Tag Archives: learning

Light but right

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I just joined a gym and they had a great promotion on 5 sessions with a personal trainer, so I took advantage of the deal. Today I met my trainer, but not until after I’d already done the Coquitlam Crunch (3x up, once down – 9 kilometres with 3/4 of the time going up hill).

So I wasn’t exactly fresh and ready, but I was excited to get started.

My trainer asked what I wanted to work on. I definitely didn’t want to do legs after the crunch, and my buddy and I did a hard chest and back workout yesterday, so I chose shoulders. He had me doing some exercises with 2.5lb weights, and some face pulls that I’d normally do with 60 or 80lbs, but he had me working with 20lbs doing a technique I’d never tried before.

Here’s the thing, I definitely got a good shoulder workout in. I don’t need to go heavy, I just needed to focus on technique and to work my muscles in a way that I’m really not used to. It was hard to get a full set in with these light weights and both my form and technique definitely faltered as I progressed.

It’s a nice, humbling reminder that it’s better to go light, and do it right, than it is to slap more weight on and have crappy technique. I’d say, ‘lesson learned’, but I know that’s actually just an observation rather than a shift in practice. It’s going to take a few more sessions for me to really understand how to push my body properly with lighter weight rather than muscling through workouts sloppily, with heavier weights.

Time under tension

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One of the principles of exercising to develop muscle is time under tension. How much time are you working the muscle for?

Learning is similar. For how long are we challenging ourselves before giving up?

Resilience is similar. We cannot strengthen our resilience unless we face things that are challenging us for longer than we could previously tolerate.

I think sometimes we focus too much on making experiences easier, when what we really need is to create greater time under tension.

Emotionally invested

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“When students are emotionally invested in the learning process, commitment and performance will typically go up. Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist who studies learning and creativity, said, “If we want to see what young people are capable of achieving intellectually and creatively, we have to engage them in activities that matter to them.” By linking students to their personal interests and their own creativity, they can explore questions like: What do I love? What am I good at? What problems can we solve? What do we want to create? Why is this important? How will we figure this out? What might we contribute to the world? It’s within this productive struggle and its inherent ambiguity that students can build a self-inventory of creative and adaptive capabilities. These life-building skills will transfer beyond the project and the classroom. Students can discover what’s possible for themselves and what they’re capable of.”

~ Robert Attwell, Student-Powered Inquiry-Based Learning

Robert visited our school last year and wrote this article, published last month in Canadian Teacher Magazine. (See a PDF of the article here.)

A couple days ago 5 pre-service teachers from Simon Fraser University visited our school for the day and I had them end the day learning about some of the inquiries that on of our Grade 12 students, Jacob, did while he was with us since Grade 9. Afterwards, I asked Jacob, what’s something that he really liked about coming to Inquiry Hub, and what’s something he thinks he might have missed coming to such a small school?

Jacob chose only to speak about one thing. He said, ‘If I didn’t come here I’d never have had the opportunity to do all these projects, or I would have had to do them on my own time… except I probably wouldn’t have had the time to do them.’ Essentially, he has had school time to work on projects and inquiries that have mattered to him.

I think that should be something all schools spend a bit more time doing.

Ripple in time

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I was at a dinner with some online school principals from other districts last night and one of them mentioned the influence that I had back in the early days of Twitter. It was interesting to hear his thoughts, and to recall what those days were like. The sharing and learning had a depth to it that I haven’t felt since. It was a time when educators were trying new things, playing with new technologies, and experimenting with their own practice on an almost daily basis. And then openly sharing their successes and failures, asking questions, and seeking solutions to new and thoughtful problems.

I’ve thought fondly of those times, but I never really took the perspective that I had influence, or that what I was doing was having a ripple effect on others. I felt more like I was riding the ripples of others than I felt like I was making the ripples myself.

It was quite an honour to hear him speak of the influence I had, and to look back at that time a little differently.

Pruning – Strategic Subtraction

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One of my favourite quotes comes from Derek Sivers:

“If more information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.”

When looking at Dr Simon Breakspear’s ‘The Pruning Principle – Unlocking educational progress by mastering the art of strategic subtraction,’ I feel as though there is a chasm between the insightful information he shares, and the ability to use that information meaningfully and effectively in schools. Simon summed this up at the BC Principals and Vice Principals Association conference in Whistler yesterday when he said, “Subtraction is harder than it looks!”

So, let’s examine this Pruning Principle a little closer and leap over the chasm between this insightful concept and it’s usefulness.

The premise:

In gardening pruning, cutting back, is essential to cultivating long-term vitality. That said, it’s important to recognize that pruning almost never involves removing something completely.

The challenge:

The ideas of ‘doing less’ or ‘de-implementation’ have negative connotations. ‘Pruning’ is a better, more positive frame. The challenge is to recognize that sometimes we have to stop doing many good things to spend time doing fewer better things.

