Tag Archives: Coronavirus

Bad arguments

First of all, let me get a couple things out in the open.

1. Yes, I’m getting the vaccine. Vaccines are a proven technology that saves lives.

2. And yes, I’m pro-choice. Women have a right to choose if they want to bring a life into the world or not, and religious beliefs shouldn’t be imposed on others that do not have those beliefs. (Ie, if your religion tells you differently, you can choose to follow those beliefs.)

Given these points, I think there are people that agree with me, who are choosing bad arguments to justify these points.

Bad argument #1: “I don’t care what’s in that vaccine, I’d do anything to get out of these lockdowns.”

This argument takes all the science and care people have done to study the vaccine and ensure it is safe and lumps it into a category of, “Anything is better than this.” With the word ‘anything’ including all kinds of fear and misinformation about what could happen after taking the vaccine. This argument says nothing of the efficacy of this vaccine, or any vaccine. This doesn’t focus on how many millions of flu vaccines have been taken yearly for decades, and the lack of any statistically harmful effects, juxtaposed to how many people die from flus each year… or how many people have already died, and will continue to die, or have lifelong adverse effects from covid-19.

Bad argument #2: “If you really are pro-life, then why are you against social programs that would support single moms, and why aren’t you willing to adopt a child that a mother isn’t ready or able to raise?”

This argument suggests there could be a perfect world, where every expectant mother could have choices to have the baby, and thus not need the choice to not have it. Absolutely, there should be better social programs to give expectant mothers more choice when faced with an unwanted child. But the idea that if those external choices are all there, the mother will then no longer have a choice to not have the child… this is no longer a pro-choice argument.

Both of these arguments are examples of taking positions unhelpful towards making a valid intended point or choice. Both do not convince anyone with opposing views that they should change their minds. They are bad arguments that do not help support the very points they are making.

Want to argue with someone that disagrees with you? Start with a valid argument that actually supports what you are saying.

Charge your batteries

I went for a walk this morning. Met two friends and we had a social distance walk. We chatted about work to the halfway point then I instituted a push-up rule on the way back: first person to talk shop does 5, next one 10… etc. One buddy did 5, I did 10, and we talked about family and favourite movies and series the rest of the time. First face to face connection with anyone outside my family in weeks.

Came home and showered and went for another walk with my wife. Just did my meditation and cleared my mind some more.

Beyond that I had more than 5hrs sleep last night for the first time in a week, as it seems my insomnia is lifting. Even with the lack of sleep through the last week, Friday at work was incredibly productive. I haven’t had a day with so many things checked off my ‘to do’ list in months.

And now I’m m listening to one of my new favourite songs on repeat, created by one of our students at Inquiry Hub. I find that a single song on repeat helps me write. Usually I pick one without lyrics, but this one works for me.

Even though I missed my workouts Wednesday and Friday from shear exhaustion from insomnia, I still made my 5-a-week minimum. And, I can feel that my period of maintenance is ending and I’m ready for another push. I’m a year and a half behind my goal to do a one-minute unsupported handstand… maybe that’s my goal again after finally feeling fully recovered from a shoulder injury.

Traditionally this weekend is a wipeout. I’m exhausted and the Christmas break can’t come fast enough. I already have at least 55 hours of work scheduled next week with after school meetings booked, and I can’t think too much about the break because it is still far away. So I won’t think about that.

Instead I’ll think about my batteries feeling charged. I’ll do a chore I had put off until the holidays, and get that out of the way now. I’ll write some more… and hopefully sleep for a solid 7 hours tonight. Despite feeling fully charged, I’m going to keep myself metaphorically plugged in, while I feel the power surging in.

Shifting Dreams

I’ve already shared that I almost never dream of people that are currently in my life, dreams for me usually include people I have not seen in a while. That has shifted a bit recently. So has the number of dreams I seem to recall. I am waking up regularly during the night with a full dream in my head.

They are ridiculous. One of them last night included me being a twin double agent that was subjected to a life-altering test administered by a rogue lizard-man. This beast was an escaped prisoner that we were not allowed to catch, and when we found him we just had to surrender to being hit with spray from a water gun that had dangerous chemicals in it.

Another dream last night turned into a covid dream… I went to visit the archery range, without my bow, and one of the volunteers talked me into shooting guns with them since archery was cancelled. He loaned me a gun, had me sign a waiver (that I didn’t have to read) then took me to a signup building that ended up being an indoor shooting range. Only after being packed into this thing with dozens of people did I realize that I was in a crowded room of anti-maskers, with a sick kid coughing next to me. Stressful. And bizarrely stupid.

When I was in university, I went through a phase of really vivid dreams and I trained myself to make them lucid. The trick was to realize I was dreaming and raise my hand in front of my face. Once I could do this, I realized in my dream that I had the power to choose what I did in the dream. The first couple times I did this, I got too excited about it and woke up.

