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.
For our small school we invite the entire community to watch our grad. So since our first grad in 2016, I’ve written a completely different grad speech each year. I have a former student who has seen at least the last 5, and he is very honest about what he thinks of them… and I value his feedback.
This year I’m struggling with the topic. I usually have the frame of the speech completed by now, if not the whole thing written. I’m still deciding on my theme. So, tonight I write, tomorrow I rehearse, and Wednesday I am on stage sharing it. I don’t mind a tight timeline, but I do wish I was a little further along right now.
In the end, it’s not about me, it’s about the grads… I just want to share something not too long, and respectful to our grads and our community. And maybe, if I’m lucky, get a small chuckle or two. Wish me luck!
“Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn’t have to experience it” ~ Max Frisch
One of my favourite presentations I’ve ever created was back in 2008 for Alan November’s BLC – ‘Building Leadership Capacity’ conference. It was called: The Rant, I Can’t, The Elephant and the Ant, and it was about embracing new technology, specifically smartphones in schools.
The rant was about how every new technology is going to undermine education in a negative way, starting with the ball point pen.
I can’t was about the frustrations educators have with learning to use new tools.
The elephant was the smartphone, it was this incredibly powerful new tool that was in the room. You can’t ignore an elephant in the room.
The Ant was a metaphor for networking and learning from others… using a learning community to help you with the transformation of your classroom.
I ended this with a music slideshow that I later converted to video called, Brave New World Wide Web. This went a bit viral on BlipTV, a now defunct rival of YouTube.
The next year I presented at the conference again and my favourite of my two presentations was, The POD’s are Coming, about Personally Owned Devices… essentially laptops and tablets being brought into schools by students. These may be ubiquitous now, but it was still pretty novel in 2009.
These two presentations and video give a pretty strong message around embracing new technology in schools. So my next message about embracing AI tools like Chat GPT in schools is going to come across fairly negatively:
It’s going to be a bumpy and messy ride.
There is not going to be any easy transition. It’s not just about embracing a new technology, it’s about managing the disruption… And it’s not going to be managed well. I already had an issue in my school where a teacher used Chat GPT to verify if AI wrote an assignment for students. However Chat GPT is not a good AI checker and it turned out to be wrong for a few students who insisted they wrote the work themselves, and several AI detectors agreed. But this was only checked after the students were accused of cheating. Messy.
Some teachers are now expecting students to write in-class essays with paper and pen to avoid students using AI tools. These are kids that have been using a laptop since elementary school. Messy.
Students are using prompts in Chat GPT that instruct the AI to write with language complexity based on their age. Or, they are putting AI written work into free paraphrasing tools that fool the AI detectors. Messy.
Teacher’s favourite assignments that usually get students to really stretch their skills are now done much faster and almost as good with AI tools. And even very bright students are using these tools frequently. While prompt generation is a good skill to have, AI takes the effort and the depth of understanding away from the learners. Messy.
That final point is the messiest. For many thoughtful and thought provoking assignments, AI can now decrease the effort to asking AI the right prompt. And while the answer may be far from perfect, AI will provide an answer that simplifies the response for the the learner. It will dumb down the question, or produce a response that makes the question easier.
Ai is not necessarily a problem solver, it’s a problem simplifier. But that reduces the critical thinking needed. It waters down the complexity of work required. It transforms the learning process into something easier, and less directly thoughtful. Everything is messier except the problem the teacher has created, which is just much simpler to complete.
Learning should be messy, but instead what’s getting messy is the ability to pose problems that inspire learning. Students need to experience the struggle of messy questions instead of seeking an intelligent agent to mess up the learning opportunities.
Just like any other tool, there are places to use AI in education and places to avoid using the tool. The challenge ahead is creating learning opportunities where it is obvious when the tool is and isn’t used. It’s having the tool in your tool box, but not using it for every job… and getting students to do the same.
And so no matter how I look at this, the path ahead is very messy.
Six years ago in Philadelphia I ran a session at Educon on Failure. Bill Ferriter came to the session and after the interactive presentation he created this image:
This was the premise I was working from,
When is failure really a success?When we engage students in EPIC projects and challenges,the journey to success is often fraught with failuresthat can prove to be amazing learning opportunities.
Do we need to reexamine the use of the term ‘Failure’?
Our present education system is built around always finding the ‘right’ answer, but when can the wrong answer be valuable? How can we provide rich, meaningful opportunities for students to make mistakes, iterate, persevere and develop alternative approaches to problems relevant to what they are learning?
