Tag Archives: memories

A rose by any other smell

I had the opportunity to stop and sniff the roses today. They were beautiful, and their smell… well their smell reminded me of bathroom spray.

Growing up, my mom always bought rose scented bathroom air deodorizer for all of our bathrooms… especially the main floor bathroom that had a very noisy fan and poor air circulation. If you ever used that bathroom for a ‘number 2’, you were sure to mask the odour with the rose scented spray. Now, decades later I can’t smell a rose without flashing back to the memory of bathroom spray and hints of fart.

If my wife is trying a new perfume out, a common complaint I’d have if I didn’t like it would be ‘too flowery’.

It’s weird how smell can incite such powerful memories. And weirder still how those memories can impact us so many years later. I don’t have a great sense of smell, but I will sometimes smell something and instantly I’m thinking about a memory, or thinking ‘this smell reminds me of something’, but not remembering what?

If you have have reason to buy me flowers, roses may not be the best choice. 😜

A little context

A couple days ago I wrote this about a heavy 3am rainfall that woke me up:

“The sound took me back to my childhood. In Barbados we would have these short, intense rain showers. They seldom lasted more than 20 minutes and they came and left without warning. We had a galvanized roof and the sound of heavy rain hitting it was thunderous. But it was never scary. As loud and fierce as the rain sounded hitting corrugated metal above us, it was also a sound that was soothing, comforting.”

In a video chat my dad said he read it and said that it brought back memories for him too. My youngest daughter joined me on the phone and he asked if she had read it, she hadn’t. So he went on to ask if she knew the sound of rain on a galvanized roof. She didn’t know what that was. Then, like me, he went on to describe a corrugated metal roof. I said, she probably doesn’t know what that is either… she didn’t.

We have an aluminum roof on our current house, so a metal roof isn’t an unknown thing, but a loud, uninsulated, galvanized, corrugated metal roof is not something common to Canada. It is something a tropical islander would know all too well.

Here is a video sharing the sound of ‘heavy rain’ falling on a galvanized, corrugated metal roof:

While the video description says ‘heavy rain’, this sounds quite gentle. It’s a sound of a constant flow. Often as a kid, when the sound of rain on a roof woke me up during the night, it would be an intense and truly heavy rain attacking the roof that would wake me. It would settle to the sound in the video, but imagine a louder, more violent version of this thundering above as a passing storm went by.

It was interesting to realize that the experience I was describing could connect my dad to a shared experience, but the same description meant nothing to my daughter. It made me realize that I was sharing a contextual experience that not everyone has had. Furthermore, here in Vancouver, while it rains a lot, the rain just isn’t the same as in Barbados.

The Bajan rains come fast and are intense, and leave as quickly as they come. Here in Vancouver it can drizzle for hours. In Barbados when it rains you stay under cover because you know it will stop soon, and a 15 second walk from your car to inside would leave you drenched like you went into the shower with your clothes on. Here in Vancouver, it rains far more often and I never carry an umbrella. For most rainfalls here, I don’t even think about covering my head when I walk in the rain for a minute. Rain here is not rain everywhere.

I’m reminded of the Inuit having several terms for snow, while we just call it snow. And that some cultures can’t distinguish between blue and green, because they don’t have a term for blue, but they also see shades of green that we can’t distinguish or tell apart. Our contexts growing up shape us. And our experiences don’t always create a shared understanding. To me a corrugated, galvanized roof is a musical instrument played by rain, to others it is an unfamiliar sound.

Torrential Rain

At about 3am this morning I was awoken by the sound of torrential rain. It was bouncing off of our roof with such force that it seemed to be attacking it. It’s all at once a threatening and comforting sound. It makes me feel happy to be under warm covers, rather than outside being pelted by heavy, biting bullets of water.

The sound took me back to my childhood. In Barbados we would have these short, intense rain showers. They seldom lasted more than 20 minutes and they came and left without warning. We had a galvanized roof and the sound of heavy rain hitting it was thunderous. But it was never scary. As loud and fierce as the rain sounded hitting corrugated metal above us, it was also a sound that was soothing, comforting.

If the rain came as I was falling asleep, I would fight sleep just to be up and hear the chorus of raindrops drumming the roof. If it came while I slept, it would wake me from sheer loudness, yet I wouldn’t be able to stay awake long enough to hear the rain stop.