The third and subsequent times I was able to stay dreaming and I would choose to fly. The sensation was exhilarating and absolutely amazing. I loved it. The only two times I had sensations stronger than the sense of flying in a dream were when I woke up once before my body did and I was comatose, trapped in a disconnected body, this was horrifying. The second was when I met the Messiah in a dream and felt compassion that was so intense, it brought so much love and joy to me, that I crumbled to my knees. One day I’ll share that dream, but not today.

I think I’m at a phase of dreaming where I could get back to lucid dreaming. I think I’m going to go to bed reminding myself to look at my hand and then take control of my dreams. I want to shift from dreams that are silly and stressful to ones where I can enjoy sensations that I can’t in real life. I want to fly again.

Humanity – versus – Reality

I saw a video a few days ago of hundreds of unmasked protesters, packed together in a square in the United Kingdom, singing ‘Stick your poison vaccines up your ass’ to the tune of ‘She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes’. I wanted to write about it sooner, but I could only come from an angle of anger and disgust. It would have been a good rant, that would probably have made me feel better, but I’m done ranting with the purpose of making myself feel better. I’ve been seeking out joy, determination, fun facts, and when dealing with our current situation, humour, as sort of coping mechanisms for dealing with the discord that seems to be pervasive right now.

There is an epic battle going on. It is a battle on many battle grounds. It is a battle happening across the world. It is a battle that pits humanity against reality. Here are six of the battlegrounds:

  1. The Covid-19 Pandemic: Many people are dying – versus – Protests against the preventions and lockdowns to prevent the spread.
  2. Vaccines: They save lives – versus – They are dangerous (or they will be used to monitor and track us).
  3. Climate change: It’s the greatest threat we face as a species – versus – It’s a hoax.
  4. Science: Seeking objective facts – versus – un-objective and agenda-driven propaganda.
  5. Freedom: Government are here to serve and protect us – versus – Governments are corrupt and stripping away our freedoms in an attempt to control us.
  6. Civil liberties: Issues like racism, gender identity, pro-choice, freedom of expression – versus – Religious values, as well as both right-wing (QAnon) and left-wing (Antifa extremists) using hateful tactics to argue their points.

I purposely didn’t use the word ‘Truth’ before now. I believe that we are living in a post-Truth era (with an intentional capital ‘T’).  I’ll leave you with Stuart McMillan’s webcomic about Neil Postman’s book, ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death‘. I recently listened to both 1984 and Brave New World back-to-back. I was struck by the contrast between a world run based on fear – versus – one run based on pleasure. I think that things are so messed up right now that we are stuck in a dystopian novel where both worlds exist simultaneously. Many people live in constant fear based on ‘facts’ that are cherry-picked, on half-truths, and even made up completely. Many more are living in a social media based alternate reality where their truths are based on a ‘news’ feed designed to entertain with a confusing mix of facts and fiction.

I don’t know how so many people could be naive enough to believe that the world is flat and other ridiculous conspiracies; That vaccines will be used to monitor you; That so many people can confuse mask use with being a sheep; Or that so many people can believe one group’s fight for rights undermines their own rights? Yet, across the globe, millions of people are so sure they are right, that protests and propaganda based on ignorance are now commonplace.

We are living in an era where humanity has no grasp on reality. Fiction and fact are interchangeable. ‘T’ruth is subjective. And a common, collective plan for peace and prosperity seems further away than any worlds that Huxley or Orwell could fabricate.

The future of conferences

In the past few weeks I’ve participated in Microsoft Teams and Zoom meetings with Jeff Borden and Dean Shareski. Both of them did a great job, but I look forward to doing face-to-face conferences again. Dean recently wrote, ‘The Future of Professional Learning Part 1‘,

“I do wonder if we’ll be more intentional about what constitutes and justifies a great face to face experience and what can be highly effective as a virtual option?”

This got be thinking about where we go with conferences post-pandemic? In response to a tweet about his post, I said,  “I was tiring of regular conferences, now I miss them. I think they will evolve to be more engaging (why travel somewhere for a PowerPoint that could be on Zoom) and I also think we might see more (online) pre/post conference engagement and learning.”

To expand on this idea, I don’t see things like pre-presentations or assignments and tasks being given before a conference (read as ‘not homework’), but I do see opportunities for conversation, interaction with the presenter, and with other conference attendees. I see icebreakers and teasers.  I see feedback to the presenter about what the attendees want. I see presenters providing clear learning intentions and a framework for their talk. I see presenters providing a personal introduction so that instead of the first 5-10 minutes of a 1 hour presentation slot being “This is who I am”, the presentation starts with an activity, engaging people with other people who have already connected online. I see interactive presentations that rely on participants being involved and engaged with the material.