4 years before this presentation I created this image:
Think of this: If students (regardless of skills and abilities) have only ever met success, and accomplished every task, assignment and project they have needed to do for school, then they weren’t pushed hard enough. In this case, it is the program that is the failure, because the students were not challenged as much as they should have been.
The learning potential of failure is significant. If the work is meaningful enough, there can be more learned from an epic failure, than a marginal success, where the measure for success was set too low.
We talk a lot about ‘learning through failure’ in education, but we don’t really mean failure. Because when a student takes lessons from something not working, then it’s a learning opportunity and not actually a failure.
When you think about it, lack of knowledge is where the learning begins. If you give students the knowledge, they don’t really learn, you actually rob students of their learning. You want them to struggle and to find the learning challenging. And if the challenge is authentic, if it’s really a challenge, then it’s not something they’ll get on the first try. So hitting the ‘failure point’ is part of learning. Trying to achieve too much needs to be part of the process… and so bumping into failure is an essential part of learning.
So a failure is only a failure if the challenge lacks reflection, resources, support, or effort. If these things are provided (by the teacher and more-so by the learner) then the learner didn’t actually fail. They may not achieve their original goal, but they invited learning into the attempt… and learning is achieved. That is not a failure.
The idea of learning through failure is actually not a failure at all. It is accepting that there are opportunities for learning in not achieving the intended goal but still identifying that there was learning to be acquired and often the struggle is something that makes this kind of learning stick.
Yesterday I said in a post about our school’s open house, “I have a saying I share with the tech crew which is, ‘It’s your job to be invisible’.”
A few years ago we had Alvin Law visit our school. When he arrived our tech crew set him up with a wireless microphone and had everything set up just as he specified. He did a truly amazing performance and after the show, after the tech crew helped take off the microphone, Alvin said to me, “Dave, what kind of a school are you running here? It feels pretty special.”
Then he said, “I present to multi-million dollar companies, like IBM and Microsoft, and I have never had a tech crew treat me so well. I’ve never had my sound work so well. I’ve had presentations where they are paying me a lot of money to present to 1,000 people and they can’t get my sound to work. There wasn’t a single issue with my sound today, it was perfect.”
That’s the sign of a good tech crew… they are invisible. When a microphone doesn’t work, people notice the tech crew. They are also noticed when a microphone is too loud, or there is feedback, or an off stage mic isn’t turned off, or when the lighting doesn’t actually light up the performers. When these things happen, the crew become part of the performance. When everything works as planned, they are invisible.
When a tech crew does their job well, they are invisible.
Last night was Inquiry Hub‘s yearly Open House to promote our school and help Grade 8 students and parents learn a bit more about us. After 2 years of only hosting it online, it was wonderful to provide a face-to-face experience again. We had about 150-160 people join us at the school and about 60 follow along from home on our livestream.
I threw a little curveball into my part of the presentation when I asked a former student to come up and tell us about his experience moving from our school to university. I knew he might be coming to the event but I didn’t see him and ask him if he would say something until about 3 minutes before the show started.
He did a great job, and I knew it would be valuable for him to share this experience because as part of the presentation there was a video where a current Grade 9 asked a current Grade 12 if she felt prepared for university. But how is a Grade 12 to know when she hasn’t made the transition yet? So asking a student who made the transition and successfully graduated from Computer Science at UBC was, to me, a good thing to add to the show.
What’s neat about our school is that students present so often as part of their experience, I knew this student could share his experience with short notice and do an excellent job. And sure enough he did. That said, I also knew that I was causing panic for a few of the student organizers for going ‘off script’. I actually mentioned that at the start of my talk, before introducing our former student.
The pride that these students all take in their school is so high and the idea that I’d go rogue and change plans a bit was simply not part of the show. Still it went off well and the rest of the show went exactly as planned. That’s not by mistake, there were several rehearsals and presentations and technicals went as expected. I have a saying I share with the tech crew which is, “It’s your job to be invisible.”And indeed it was. More on that tomorrow, I’m just thrilled to say that our students did an amazing job not just with the presentation but with engaging with the audience afterwards, sharing some of their inquiries, and showcasing the kind of projects done at our school.
Yesterday Jowi Taylor brought his Six String Nation presentation to Inquiry Hub. The guitar named The Voyageur is built with 64 unique pieces of Canadian heritage, and Jowi’s storytelling brings some of those pieces to life.
So great to have Jowi Taylor @SixStringNation and The Voyageur Guitar at our school today. Thanks to Trevor, Ayla, & Mackenzie for their performance. pic.twitter.com/wGpIiDwNb0
I first met Jowi, and Voyageur, a decade ago on a retreat to an ‘Unplugd‘ conference near Algonquin Park in Ontario.
