Tag Archives: community

Just imagine it was your kid

We aren’t talking about ancient history. The last Residential School closed in the 1980’s. Imagine it was your kid that was forcefully removed from you to be taken to a school that abused and/or killed him or her.

“The [Kamloops Indian Residential School] was established in 1890 and in operation until 1969, when it was taken over by the federal government from the Catholic Church to be used as a day school residence. It closed in 1978. The school building still stands today, and is located on the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. In May 2021, the remains of 215 children buried in a mass grave were found at the site.” Wikipedia

There is nothing more to say. Imagine it was your kid that didn’t make it home after being torn away from you. Imagine that it was the government that took your child away from you. Some don’t have to imagine this like you have to. It happened to their kid; to their brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends; to their unknown uncles and aunts.

It happened to families in our community. Their kids are our kids. We mourn their loss. We mourn our loss. If you don’t feel the loss, it’s because you haven’t imagined what it would be like if it was your kid.

Teaching and Trust

I surveyed our Grad 9’s a couple days ago. Coming from middle school, and getting stuck in a single cohort, they really didn’t get the experience at our school we wanted for them. At Inquiry Hub our students usually connect across grades, and interact as a larger community, which is important in a really small school. But although we were able to give them full days, unlike large schools with a lot more cohorts to manage, the environment our 9’s came into is far more like an extension of a single class in middle school than a high school. That said, they really don’t know what they are missing compared to a regular year here… they’ve never seen it.

I asked them to write on a piece of paper, a positive, a challenge, and/or a suggestion or wish, and I collected them. They could write about any or all of these.

Here are a few of them:

The challenges and suggestions were all related to covid restrictions, with less clubs, and a lack of connection with other cohorts. Beyond that the comments were very positive.

“I like the open and just overall welcoming environment.”

“I like how you can structure your own day…”

“I like how our courses let us set our own goals and learning paths.”

“Even though our community is so small, I like how close we’ve all gotten.”

One comment in particular was quite interesting to me:

“I love how much the teachers trust us here.”

I agree that our teachers give students a lot of freedom, and choice. And students at iHub get a fair bit of unstructured time to work on what the want/need to work on. But I never thought of this through the lens of trust, like this student.

When students feel trusted, they feel empowered, they feel they have a responsibility to keep that trust. It’s an interesting lens to see the dynamic of the classroom through. How does the relationship between the students and the teachers change when trust is given and valued? Where does the responsibility for learning fall in a trusting relationship? What else is fostered in a trusting environment?

Kudos to our teachers for creating such a wonderful learning environment in these challenging times.

We are getting there

I’m surprised how many people are still choosing not to get vaccinated. Here’s a short video that says a lot:

I think the part that people miss is that at this point it’s a civic duty. Never in our lifetime have we been called to ban together for a common good in the same way, and yet so many people choose to cherry-pick data and find reasons to be fearful. They have their reasons, their justifications, their ‘freedom’.

But we are getting there. First we’ll get everyone who wants a vaccine their vaccine. Then we’ll get them their second dose. Then we’ll see how many millions of people are safe because if it, like the measles and chicken pox vaccines that came before. Then a few of the reluctant will realize that the shot will give them more liberty to travel and to see elderly people they care for, and to receive hugs without masks.

It won’t happen as fast as I would like, but we are moving in the right direction.

Back to it

After a very restful March break, I’m back at it tomorrow. While the break was wonderful, and a part of me wants to just curl up in bed for another week, another part of me is excited for some busy normalcy.

It’s interesting, but I seem to get more of what I want done when I’ve got more on my plate… the very times that I wish I had more time, are the times when I get stuff done.

I’m looking forward to seeing staff and students. I’m looking forward to getting back into my morning workout routines. I’m looking forward to thinking about education in ways that I haven’t been too thoughtful about over the break.

The end of the year will come quickly now, and I know that in a few short months I’ll wonder where the time went. But for tomorrow, the focus will be catching up and connecting with my community, and then the ‘To Do’ list can officially start on Wednesday.