Think about it. Why spend hundreds of dollars in flights, hotels, and food, to go to a room and get a PowerPoint and ‘talking head’ that could easily have been delivered to you at home? When I went to ISTE, my favourite memories are the blogger’s cafe, and meeting friends to do podcasts with (Shelly Sanchez Terrell and Kathleen McClaskey), and the people I went to ISTE with from my district. When I went to SXSW EDU, the people I went with and the podcasts that I did are the only things I remember (David Jakes, Jeff Richardson, and after the conference Miguel Guhlin). The future of conferences will need to be much more about creating experiences and making connections and less about presentations… this was already happening, but now that we have created digital experiences that will compete, the pull of conferences needs to be about enriching the experience and making it worth the effort to travel.

The act of writing

Twitter inspired my to write this morning. The first tweet is by Marcus Blair, but let me share some tweets by him before I get to the one that originally inspired me.

Marcus has become one of my favourite educators on Twitter. He shares tweets about what he does in the classroom and he reflects on his teaching and his interactions with his class. In a time when there is so much stress and anxiety, he shares tweets that I find uplifting, and that remind me why I wanted to get into education.

Here are 3 recent tweets by him:

The tweet that inspired me to write now was this one where Marcus reflected on his own writing:


I responded:


Then almost a couple hours later I read James Clear’s 3-2-1 weekly email and wrote this about one of the 3 quotes he shared:

The act of writing makes me a better writer. The commitment to this act every  single day is itself a reward, making me feel like I’ve accomplished something before I even start my work day.

Yes, some mornings it is really hard to get started. There have been days that I’ve spent more time thinking than writing. Yes, there have been days when I’ve had to rush or even postpone my morning workout because I was too slow to get my writing started, or too long winded to finish what I was writing in a timely manner. Yes, some things I’ve written should have been left unwritten. But sometimes… sometimes my writing speaks to me. Sometimes it is metaphorically a song I had to sing. Sometimes the act of writing is a form of expression that leaves me feeling like I’ve added something worth sharing with the world.

For those moments I write. Not for the actual contribution I’ve shared, but for the feeling I get sharing it. 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.

What students remember

What students forget:

  • The Krebs cycle
  • Historical facts
  • How to solve quadratic equations
  • The homework they did
  • Answers on tests
  • Worksheets
  • Teachers who will forget them

What students remember:

  • Teachers who will remember them
  • Teachers who listened
  • Teachers that made them laugh
  • Teachers who were passionate about teaching
  • Teachers who didn’t give up on them
  • Friends
  • Engaging projects
  • Sports and clubs

These lists are not extensive… but they are the inspiration for a question: What will students remember about school during the 2020-2021 pandemic?

Teachers have it tough right now. Students too. More than ever teachers need to focus on teaching students, not subjects.

Yesterday I saw an article with a title like, ‘Study shows students are months behind in reading skills due to remote learning.’ Squeezing one more book into the year won’t change that. Showing students a passion for reading will.

Focus on students… and they will remember you, and what you taught them, for all the right reasons.

Vaccinated from the truth

It’s great to see that the Russian coronavirus vaccine is showing very positive results. And both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines look equally as promising. Like many other vaccines before these, the side effects seem insignificant, and that holds a lot of promise for 2021 getting off to a great start.

This is refreshing news after I spent a bit of time going down a dark rabbit hole of links about conspiracy theories and end of days religious idiocy last night. I don’t usually follow these paths, but I got a spam message that was so ludicrous in claims that I had to check it out for pure entertainment value.

The claims were everything from technology like this being secretly added to vaccines to monitor you, to God speaking directly to people about the divinity of Donald Trump, to signs of the apocalypse and the end of the world. What blew me away was how these completely different narratives would cross over and interconnect. Every crazy idea added fuel to the next crazy idea. It wasn’t enough to hold one conspiratorial idea, they had to be connected and somehow one ‘proved’ that the other was ‘real’.

I dug around in this rabbit hole and what I saw was videos with thousands of likes, where the lines between a kernel of truth and delusional lies was nonexistent. It was hard to grasp where reality ended and bat-shit-crazy fantasy began. There seemed to be random moments where new ‘theories’ just jumped out and ‘proved’ some other unrelated stupidity. For example, a video talking about how vaccines are being used, (by elites in a conspiratorial cabal led by Bill Gates), to input instruments of the devil in you, then shifted to how your DNA is being altered by Chemtrails that make you think less about God. My imagination is pretty good, but I couldn’t fathom trying to make these connections up.

And through these crazy narratives one thing seems to prevail: that the world is conspiring to take away personal liberties. These people will not get vaccinated, no matter how safe and reliable the vaccine might be. They are already vaccinated from truth.

Connecting digitally

I had a chat with a friend a couple days ago and he said, “I’m just looking forward to joining you in a pub for some chicken wings and beers.”

