Tag Archives: hero’s journey

Grad Commencement Speech 2023

This was my speech at our Inquiry Hub Secondary Grad. As I mentioned a couple days ago, there were unexpected technical issue, and so I can’t share the video, and I’m just sharing text with slides below. The 4th and 5ht slides were gifs, but I’ve just included still photos. I enjoy writing a new speech each year, and this is my 8th one. While I didn’t share a title for it, it did have a title in my notes. Here is “Technology and Community”, shared Wednesday June 21, 2023 at Inlet Theatre in Port Moody, with the grads and families of Inquiry Hub Secondary School:

It was the summer of 1985.

I was 17, and I got to see a movie called Back to the Future when it was in the theatre, not streaming on Netflix. It’s a story about a boy named Marty who was the same age as me… and about the same age as our grads now. Marty went 30 years into the past and had all kinds of adventures and misadventures.

Then a few years later Back to the Future 2 came out, and this time Marty went 30 years into the future… all the way to October of 2015. That future he supposedly went to was almost 8 years ago now.

In Marty’s version of 2015 Nike had shoes with power laces that tightened themselves. There were 3D hologram advertisements, hoverboards, and of course, flying cars. While Nike has made a version of the power laces, we still have a way to go before any of these technologies are as accessible and pervasive as in Back to the Future 2’s version of 2015, and I’m not sure we’ll even get there by 2045?

It’s hard to imagine these things when personally, I’m still waiting for a phone battery that will last me a whole day.

I remember reading that we tend to overestimate the changes that will happen in the short term and underestimate the changes that will occur in the long term. That may be so, but what we define as short and long term now tends to be shrinking. I’m not sure we are going to see hovercrafts and flying cars circulating in our communities any time soon, but…

I do marvel at how fast technology is moving, and the world of Artificial Intelligence is quickly advancing from being good at playing board games and doing math, to doing some really interesting things.

We have AI tools that create amazing art,

write computer code,

and even write grad speeches… and while I wrote these words myself, ((really)), many of the visuals I’m sharing are the product of AI. My point though is that if I told you just 4 years ago, when our grads were in Grade 9, that we would have this technology before they graduated, you probably wouldn’t have believed me.

Our grads are headed into a world where, just in the last few months, job descriptions that have been the same for years are now being redefined. A world where they will probably get into automated cars that drive themselves. And a world where living to be 100 could be as common as living to 65 years old today.

I’ve worked for the same company for 25 years now… I am not sure many, if any, of our grads are headed on that same path. Times change. Technologies change. Jobs change. How we interact with the world changes.

But I hope one thing stays the same. I hope that our grads remain as kind, accepting, and caring as they are today. I hope that they find a community of people to grow old with that is as wonderful as they are… and remember, you are going to grow really, really old! One of the pleasures of working at a small school is getting to know students well, and getting to really see how students interact with each other in a quaint, caring environment. Our grads are fun, quirky, and unique. They want to do well in school and they are willing to work hard. For some of them this came easy. For others, they were initially dragged along by their peers and teachers, but they are ‘there’ now.

That’s the amazing thing about the journey through high school, it’s a hero’s journey. It’s not an easy path, it’s not supposed to be.

On an Inquiry Hub student’s journey through school, we ask them to do really challenging things… from Mr. Soiseth’s Philosophy classes, to cross-grade Shakespearian acting and filmmaking, to designing their own year-long courses. It’s not unusual for a student to spend significantly more time on an inquiry than they are expected to. And our students leave school doing more presentations in a year than most students do in their entire high school career. Even here we see the respect and kindness of our students, who make an excellent audience and provide considerate and thoughtful feedback to each other.

Technology can change us. It can change our careers. It can change our lifespan. It doesn’t have to change what kind of people we are, and how we treat one another. I’m proud of who our grads are today, and you should be too.

It doesn’t matter what job they end up with, if they will be driving flying cars, or buying their kids hoverboards in the future. What matters is that they will be a positive influence on their community. They will be thoughtful, kind, and considerate of others. They will be the kind of people you want to be around. And that, that is the highest compliment I can give them.

Honoured guests, parents, teachers, and students, I present to you Inquiry Hub’s esteemed and wonderful graduating class of 2023!

Thinking time and space

The last few weeks have been busy. That is a statement I could probably say at any given point in the school year, but specifically I’ve been task busy recently. What I mean is that my day disappears with me doing what I need to do and not at all what I want to do. I haven’t had much thinking time.

So at the end of last week I started a drawing on my office whiteboard. It a hero’s journey metaphor for our school. I’m not ready to share the drawing yet, ideas are still being put together. But I can share a couple parts I’ve already written about:

Teacher as Compass

And,

Learning and Failure

I’ve probably only spent about an hour and a half over 4 days on this, not too much time… But this time has allowed me to think… It has given my brain permission to go beyond the tasks at hand… It has excited me about the journey ahead.

It’s easy to get caught in the hamster wheel, racing to nowhere, but getting there quickly. It takes intentional effort to step off the wheel and to pause long enough to think, to be creative. My whiteboard has become that space.

Yesterday after lunch, I was working on a section of the board where my secretary could see me making notes and she said, “You are having so much fun on that board.” For about 15-20 minutes I was! I’ve created some thinking time and space in my day. It’s not only time well spent, it’s time that charges my batteries and help me see value in all the other things I must do. It reminds my of why everything else matters, because our personal journey matters… if we make time for it.

Changing your world

Some quotes become iconic. They travel through time timelessly, without wavering in meaning or understanding. Such is the case with Margaret Mead on collaboration:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

In storytelling we tend to choose iconic individuals as heroes, but even in the Hero’s Journey the hero relies on helpers and mentors.

This is true whether you are considering Bilbo Baggins, Neo in the Matrix, or Harry Potter, but when we tell ‘real’ stories we tend to focus on the individual, such as Genghis Kahn, Joan of Arc, and Nelson Mandela. We very often focus on what one person can do when we look at the big change makers of the world… but Margaret Mead was right when we move away from stories of individual fame and sacrifice and look at what becomes of the things we do collaboratively, on a small scale, to change our world.

Working alone on something, we miss out on the power of collaboration. We miss out on discovery through conversation, through additive insights and contrasting discourse. Sometimes in learning conversations 1 + 1 > 2. What can be achieved through working with others magnifies what we can accomplish on our own.

Find your tribe and collaborate! Find ways to change your world in the company of people smarter than you, with friends and colleagues who can provide you with insights and inspiration. What we can do as a small group is so much greater than what we can do alone.

—

Written the morning after a rich conversation with Remi Kalir. Conversation becomes inspiration!

The pain of inaction

“Most failures are one-time costs. Most regrets are recurring costs.

The pain of inaction stings longer than the pain of incorrect action.
~ James Clear

When I look back on my life, I have very few regrets. I do not look back longingly, I look back fondly. I look at my mistakes as lessons, and my repeated mistakes as necessary because I wasn’t yet ready to learn the lesson. But when I do think of regrets, it is almost never for the things that I did, but rather the things that I did not do.

I regret not appreciating the outdoors enough on a beautiful day, not taking a photo, not spending more quality time with a lost friend or family member. I do not regret trying something challenging or new. Indecision or lack of action are far more likely to haunt me than a bad decision.

I remember reading once that this Shakespeare quote was wrong,

“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.”

In reality the hero confronts the same thousand deaths the coward does, except the hero actually faces them. Heroes are not ignorant of the same fears and worries of the coward, they just don’t cower at them.

“The pain of inaction stings longer than the pain of incorrect action.”

—–

Image by MDARIFLIMAT