Face-to-face Conferences

While I’m looking forward to our Professional Development Day this coming Friday, I wouldn’t be being honest if I said that I wasn’t missing conferences. I’ll be attending from my laptop, alone in my office. I won’t be going to a large auditorium for a keynote, sitting next to friends, making lunch plans, geeking out in conversations with people I don’t usually get to see, making podcasts between sessions… there is a lot of appeal to engaging with connections beyond the sessions you go to at a conference.

For me, it usually includes meeting ‘digital friends’, people that I know from online/Twitter, whom I’ve never met before face-to-face or whom I have met, but less times than I can count on one hand. These connections invariably make the conference great for me. And not only do I get to meet these wonderful people, they tend to be people that like geeking out with me about what we’ve learned. If I go to a mediocre session, no problem, I can chat with someone who went to a better one. Go to a great session, and now I’ve got someone to share it with out loud, to help me solidify what I’ve learned.

But beyond the learning, there is the human connection. There is the opportunity to be with people I don’t get to see often but I enjoy their company. It’s about being with my tribe. I’ll enjoy the sessions on Friday, but I really look forward to a time in the future when I can once again go to a conference, pick up my swag, and connect with people that make the whole conference experience great!

Reflections from a 2-week social media vacation

No big aha moments. I had a few moments where I read something and my instinct was to share it on Twitter. I missed a chance to do a podcast with some friends I haven’t connected with in a while. And a former students and a few current students took some time to welcome me back with some ‘doctored’ images of me. (I’ve been uwuify’d.)

https://twitter.com/laefk/status/1358230779302580224

I think if I did this social media vacation 5 or 6 years ago, I would have missed it a lot more, but I don’t engage on social media nearly as much as I used to. Also, my school days tend to be long and I’m very rarely on social media at school, unless it’s for the school, or maybe while eating lunch. So, this self-imposed break really just stopped me from vegging out on TikTok when I’m tired, (I find it far more entertaining than TV and have a time limit on it so that it’s like watching a half-hour show).

I’m not sure if I’ll take a break like this again any time soon, but I also think that I might come back slowly. I’d also like to experiment and play a bit more with ClubHouse. I’m a huge fan of audio and I can see some real value in this new platform. If you haven’t heard of it yet… you will.

Welcome to Clubhouse

Well, I kind of broke my social media vacation a day early. I was invited into Clubhouse by Mike Slinger. For those of you that don’t know what Clubhouse is, it is a voice/conversation based social media platform where people create rooms where anyone can join and chat or listen. Moderators can run the room like a live podcast or as a room where they invite anyone in to join the conversation.

Very early this morning I joined a room, Connect EDU. The host, Giancarlo Brotto, quickly invited newcomers into the conversation to share their background.

I really see potential here. The sharing of voice is powerful. I can imagine people having some really great conversations ‘out loud and in the open’ but live with an audience who can raise their hand and contribute. I also see the potential for some strong community-building.

I had an idea for a text-based environment similar to this a few years ago. I imagined a private chat that is publicly viewable, and a side chat for the audience. Imagine two to five people having an in-depth Facebook-style text conversation but if you were reading from the outside, you couldn’t comment directly… the conversation is theirs, but that there was also a side panel for the audience. Then the people having the conversation could invite the audience in, if they see and like something in the audience chat.

Clubhouse does this with voice rather than text, and I think this new social media platform is going to explode! I’m reminded of radio call-in shows, and I can foresee some incredible communities being built. I’m not sure how much I’ll use it yet, but I’m pretty sure Clubhouse is going to be a platform you hear more and more about in the coming months.

The gift of giving

Recently my family was able to help out another family. It wasn’t something we did ourselves, a community of people stepped up to help, we simply coordinated the support and did our part to contribute.

There is both a selfless and a selfish aspect of giving. The selfless part is that you do something kind without wanting anything in return. The selfish part is that you feel really good doing it. That is the gift you get, when you give.

