us on a journey beyond Google.
The school changed designations from a junior high to a middle school and that change allowed all the teachers at that school to have priority moves… and move they did. 17 teachers left out of about 30, mostly choosing to get a high school job. That departure of teachers opened the door for me and about 12 or 13 other brand new teachers (as well as a few with less than a year’s experience) to join the school.
Imagine working in a school where more than half the teachers were new… it was amazing. I was arriving at school before 7:30 every morning to get my day ready, and I was seldom the only teacher there that early. I’d still be in my room between 4:30 and 5pm and so would other teachers. I’d visit a teacher around that time, see what they were planning, and they’d share their plans and resources with me. I’d do the same for them… often even if we were teaching different grades. Teachers with experience were even more helpful providing leadership, resources, and time to help anyone who asked.
We’d meet each other at after school professional development presentations. We’d socialize together, we’d organize amazing opportunities for students at the school. We all coached, we ran spirit assemblies, we dressed up in costumes for any reason at all to get students excited about school. It was absolutely exhausting, and absolutely wonderful.
I couldn’t imagine starting my career at a better place… and the teachers that were there are still some of my closest friends today. I got together with a few ‘originals’ that were at our school that year, and I was reminded of all the good times. I was also reminded of how challenging the kids were that year, the most challenging in our careers. And yet the memories that linger are so positive. It was such an amazing place to be.
Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. It’s easy to look back and think about ‘the good old days’, and all the positive things of yesteryear. But trying to rebuild a culture of the past, trying to ‘go back to the way things used to be’ is all but inevitable to fail. You can’t rebuild a culture, you need to build a new and desired culture.
When schools went remote in March of 2019, Inquiry Hub was unintentionally ready for the transition. My teachers barely missed a beat. Students already had a fair bit of independent time, so teachers didn’t need to adapt their teaching to give students time to work independently. Every class was already in Microsoft Teams. And we even joined each other online and had virtual lunches together. I actually saw my staff at lunch more than I normally did. And more importantly, students almost all made positive transitions to working from home.
It was when we got back to face-to-face that things really changed. We used to have students mixing across grades and working collaboratively in hallways, and in any open space or classroom available. Then suddenly they were locked down in single rooms, at single desks, not facing each other in table groups. Two and a half years later, only our Grade 12’s knew what Inquiry Hub used to be, back in the first 2/3’s of their first year. Our Grades 9, 10, and 11 students never experienced our school pre-covid.
I started this year thinking that we need to rebuild the culture of the past, but I realize now that this won’t happen. We have more students who are more used to their classroom being their primary community. We’ve grown by almost 1/3, and classes are now more of a community in size. We aren’t what we used to be. We don’t have the shared history, and efforts to be what we used to be will detract from what we could be.
So how do you build culture? How do you design activities so that they foster the community you want to build… but not force something that isn’t organic and natural? I think you create opportunities for students to connect, but you don’t force it. You show what you value by showing appreciation for positive behaviour and attitudes. You invite people to participate, but don’t force them. You explicitly share your vision and give others a chance to build that vision with you.
You don’t rebuild culture, you build it anew. It won’t be the same, but if you explicitly and cooperatively share a common vision, and take action towards it, the culture you build can look a bit like what it used to be, but it won’t ever be what it was. Nostalgia will keep you from being what you could be while you focus on what was, but never could be again.
When I look around at the people I know in my community, very few other than my wife and I have not had covid-19 yet. I don’t attribute it to anything more than luck. I know people that have been equally as cautious and more cautious than us that have had it. We both work in schools and have greater exposure than an office worker who spent most of the last couple years working from home. We’ve been lucky.
Yesterday I got the Moderna Omicron-Containing Bivalent Booster shot. It was an easy decision for me. The variant most prevalent right now is Omicron, and I’m happy to increase the odds that I don’t catch this virus. A number of people I know have felt the lingering effects of covid for several months, and having been someone who has previously dealt with 6+ months of chronic fatigue (a vitamin D deficiency about 4-5 years ago) I’d rather not deal with something like that again if it can be avoided.