In my ‘Thank you’ to Jowi at the end of his performance yesterday, I shared that he and I had met at this conference and that the first time I heard The Voyageur played was by Bryan Jackson, a teacher and now Vice Principal here in Coquitlam. Bryan sang an original song about a profound piece of graffiti written on a wall in Winnipeg. I shared how uniquely Canadian this was, and that the thing I love most about what Jowi has created is that the guitar is a piece of living history.
For many, history is in books, and places to visit, and items you can’t touch in museums. The Voyageur guitar brings Canadian history into schools and communities, it creates special memories for the people who touch and play it. It brings history to life. My student, Trevor, will always remember getting to play this guitar that has been touched by so many famous Canadians, and played by Canadian music legends across the country.
And like me, there will be students and adults in the audience that will remember the stories told by Jowi about how this amazing guitar was brought to life.
Here is my first memory of Bryan Jackson playing The Voyageur at Unplugd, back in the summer of 2012: “Graffiti”
Tonight is our first event of the year where we invite parents into the school. We are having a meet the teacher event followed by a PAC – Parent Advisory Council – meeting. In preparation I am putting up a wall of photos of our students and staff (the Inquiry Hub community is 100 staff & students). I did this 5 years ago, and 5 years before that, so all of our students from grade 9-12 have not done this with me before.
It’s a black & white portrait of each kid with a quote underneath it. The quotes all start with one of 4 prompts: I want…, I wish…, I hope…, or I dream…
Here is a video describing the project from 5 years ago (starting at the 4 minute mark).
This is the process for getting these photos:
1. Ask students (in a form) to share the response to four questions:
I want…
I wish…
I hope…
I dream…
I try not to give examples. (I learned a couple lessons here. The first lesson I learned the last time I did this is to ask a follow up question: “What’s your favourite answer”, to help guide my choice when I pick their response to go with the photo. The second, hard lesson I learned this time is not to also ask for a school goal in the same form… this resulted in a number of students focusing all of their answers on school goals.).
2. Take high quality headshot photos of students with a blank background. I used a green screen, but a blackboard or even a white wall works. The main secret is to not have kids too close to the background. Another trick is to tell them NOT to look at the camera. Even just a class of 30 faces staring at the camera would look like a mug shot wall, and so looking away from the camera gives a softer, easier to look at collage of faces. (Another hint, set the camera up to take a black & white photo and save yourself conversion time.)
3. I created a black frame on PowerPoint with 4 boxes, having a slightly larger one on the bottom for text (with size 20 font and a light grey text rather than full white). I also set the slide size to 8.5″ x 11″ (the same size as letter paper). Then I add the photo, right-click it and ‘move to back’ behind the frame, then size the photo inside the frame and adjust the placement. (Another tip, once you’ve got the frame with text box set up, and you’ve tried the first photo and text and are happy, duplicate this slide, delete the photo and text so you have an empty frame on the second slide. Now duplicate this slide as your master.)
4. Convert to PDF, then take a Zip drive to Staples or your business print shop of choice, and print on 80 stock photo paper. Doing the prints here will cost under $1 each instead of several dollars at a photo place and the quality will still be great as long as your photos are high resolution and focussed (use a tripod in step 2). This year I shared a link to a password protected file that I opened when I got to the store, rather than carrying a Zip drive, but it took over 5 minutes to download because the file was over half a gig in size!
5. Place the photos on your wall. I did 3 rows alternating 4 and 5 columns of photos on the panels in our hallway. I don’t think they need to be done so neatly, but with the writing on each image, I suggest space between the photos and not an overlapping collage.
Here is part of this year’s wall with student faces blurred with an app. The pictures are very sharp.
The overall effect is pretty powerful and the wall really makes a statement. I love that everyone’s voice in the community is shared.
I first did this with a Grade 9 class 22 years ago, and it’s still a favourite project that I enjoy doing. And with that, I’ll leave you with my photo. Out of respect for privacy, I won’t be sharing clear photos and readable quotes of students, you’ll have to visit the school to see it.
It’s so important to have friends and colleagues who can give you critical feedback. Yesterday I did a presentation to all of our students on the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. This was not an overview but just an introduction to the book with a personal story that demonstrated how the book influenced me in a positive way. Over the next few weeks I plan on sharing around 10 two-minute videos to help students develop and integrate one positive habit at school, using the strategies in the book.
After my presentation one of my teachers said, “Really good presentation, do you want some critical feedback?” I replied positively and she shared it with me.