“There is nothing so useless as doing effectively that which should not be done at all.” ~ Peter Drucker

The plan:

  1. Examine (Review the landscape.)
  2. Remove (Subtract with care.)
  3. Nurture (Cultivate what matters.)

With a focus on ‘impact’, intentionally remove things we do that are not as impactful or effective as we think, in order to nurture and give more time to the truly impactful things.

This is an iterative process. The pruning need not, and probably should not, be big/irreversible/long-term/complex-structure. Instead start small/reversible/short-cycle/short-term.

The targets:

Areas to target for pruning:

  • Time
  • Priorities
  • Physical and visual space
  • People/participants involved
  • Commitments and responsibilities
  • Processes or steps in a process
  • Platforms and schools
  • Rules and policies
  • Standards and frameworks

The goals:

  1. Redirect finite energy and resources
  2. Stimulate desired new growth
  3. Reshape for health and longevity

The questions:

What is on my ‘Stop Doing’ list?

What can I Delay, Delegate, or Dump?

How do I shift my internal dialogue from pruning being a negative, a subtraction, to being one where pruning is about caring and greater competence?

The example:

Pruning is a great metaphor, it takes the subtraction of things to help nurture them and have them blossom or bloom. But my favourite example from Simon Breakspear was about learning to ride a bicycle. One of the biggest challenges in learning to ride is balance. A kid’s bike comes with training wheels. While the wheels prevent falling over, they are a crutch that doesn’t actually help with balance. Now, we see little bikes with no pedals, and no training wheels. Kids are learning to balance before learning to pedal… and they are learning to ride both younger and faster! Instead of adding training wheels, we subtracted the pedals and made the learning journey better.

The first steps:

Choose a target area and start small. Do small experiments. Focus on the improvements you want while remembering that you are already at capacity. You aren’t going to effectively add more, or do better, unless you prune somewhere else.

We can flourish (blossom) when we focus time and resources on things that have impact. By pruning distractions and low-impact efforts, we and our teams can redirect energy towards what truly matters… enhancing both performance and wellbeing.

The infinite classroom

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I recently heard someone describe AI as the infinite classroom… You can get anytime learning, catered just to you. And for a moment I thought, ‘I remember Google being described like that, and YouTube too.’ Now, I know that the ‘catered to you’ part of Artificial Intelligence is a richer experience than Google or YouTube, but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t kind of been here before. The guy went on to say that schools today are irrelevant. He was American and his focus wasn’t K-12 education but rather ‘investing’ $200k+ for a college degree that could be irrelevant by the time you get it.

Still, this made me think of all the digital distractions that make school less appealing and engaging compared to out-of-school offerings and opportunities… From AI providing meaningful, just-in-time learning, to social media, to gaming. Be it for learning or entertainment the competition for attention is significant outside of school.

So how do we engage students in schools when an infinite classroom as well as unlimited distractions are happening outside of schools?

What we shouldn’t do is bring back more traditional testing to ensure students don’t cheat using AI. What we also shouldn’t do is try to compete with the outside world and attempt to make schools more entertaining.

What we should do is create rich experiences where students are exposed to concepts and ideas that they would not have found on their own. We should provide social opportunities to learn together. We should provide opportunities for student voice and choice.

It’s not about competing with the infinite. It’s about cultivating learning experiences where students feel invested in the experience. It’s about fostering curiosity and providing shared learning opportunities that challenge students meaningfully.

In a world of infinite distractions, engagement in schools needs to be community and relationship focused. If it’s just about accumulating information and content, then classrooms as we know them will be no match for the infinite classroom (and unlimited distractions) that out of school opportunities will provide.

Cross pollination

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Do you know what’s really hard to do? First, choose an area of your life where you really have your ‘stuff’ together. Then take those same skills, habits, and discipline and apply it to another part of your life. It should be easy, or at least easier than it is. We should be able to recognize what makes us extremely effective in one aspect of our lives and simply apply the same strategies elsewhere.

What prevents this? Is it motivation? Is it the fear of starting? Is it that we recognize the effort is more than we are willing to put out?

Whatever the reason, it’s sometimes important to remember that it is easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than it is to think your way into a new way of acting. Start with the action. Do the things you already do elsewhere in a new area of your life. Start with small actions, but the action itself is the start. Not the thinking, not the planning, not the talking about it… the doing.

Apply action, and the good work and skills you’ve developed will indeed cross over.

Experience is something you get right after you need it.

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Ever notice how many jobs say, “Experience required”? Who are all these experienced workers looking for new jobs?

How many jobs want you to have a degree first? I understand a doctor, nurse, lawyer, architect, or engineer needing a degree, but how many corporate jobs really need a prospective employee to have a degree?

I love the quote, “Experience is something you get right after you need it.”

At some point in your life you are going to learn something on the job. You are going to figure it out either just when you need to… or just after you’ve messed up the first attempt.