This is why I decided to to get a 4th shot:
I work in a school and if I can avoid getting and/or spreading a virus, then that’s good for my whole community. I take the flu shot each year for the same reason. Does that stop me from getting the occasional flu? No. But it probably stops me from getting sick more often than I do. Viruses are tricky things and flu shots are not a perfect science. The purpose of a flu shot is to prevent some of the more likely flus that are going around, not all flus. I see this Omicron-Containing Bivalent Booster in the same way I do a flu shot… it’s a vaccine focusing on preventing contraction of the more likely variants. I’m not 100% preventing covid, I’m reducing the likelihood of contracting common variants that are currently circulating.
We might be in endemic rather than pandemic times, but there are still people catching covid variants in our community… and unless I had a non-symptomatic case, I’m still one of those people with no natural immunity. I like the idea of decreasing my odds of catching covid. Just like I decrease the odds of getting a flu with my yearly flu vaccine.
Tonight is our first event of the year where we invite parents into the school. We are having a meet the teacher event followed by a PAC – Parent Advisory Council – meeting. In preparation I am putting up a wall of photos of our students and staff (the Inquiry Hub community is 100 staff & students). I did this 5 years ago, and 5 years before that, so all of our students from grade 9-12 have not done this with me before.
It’s a black & white portrait of each kid with a quote underneath it. The quotes all start with one of 4 prompts: I want…, I wish…, I hope…, or I dream…
Here is a video describing the project from 5 years ago (starting at the 4 minute mark).
This is the process for getting these photos:
1. Ask students (in a form) to share the response to four questions:
I want…
I wish…
I hope…
I dream…
I try not to give examples. (I learned a couple lessons here. The first lesson I learned the last time I did this is to ask a follow up question: “What’s your favourite answer”, to help guide my choice when I pick their response to go with the photo. The second, hard lesson I learned this time is not to also ask for a school goal in the same form… this resulted in a number of students focusing all of their answers on school goals.).
2. Take high quality headshot photos of students with a blank background. I used a green screen, but a blackboard or even a white wall works. The main secret is to not have kids too close to the background. Another trick is to tell them NOT to look at the camera. Even just a class of 30 faces staring at the camera would look like a mug shot wall, and so looking away from the camera gives a softer, easier to look at collage of faces. (Another hint, set the camera up to take a black & white photo and save yourself conversion time.)
3. I created a black frame on PowerPoint with 4 boxes, having a slightly larger one on the bottom for text (with size 20 font and a light grey text rather than full white). I also set the slide size to 8.5″ x 11″ (the same size as letter paper). Then I add the photo, right-click it and ‘move to back’ behind the frame, then size the photo inside the frame and adjust the placement. (Another tip, once you’ve got the frame with text box set up, and you’ve tried the first photo and text and are happy, duplicate this slide, delete the photo and text so you have an empty frame on the second slide. Now duplicate this slide as your master.)
4. Convert to PDF, then take a Zip drive to Staples or your business print shop of choice, and print on 80 stock photo paper. Doing the prints here will cost under $1 each instead of several dollars at a photo place and the quality will still be great as long as your photos are high resolution and focussed (use a tripod in step 2). This year I shared a link to a password protected file that I opened when I got to the store, rather than carrying a Zip drive, but it took over 5 minutes to download because the file was over half a gig in size!
5. Place the photos on your wall. I did 3 rows alternating 4 and 5 columns of photos on the panels in our hallway. I don’t think they need to be done so neatly, but with the writing on each image, I suggest space between the photos and not an overlapping collage.
Here is part of this year’s wall with student faces blurred with an app. The pictures are very sharp.
The overall effect is pretty powerful and the wall really makes a statement. I love that everyone’s voice in the community is shared.
I first did this with a Grade 9 class 22 years ago, and it’s still a favourite project that I enjoy doing. And with that, I’ll leave you with my photo. Out of respect for privacy, I won’t be sharing clear photos and readable quotes of students, you’ll have to visit the school to see it.
It’s interesting how we think of social media as our main public spaces. When did that happen? I’m not going to wax poetic about the way things used to be, instead I’m going to ask what could be possible?
How could we create richer public spaces? What would draw people to these places? When is the last time you went to an evening presentation in a library? Or a concert in a park? (As opposed to a bar, nightclub, or theatre.)
Where can we close traffic to cars and create larger spaces for meeting and socializing?
Do we have to run special events or can we create spaces that people want to go to because they are public, open, and free?