Last night was a reminder of these childhood memories. It is fascinating to me that such a violent sound could be so satisfying to listen to. Lying in bed, protected by the ceiling above, a torrential rain is a musical interlude rather than a scary interruption of sleep.

“Here comes the rain again, falling on my head like a memory.”

It is a reminder of my childhood, a sound that evokes fond memories of growing up on a tropical island… Of rainstorms pounding our roof. Of running into the ocean since the rain would soak us anyway. Of driving under a cloud and instantly needing maximum speed windshield wipers to be able to see ahead, then suddenly hearing the squeaking noise of the full speed wipers streaking across a dry windshield seconds after driving out from under the rain cloud. Rain falling like a memory, and a melody, evoking a sense of comfort, a feeling of being home.

Going home

I booked a flight home to visit my parents this summer. By that point I will have had my second vaccine shot for a few weeks. I look forward to being able to hug my parents and sisters. It has been a long time since I’ve given anyone except my immediate family a hug. Sometimes the little things in life mean a lot.

I wish I could also take a few side trips and visit friends I haven’t seen in a while, but it feels a little soon for that. It will be a time to focus on family. That’s good too.

Living thousands of kilometres away from my parents and siblings is tough sometimes. It is easy to feel disconnected. Oddly enough the pandemic has brought me closer to my sisters. We now have a group chat on WhatsApp where we connect far more often than we used to. This is wonderful, but not the same as seeing each other face-to-face, and so the opportunity to go home is wonderful.

I remember a moment in my second year of Universtiy. I was home for the weekend, and shortly before it was time to leave I was sitting with my mom at the kitchen table. I absentmindedly said, “I better start getting ready to go home.” (Referencing my university as home.) My mom responded, “This is your home.” And at that point I realized my comment was impolite.

Now I have my own home, with a wonderful wife and two awesome kids. We’ve made a great home of our own… but when I’m heading back to see my folks, we’ll, I still like calling that ‘Going home’.

Many years later…

Somewhere between the years 2000 and 2002 I taught a grade 8 art class. I was teaching a lesson on drawing faces with pencil and one student was a far better artist than me. She could really capture the details of the face, and not just be anatomically correct, but also bring life to her drawings. However she was hesitant to go dark with her work. It lacked contrast. Her drawings were like beautiful but faded photocopies.

“Don’t be afraid to go darker.” I would say. She would try and the image would get ever so slightly darker, but still look faded.

“Darker!” I would say.

“It is!” She would retort.

“Not enough, go darker.” Or, “You know what I’m going to tell you!”

It was a banter that went on all year, because no matter what we did in art, she had a pencil journal that she also worked on. Again, her work was beautiful, but too light.

Fast forward to yesterday, and this former student, now a friend on Facebook, did a tribute drawing of an older photograph, of a loved one. (It’s 5:30am, and I haven’t asked to share the story, so I’m not sharing names or details.) The drawing is beautiful with rich dark highlights, and still has her soft touch that brings her drawings to life.

I commented on the photo:

“Beautiful. Nice to see that you are no longer afraid to use rich dark shades 😜”

She replied,

“NO joke, I was actually hearing you repeat to go darker/not to be afraid to commit to it and smiling about how this many years later your teachings still come out 😊”

And,

“I even wondered if you’d consider it dark enough 😆 glad to see I’ve made progress with it!”

My response,

“It really is, and you’ve captured [your subject’s] sparkle… not easy to do in a drawing. I love it! ❤️”

I truly enjoy interactions like this. They warms my heart. They remind me of why I wanted to be a teacher, and make me miss being in the classroom.

We are lucky to live in an age where we can connect with former students and celebrate their marriages, the birth of their children, or just check in with them when things aren’t going their way. And it’s so much fun to know that we can make small differences in their lives, long after they’ve left our classroom.

That BS kid

I was one of those kids. You know the type, every report card my marks were somewhere between average and good, with comments about me not meeting my potential… The ‘BS’ grade of ‘B’ but only a ‘S’atisfactory for effort, rather than ‘G’ood. With a few exceptions the marks could have been ‘A’s. It got worse in university where my marks became further divergent, with me getting ‘A’s in the courses I liked and ‘C’s in the ones I didn’t.