Hiring is going to change. You aren’t going to see companies focusing on degrees and academic accolades. Instead, you’ll see people with micro credentials or niche skills being hired because they have learned skills that directly relate to the job expectations. Or you’ll see jobs being offered on a trial basis and companies willing to hire based on characteristics like flexibility, ingenuity, and creativity. ‘Come try this out for a 3 month contract, and we’ll see if you’ve a) Got a good head on your shoulders, and b) Fit with our community and values.’

Don’t worry about experience, you’ll get on the job. Just come with the right attitude and an affinity for the job. The first time you try something, that’s when you’ll get the experience. Before that, it’s not schooling or past experience, it’s evidence that you are a learner and you are willing to put in an honest effort. That’s what will get you hired.

Instant feedback

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Yesterday, at our welcome back session for principals, one of the assistant superintendents asks us a couple questions to get feedback on what we thought was important for our district visioning. This is a typical kind of exercise to start the year. Usually this data is collected then in a later session we look at the data and trends.

But instead, he had us do the activity individually, then connect as a table group to prioritize our results. Then one person per table put the top 5 answers into a Microsoft form.

The assistant superintendent then used Copilot, Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence LLM, to not only collate the data, but also to look for trends. He did this during a break so that we were not waiting on him. Then we came back and discussed not only the results but also his line of questioning.

Probably my favourite part of this is when he told Copilot, ‘here is the data’, but forgot to paste it in. Why? Because it’s important to model that you can make mistakes when trying something new.

I was discussing with a colleague before the meeting that I was hoping to see this happen. I’m tired of people collecting large amounts of data that will then take hours to assess, when we have new technology that can find trends invisible to us in mere seconds.

In the meeting we still did a lot of activities to connect us to our peers, we still had great table talks and meaningful conversations, but when it came time to collect and assess data we didn’t go old school, instead we took advantage of the technology available to us in a meaningful way. And yes, more analysis of the data may come later, and not all of it using AI, but to have this powerful tool use available and to not both use it and model it, would be a real shame.

It was really great to see this happen in yesterday’s first meeting of the year.

“Oh no, AI is making us dumber!”

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Except it’s not.

People forget that we were worried about the internet and Google. And before that writing utensils:

“Students today depend too much upon ink. They don’t know how to use a pen knife to sharpen a pencil. Pen and ink will never replace the pencil.”
~ National Association of Teachers Journal, 1907


“Students today depend on these expensive fountain pens. They can no longer write with a straight pen and nib. We parents must not allow them to wallow in such luxury to the detriment of learning how to cope in the real business world which is not so extravagant.”
~ From PTA Gazette, 1941

I pulled those quotes from a presentation I did 16 years ago. I did another presentation at that time where I shared a quote from 1842 discussing how books would become useless “when the pupils are furnished with slates”.

We are used to pronouncing ‘the sky is falling‘ when the next advancement comes along. Google was going to make us dumber. It didn’t. Smart phones were going to make us dumber, but they didn’t. They did however change the things we thought and still think about, and remember. For example, I used to carry around a few dozen phone numbers, memorized in my head, now I don’t even know my own daughter’s numbers. They are neatly stored in my phone.

AI will do the same. It will adjust what we remember, fine tune what we think about about and ask, and help direct our thinking… but it won’t make us dumber.

When I was a kid, I thought my dad was the smartest guy in the world. I can’t think of a question I asked him that he didn’t know the answer to. Sometimes he’d even bring me a file on the topic I asked about.

I remember absolutely blowing away a teacher and my fellow students on a project I did on harnessing the ocean for power. I had newspaper clippings, magazine articles, even textbook sources that I shared on the classroom overhead projector. It looked like I spent hours upon hours doing research. I didn’t. I asked my dad what he knew and he gave me a thick file with all the resources I needed. He was my Google long before Google was a thing.

It made me look good. It made my work a lot easier. It didn’t make me dumber.

I’ll admit that there is something fundamentally different with AI compared to advances like the slate, the pen, the internet, Google and other ‘technological advances’. As Artificial Intelligence becomes smarter than us, we can rely on it in ways that we couldn’t with other advances. And it will take a while for us to figure out how to create tasks in schools that utilize AI effectively, rather than having AI do all the work. It was hard but not impossible to ‘Google proof’ an assignment, and that challenge is significantly magnified by AI. But the opportunities are also magnified.

What happens when AI can individualize student learning and what we consider the ‘core curriculum’ can be taught in less than half of a school day? How exciting can school be for the other half of the day? What curiosities can we foster? How student directed (and thus more engaging) can that other half of the day be?

We are only dumber using AI if we decide that we will passively let it do the work for us, but let’s not pretend students were not already using ‘cut-and-paste’ to get assignments done. Let’s not pretend work avoidance wasn’t already a thing. Let’s not pretend that we don’t already spend a lot of time in schools teaching students to be compliant rather than to think for themselves.

AI will only make us dumber if we try to continue doing what we have done before, but allow AI to do the work for us. If we truly use AI in collaborative and inspirational ways, we are opening an exciting new door to what human potential really can be.