Maybe what we have is enough, but I can’t help but wonder if we couldn’t design better public spaces, or even better neighbourhoods, that invite people to be more connected face to face. And if we did design these spaces better, would they be used? I think it’s worth thinking about, and trying. As more and more people flock to bigger and bigger communities and cities, high rises are taking over the landscape. With greater density comes greater opportunity to find like-minded people to be social with… and our public spaces should be designed to consider this.
A couple days ago I wrote: The paradox of religion, and this morning Miguel Guhlin responded with an insightful post: Skirting Paradox. I encourage you to not just read the post, but also to follow the links… grab a coffee and dig in, if you have any interest in faith and religion, this is a piece you’ll want to read and reflect on.
Here is my comment response, but it does not stand alone, it sits in reflection to Miguel’s thoughts and ideas and if you choose to read only one of the two, read Miguel’s thoughts above rather than mine below.
—
Miguel, thank you for sharing such an insightful post! It took a while to read because I paused to go to every link. I appreciate your links to scripture and your perspective on them. I wrote this back in March,From Faith or With Faith.
In honesty I did not remember writing this when I wrote the post above… the consequence of writing every day is that I often repeat concepts months later, not remembering what is unexpressed versus written thoughts in my mind. But the slant in the link is a little different, less harsh, less of an attack on religion (which I was concerned about, but you saw through in your response). This previous writing reminds me of a conversation I recently had with a religious colleague, whom pre-covid I often spent time with speaking of and about religion. In this conversation I said to him at one point: (paraphrasing)
When I share my atheistic points, they are not intended to convert you. I do not perceive atheism as a religion to adopt, simply a lack of religion… there is no intent to change your mind on your faith… in fact I see how your faith grounds you and I see no benefit in you not believing what you do.
But that is a conversation between two educators, two public school principals, both of whom do not share their religion/beliefs with students. This does not change the ideas above that you succinctly reduced to:
“What religion does to support good people is grossly outweighed by what [evil] it does.”
That is the thesis statement. That is the problem today, be it with evangelical beliefs on abortion versus the liberty of women over their bodies in the US; Or warring Shiites versus Sunnis in the Middle East; Or Chinese versus Tibetans in Asia; Or… Or… Or… the list is almost endless. Why would a benevolent, all-knowing, and un-interfering God want His/Her worshippers to impose their beliefs on others? When two people of differing faiths squabble, no finger of God comes waving down upon one of them. When that squabble leads to the use of swords or guns, no hand of God shields the supposed Righteous One. Instead, Man’s evil against Man is shed, and the God they love is no longer represented in their actions.
And there in lies the problem of religion, it does not remain in the ‘respective closets’ you mention. Instead, it manifests in hatred of the heathen non-believers. In fact, the wrath of God on non-believers in scripture is what turned me away from religion. I wondered as a teen, “What kind of cruel God would do this?”
~ Coffee after Class
“What religion does to support good people is grossly outweighed by what [evil] it does.”
Faith in God will not ever end, but maybe we can find a humanist… (I fear saying Humanist with a capital ‘H’, for this too can become dogma worth fighting to protect)… maybe we can find a humanist approach to faith that invites love of life and liberty, dialogue not conflict, and faith without evil.
I know people of faith. Good people. Jews, Muslims, Christians. Good people all. Faith can be a good for people, it can anchor them, it can ground them. It can build community and a sense of belonging. But there’s a catch. It’s a big catch: Religion is only helpful to good people. That’s right, religion doesn’t make people good, it fosters the good in already good people.
Meanwhile, religion is used by bad people. Bad priests who prey on believers. Foolish people who take words from ancient texts literally. Weak people who feel hopeless and lost. And sometimes it even takes good people and clouds their judgement, turning their faith into misguided devotion.
When good and smart people who contextualize religious teachings with a morality that anchors them and their faith leave that faith, they do not suddenly become bad people. The religion isn’t a necessary part of being good. But religion is often used to to harm ‘others’; to ostracize and attack those that don’t fit. The crusades, military jihadists, ethnic cleansing, these are examples of how religious beliefs undermine morality as opposed to foster it. Man’s inhumanity against Man has often been driven by faith.
If religions were to suddenly disappear, would there be more or less violence in the world? How many good people would suddenly fall from grace? On the other hand, how many blindly devout and misguided people would suddenly have no need to harm non-believers?