It took my Teacher Ed degree at 29 years old before my marks started to actually represent my abilities, and even then it was partially because I surrounded myself with people who pushed me. I can still hear Anna-Christana’s voice, “Dave, look at our calendar, we have 3 big things due, one on Thursday, two on Friday next week, so you need to start at least one of them this weekend, ok?”

It took me almost two decades of schooling to figure it out on my own before starting my Masters. And now, despite knowing these kind of students, despite being one of these students, I still don’t know a magic formula to move a ‘BS’ to a ‘BG’ or an ‘AG’. As a side note, it’s not as much about the ‘A’ mark as the ‘G’ for effort, that I’m really interested in seeing… change the effort, grades will eventually follow.

In high school, favourite teachers of mine could get me to put more effort into things, but they didn’t decide to be a favourite teacher, I decided. That speaks a lot to the importance of relationships in teaching, but kids don’t always meet you there. Yes, we can excite these students about a project that are in their areas of interest. Yes, we can give them more choice in assignments and ways to demonstrate learning, but at some point they need to step up too.

I wish there was a secret I could reveal. I wish I could look back in time and say, ‘If only I had done this‘, or i’If only someone had provided me with that‘, well then things would have been different. Maybe there is something, but for me it was my age and my willingness to put the effort in. Until then, learning on someone else’s agenda was pretty much BS to me.

Post-it notes everywhere

My sister recently reminded me of how I used to write essays in school. While doing research, I’d write all my ideas down on Post-it notes. Then I’d take these notes and group them into big ideas. Then I’d take the big ideas and put them together into paragraphs.

I never wrote my introductory paragraph until I’d stitched all my Post-its into a cohesive essay body, then I’d decide what my thesis was and write my introduction. Then I’d go back and tweak the essay to fit.

The process looked chaotic, with these sticky paper squares completely surrounding me, sitting on my bedroom floor. Some of them stuck together in groups, others orphaned until I could figure out if I needed them. My dad would laugh at the sight, and make comments about my brain being filled with sticky notes.

Today, when I write on my office whiteboard, I see this come out in a different way. I don’t have Post-its stuck everywhere, but I see ideas stitched together and orphaned thoughts that I want to fit, but don’t. I have neat and tidy final drawings and ideas, and messily scratched words and thoughts that will be erased once I figure out how to expand on them and connect these ideas to the ones I’ve already decided to keep.

In a way, I’ve kept the same system, I just don’t use the post-its. I enjoy big thinking and stitching ideas together. I like making connections between unrelated things. I might have given up the process of writing with Post-it notes, but I haven’t given up on thinking the same way as when I used them. Over the next week, I’m going to pull out my post-its and see if they can’t help me advance my whiteboard thinking that has been stagnating recently.

Let’s see if this helps me… I’ll keep you posted. 😃

Rewind

A year ago we were heading towards the March break and, at the end of February, had no idea that we would return from the break doing remote learning. I was recovering from breaking my kneecap, and not mentioning Covid-19 or physical distancing yet here on my Daily-Ink. That changed in March.

What a year it has been! Part of me wants to call it a rollercoaster ride, part of me wants to call it a long straight drive on a deserted road through the prairies. No matter how you look at this past year, it is nothing any of us expected a year ago.

Rewind to the end of February 2011, I was a principal in China, and found out I’d be coming back to BC to be vice principal of the adult learning centre. This would lead me to my current position both with Coquitlam Open Learning and co-founding Inquiry Hub.

Rewind to February 2001 and my wife and I had a 1 year old who completely changed our lives. February 2002 our second was born.

Rewind to 1991 and I had not graduated on time from university and went to a different university to finish my degree, choosing this school so that I could play varsity water polo. This brought me back home and I ended up lifeguarding and coaching at a high school. I wouldn’t be a teacher today if I hadn’t made this move and got experience working with and coaching students.

How will I look at February 2021 a decade from now? Will it be a blur in the covid years, or will it be stepping out into a post-covid frontier? Maybe that’s going to be February 2022… I think we will have to keep driving the long prairie road for a while, and look forward to slow and gradual changes in the coming year.

Cold shower

Unexpected snow has delayed my Daily-Ink today… Shovelling the driveway is taking priority and I’ll get this out tonight. But this is connected to the idea of the post, because I really bundle up just to do something like clearing that white, fluffy, frigid stuff off of my driveway.