A while back I worked in a very needy community and I was always surprised to learn that some of the needy families were the same families that volunteered in soup kitchens or in the community regularly. They were happy to give their time to help others. I realized that they often received charity, understood how much it was valued, and wanted to do the same for others.

They understood the value of getting gifts and wanted to do the same for others. Not having money, they gave their time. Interestingly, I think that when you give your time, rather than just money, the gift you receive as the giver is greater.

It’s weird to talk about giving as a selfish act, perhaps the better word is rewarding. So I’ll end by saying that giving to others in need is a rewarding act, it feels good, and nourishes you as much as it does those in need.

Find ways to reward yourself by giving to others.

We are all in the same lifeboat

A few days ago I wrote about the state of limbo we are in, dealing with the coronavirus. I said,

My thoughts: If everything goes well, it could be September before we get close to vaccinating enough of the population to truly ease up on our personal restrictions. More likely, we are looking at January 2022. That’s another year away. I think things will get much better, but the path will be slower than everyone wants.

However I made an assumption that I’m starting to question. More and more I’m realizing that there are going to be too many ‘free riders‘, too many people not taking the vaccine. Too many people believing that the vaccine will cause more issues than the virus. Too many that think the virus isn’t serous enough in their age bracket. Too many people that misunderstand what a vaccine is and what it does.

Without enough of a herd immunity, the virus will continue to spread in a way that means our lifestyle pre-pandemic are not likely to return for years. Virus mutations can and will spread, and each mutation has the potential to spread more easily and/or mutate enough to make vaccines less effective.

It’s like we are all in the same lifeboat and it has tiny little holes in it. Vaccinated people plug the holes, non-vaccinated people don’t think the holes are a serious enough problem. These free riders aren’t doing their job plugging the holes in the boat. And because of that, the boat keeps getting wetter.

I’m shocked every time I hear someone say that they won’t get vaccinated. I know there are ‘anti-Vaxers’ who link vaccines to false claims and negative propaganda, but I can’t say I’ve met or know too many people I’d put in this category. What I am seeing is vaccine hesitant people who think that vaccines for Covid-19 are unreliable, or not significantly tested, or even dangerous. It is this group that scares me. The crackpot anti-vaxer community is a fringe group, too large for my liking but not larger enough to endanger heard immunity from happening… however the vaccine hesitant group is way bigger than I thought, and this group will undermine the ability to reach herd immunity; to keep our lifeboat dry enough not to be concerned.

Only a few days ago I was feeling like I was being pessimistic saying the earliest rerun to ‘normal’ was January 2022, but now I’m thinking that’s terribly optimistic. We could be stuck in this leaky lifeboat for a very long time.

What the new year does and does not bring

The new year brings an end to a difficult year.

The new year does not bring any tangible changes as a result of our planet crossing an arbitrary point in our rotation around the sun.

The new year brings hope, for a heard immunity against Covid-19, thanks to a number of different vaccines.

The new year does not bring any immediate relief from the spread of Covid-19, with a greater threat of spread due to a more contagious new variant coming out of the UK.

The new year brings resolutions and promises of self-improvement and ambitious goals.

The new year does not bring any promise of fulfilling these new goals without a dedicated effort to change habits and behaviours.

The new year brings a political and ideological shift in power in the United States.

The new year does not bring a promise of less divisiveness in the American people who seem too ideologically divided.

The new year brings inconsistent approaches to dealing with the virus, from being scarily too open to being confusingly too locked down.

The new year does not bring any promise of clarity about how best to deal with the virus while we wait for widespread vaccine distribution.

The new year brings continued paranoia and conspiracy filled misinformation, shared virally on social media.

The new year does not bring any way to meaningfully combat the spread of bad ideas.

The new year brings anticipation for a better year than 2020.

The new year brings promise of post pandemic world.

The new year brings opportunity for positive change.

The new year brings us more of the same, unless we choose to think, say, and act differently.

Let’s be different, better, more loving, kind, and caring… to ourselves, our community, and our environment. We do not get to choose the world we live in, but we do get to choose our impact on it and those in our community we share it with.