I was thinking of this last night when I reflected on our friendship over the last 30+ years. We’ve actually had conversations before where we said, ‘The next time we get together, we actually need to do something besides sit and have a drink together.’

It’s a small thing but it puts what we are going through in perspective. We are social beings and we want to connect in any way that we can right now.

I had a dinner meeting last night. We all left our different work locations, independently picked up food, went to our own homes, and turned on Zoom to be together digitally for the meeting. We played a game of Kahoot to start, and then we went through the agenda. No, it wasn’t as good as being together, but it was still good. It was wonderful to ‘see’ people that I haven’t seen in a while. There were a few laughs, and it was definitely worthwhile to plan it as a dinner meeting, even if we were sitting separately in different houses.

This is a time when we need to stay connected while respectfully staying apart. And this isn’t just a 2020 thing… we will be doing this very well into 2021 if not starting this way in 2022 as well. That’s a long time to be socially isolated. But if this happened 20 years ago we would not be able to stream a video meeting with over 30 people sharing video. We would only have been able to share voices.

Now it’s easy to connect both ‘face-to-face’ while also keeping your distance via digital tools. The easiest of which is your phone. Last night I had a FaceTime conversation with my daughter. It was our longest chat since she last come to see us. Interestingly enough, I think it was as long of a conversation as I had with her while she was here.

I don’t know why, but the lyrics from Billy Joel’s song Piano Man just came to mind, “We are sharing a drink called loneliness, which is better than drinking alone.” I guess we are substituting physically connecting with digitally connecting, and while it’s not the same as meeting in person, it is better than being even more isolated.

We don’t need to feel alone, if we make the effort to connect… from a distance.

The Great Reset or the Great Rethink?

I can’t believe how often good ideas get buried into conspiracy theories. See this article in the Nee York Times:

The baseless ‘Great Reset’ conspiracy theory rises again

A baseless conspiracy theory about the coronavirus has found new life as cases surge once again.

On Monday morning, the phrase “The Great Reset” trended with nearly 80,000 tweets, with most of the posts coming from familiar far-right internet personalities. The conspiracy alleges that a cabal of elites has long planned for the pandemic so that they could use it to impose their global economic control on the masses…

The article then shared this tweet:


Now, moving away from crackpots that spread the idea of some ruling cabal planning to use the pandemic to bring in a socialist and controlling government to strip you of rights and freedoms… there are actually some very smart people looking for the opportunity in this crisis.

These wise thinkers and leaders are trying to rethink some of the idiocy of our pre-covid world, and take this opportunity to do a reset of some sort. That’s not a conspiracy, that’s leadership.

Check out this World Economic Forum happening now: weforum.org.

What’s on the agenda?

Sustainable production: Almost 50% of the world’s energy consumption and 20% of greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to the manufacturing sector. How can we accelerate sustainable production and make it a competitive advantage? 

New digital business models: While much of the physical world came to a standstill during the global pandemic, digital connectivity soared. How can new digital business models help companies provide value and build resilience? 

Urban infrastructure and services: Many cities face serious obstacles to providing basic services, and COVID-19 has made it even more difficult. How can urban innovations help cities improve quality of life, resilience and sustainability?

Keeping populations healthy: The pandemic has revealed the need to strengthen health systems and ensure that populations have better information and control over their health. How can technologies help to improve and maintain healthier lives? 

Financial innovation: New financial technologies are shaping how services are provided around the world. How can we ensure that they are accessible and deliver greater value and efficiency to all parts of society?

Frontier technologies: Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain and synthetic biology, are heralding a global transformation. How can we create, scale-up and govern these technologies so they “do no harm” while delivering the value we need? 

New work models: New work models are essential to address the challenges created by a transforming labour market, new skillset requirements and globally connected technology-driven industries. How can we ensure that employees are able to keep up with the evolving demand for skills and have the opportunity to contribute purposefully to the workplace of the future?

Imagine that: smart people getting together to ask meaningful questions about how our world could be a better place! Of course some of the solutions will be ‘out there’, big audacious (and to some, scary) ideas. But I want to live in a world where people challenge themselves to rethink what’s not working and use times like this to reset how we do things. The fact that some people are afraid of change shouldn’t generate fear-mongering and stop us from making thoughtful progress during challenging times.

For example, as an educator I’ve seen remote learning catapult the use of technology in classrooms and many great educators are rethinking the way they interact with students, and the way they get students to interact with each other. If the pandemic ends and we just go back to the way things were before, we are missing out on using some valuable lessons learned. And, if we go forward haphazardly from here without educational leaders trying to parse what we keep and don’t keep, then we are leaving innovation to chance.

Within every crisis there is an opportunity, and now is the time to rethink and to reset the post-pandemic world we will live in.