Cold showers:

I hate the cold. Can’t stand feeling a chill. I blame it on being born in the Caribbean. In Barbados as a kid, when I was at the beach and it started to rain, tourists would get into the water, since they are getting wet anyway. I’d get out of the water because without the sun shining, the water was too cold for me.

Recently I’ve been turning the hot water off at the end of my showers. I let the water hit the top of my head and wait for it to go cold. Then I move so the water hits my chest and I turn in a circle, getting the water first to hit my core, then down my arms and legs.

By my first turn, my breath is taken away. I actually feel like it’s hard to breathe. I only do this for about 15 seconds but it feels longer. Even after I turn the water off my breathing is shallow and takes a moment to recover.

Then two things happen, first, I feel a tingling sensation and I feel wide awake. This feeling is better than my first coffee! Next, I open my shower curtain and grab my towel. Usually when I do this I feel an uncomfortable chill, but instead the air feels comfortable. So rather than getting a chill from the contrast of hot water to cold air, I feel comfortable.

Fifteen seconds of chilly agony, followed by a huge payoff. I’m going to keep doing this, but I might end up taking slightly longer showers as I convince myself to turn the hot water off.

I’ve got a friend who asks me to join him for a polar bear swim each new year. I’m a step closer, but it might still be a few years before I am willing to take the plunge… if I ever do!

Wanting attention at any cost

I had a student in my gym class, a very long time ago, who was the biggest victim of bullying in the school. I was always having to look out for him, but not so much because kids would outright pick on him, but rather because he was a danger to himself. I know what this sounds like, it sounds like I’m blaming the victim… And this can be a very sensitive topic, but it is something that happens often.

This kid would call a much bigger kid stupid after the bigger kid messed up a play. He would pester someone who wasn’t involved in the play, away from the ball. He would kick a ball out of bounds for no reason. He would constantly put himself in compromising positions almost as if he was using himself as bait.

This kind of behaviour is really challenging to deal with. It seems that some kids want and need attention and are somehow internally rewarded by any attention – good or bad. This ‘attention at any price’ motivation is challenging to understand. Often when positive attention was given to this kid it was almost always followed by seeking negative attention… as if the positive attention wasn’t enough.

Give the kid a compliment, minutes later he’s egging on someone. He scores a goal, moments later he’s picking up the ball rather than kicking it, and stopping the game. He gets a point in capture the bean bag, and in the next play he keeps running after he is tagged. It’s like, ‘that attention was good, but it’s gone and I need more’.

I can only understand this behaviour as attention seeking, because I can’t understand it through another lens. I don’t see any other benefit to the behaviour. It only makes sense to me as attention seeking. But I don’t know why a kid sees this as positive? And it plays out in many ways, and not always with kids like this who help to make themselves targets of others.

Please know that there are many times that students are picked on unfairly, and bullying is an issue that is dealt with in schools all the time. Many students do not deserve the wrath they face. Bullies have often been victimized themselves in some way, and they too are often attention seeking, with a difference in that they seek attention through power. I’m not saying in any way that a victim of bullying deserves to be bullied.

What I am saying is that we don’t always know or understand how or why some people will choose to seek attention? And, this behaviour can often invite negative attention as much as positive attention. Maybe being hated feels better than being ignored. Maybe someone’s anger feels better than their disdain. Maybe feeling something is better than feeling nothing at all.

When I’m dealing with misbehaviour, I always try to understand the motivation behind the behaviour. Often that’s where the healing has to start. But when the motivation seems to be attention, it can be really hard to understand what is behind that need, and how the behaviour meets that need. I find negative attention-seeking perplexing, and don’t always get to the heart of the issue.

The hardest part of it is that the negative behaviour that draws the attention often brings desired consequences… For example, a kids draws an inappropriate picture on another student’s work. This is dealt with by a teacher and the teacher’s consequences are a form of negative attention that completes the attention-seeking loop. So, the consequence given enforces the attention-seeking behaviour, rather than teaches any kind of positive behaviour change.

I can’t say that I’m particularly good at finding the root cause of attention-seeing behaviour. It’s not always apparent or obvious. Students can be complex; their wants and needs can be hard to understand. When it comes to seeking negative attention, I don’t think students always know or understand their own motives, and even if they do, they struggle to articulate these motives in an uncomfortable conversation with adults. It can really be challenging to deal with students who seek negative attention or desire attention regardless of whether it is positive or negative.