Today, more hate is promoted by religion than love. This is the paradox of religion: Good people will be good without their faith, bad people will not be as bad without scriptures to misinterpret and blindly follow. What religion does to support good people is grossly outweighed by what it does to co-opt the weak, draw them in, and have them blindly follow the misguided religious teachings of men and women who misinterpret old and outdated texts.
Has religion helped some people? Yes. Absolutely. But at what price? How many have died in the name of their or other’s religions? How many continue to die? To hate? To fight? To abuse believers? To impose their beliefs on non-believers? All in the name of God.
We held iHub Annual last night. It’s our combined grad and award ceremony. Being a small school, we combined these two things so that our grads would have a larger audience. We’ve grown a bit and this year we decided that our grad families would be the only ones invited to watch live, and we hosted YouTube Live video show as well for the rest of our students and families.
Overall the event ran very well. I’m so often impressed by the students who run these shows in the background, the presenters, and the performers. There’s a certain feel these shows have when they are student run. Kids aren’t perfect, but the step up, they rise up to the occasion… and frankly, they often do so better than the adults. Case in point, I had the biggest flub of the night, not any of the kids.
One of the things about our award ceremony that I like is that we focus the awards on how students contribute to the community. Using our motto of ‘Dream, Create, Learn’ we title the awards under those words, looking at: how students Dream up ways to make the school and world a better place; how students Create outstanding projects; and, how they demonstrate their Learning.
Looking at a school with just 81 students, it’s great that we had 24 of them nominated for awards. Seeing the kinds of things they do in school is nothing short of amazing. These kids really put efforts into their projects and their passions. They are all on journeys to do great work and share their accomplishments.
This isn’t a school where kids spend all day following their teacher’s assignments and handing in work that looks like everyone else’s work. This is a school where students get to explore interesting self-chosen projects, and the results show that this is what’s valued at our school.
I was originally against the idea of holding an award ceremony. They are often just about highlighting the already successful kids that get recognized by their marks, and everyone knows who will get an award. But last night, and at our previous award events, there were students mentioned that normally wouldn’t be recognized in a traditional award ceremony. Students who have been given the freedom to explore their interests and students who step up to make the school great… even if they don’t shine academically.
By showcasing that contributions to our community matter we get kids wanting to contribute to our community. By sharing how important that is to us, other students see that we value it, and they too rise up.
I was worried that after 2 years of pandemic mode, and keeping kids separate in individual classes, that we’d lost the community feel of the school. But a couple weeks ago we had a cross-grade project that all our students participated in. Then last night seeing the students work together to run the event, and seeing the student projects shared, and the performers giving their all, I realized that we still have a strong community. And, our students are still stepping up and contributing to be creative and do good work.
If you create the time, space, and expectation for students to be creative and do great work, they will. I can’t wait to see what’s possible next year, when things go further back to normal. I suspect that next year the kinds of things we’ll see from our students will be far from normal… they will be exceptional.
When I think of a real life hero, the first person that always comes to mind is Terry Fox. This young man ran a marathon a day on one leg to raise money for cancer research. He wanted to raise a dollar for every Canadian, and although his Marathon of Hope was never completed it has raised hundreds of millions of dollars. He attempted something extraordinary (‘EXTRA’ ordinary) for a selfless reason. He is one of my heroes.
Recently, a family member had to perform lifesaving actions on a man that was unconscious and not breathing. It was a rather traumatic experience, and when fire crews and paramedics arrived, they all said the team that worked on this man did a great job. Amazing. Kudos to them all. Then yesterday they learned that the person later died in the hospital. That doesn’t change the fact that they all did a great job, but it was devastating news to get.
This got me thinking about heroism. We tie so much of heroic acts to the outcome of events, not to the act itself. Isn’t that interesting. This isn’t always the case, and I think the pandemic highlighted this. We started to give praise to nurses and other frontline workers. We showed greater respect and admiration for people who work in service of others.
And so now I think more of the silent heroes. The teachers who are the only significant adults in a child’s life. The single parent that sacrifices personal wishes to chauffeur multiple kids to all their expensive activities. The volunteer that brings meals to a seniors. The older child who steps in and stops a kid from being bullied. And the nurses, 911 operators, firefighters, lifeguards, and doctors who do everything they can to save a life… heroes all, whether or not they save the person. It’s not the result, but their service that’s makes them an everyday hero.