I was sharing a slide about my fitness journey and tracking my workouts, and in my first year of tracking I also tracked intermittent fasting. It wasn’t part of my original plan, but I ended up talking for a bit about this too, and how it really doesn’t do much for you other than reducing calorie intake, but that it did reduce my after dinner snacking and helped me lose some unwanted weight.
This was what I got feedback on. My colleague told me that this part of the presentation wasn’t needed, and that for some of our students weight and weight loss as a topic as could be very triggering.
This was a great point! As I reflected on what I said, I not only agreed with my colleague’s feedback, I recognized how a fairly fit, pretty skinny guy talking about weight loss was insensitive… and again, wasn’t even necessary to make my point. It was easy for me to acknowledge this, see the value in receiving this feedback, and be thankful for receiving it.
This feedback will help me be a little more sensitive and thoughtful in my upcoming videos and in future presentations. I really appreciate working in an environment where my colleagues feel comfortable giving me feedback like this. Critical feedback is essential for growth, and while it can be hard to hear that my presentation might have been insensitive to some, it’s far better to know this than to be ignorant of it.
We also work hard to create an environment where our students can give each other critical feedback, and I know that this is far more likely to happen if adults in the building are also open to giving and receiving it amongst each other. Our students see their peers give a lot of presentations, and they have been getting better and better at giving good feedback, but it can still be challenging for them both giving and receiving critical feedback. The important thing is to make sure the culture is to make critical feedback constructive, even if poignant. What value does the critical feedback provide? If this is kept in mind, then the feedback can be far more helpful than just positive praise and platitudes.
But the relationship is dependent on both the giver and receiver understanding the positive intent of critical feedback. In my example above, I could clearly see my error and appreciate the feedback. That doesn’t always happen with critical feedback, and so when the feedback is not as well received, or not as obvious, that’s when it’s important to have a culture of acceptance and openness to feedback. If the culture is there, then it’s just feedback. When the culture is missing, critical feedback can be demotivating, or even hurtful.
Packaged well, in the right environment, critical feedback is a fantastic way to help adults and students alike learn and grow. It turns challenges and failures into opportunities to improve… and even the process itself holds tremendous value because giving critical feedback well is a communication skill everyone can value learning.
Last night we had our first real ‘live’ event at the school in years. Last week we did our grad in a local theatre, but yesterday’s event was in our own building. We invited our incoming parents and students to an information session, then we had an outdoor BBQ for them and our PAC, followed by our PAC meeting.
While the PAC meeting went on, a group of our current grade 9’s continued the tour and did activities with our new students. Being a very small school, and having students come from across the district, some students are coming to us knowing at most 3 other students, and in some cases like from out of district, they might not know anyone else. An event like this helps calm the nerves for attending in September.
Before the event, our Grade 9’s were so excited that I thought they might scare away the first few kids that arrived. They were thrilled to be running an event like this. But they settled down and were awesome ambassadors to the school. I loved their presentation to the students and parents. It covered our schedule, the kind of courses we have, the culture of the school, activities, and more than a couple laughs.
After 2 years of feeling very locked down, this event was uplifting. It reminded me of the big events we used to run, like our open house that would host over 200 people, and our all-day event for new students. Next year I look forward to our iHub Talks where we bring in guests and have presentations for students and parents, and hosting an inquiry showcase where all our students present their projects to parents and families.
What’s really unique about these experiences are how much our students do to organize the day. Today our school will be given over to students who are running a LARP – a Live Action Role Play. Student organizers have developed the entire storyline, and have fully planned the day. This is a fabulous way to end the school year, and I’m really excited about what next year will bring.
We held iHub Annual last night. It’s our combined grad and award ceremony. Being a small school, we combined these two things so that our grads would have a larger audience. We’ve grown a bit and this year we decided that our grad families would be the only ones invited to watch live, and we hosted YouTube Live video show as well for the rest of our students and families.
Overall the event ran very well. I’m so often impressed by the students who run these shows in the background, the presenters, and the performers. There’s a certain feel these shows have when they are student run. Kids aren’t perfect, but the step up, they rise up to the occasion… and frankly, they often do so better than the adults. Case in point, I had the biggest flub of the night, not any of the kids.
One of the things about our award ceremony that I like is that we focus the awards on how students contribute to the community. Using our motto of ‘Dream, Create, Learn’ we title the awards under those words, looking at: how students Dream up ways to make the school and world a better place; how students Create outstanding projects; and, how they demonstrate their Learning.
Looking at a school with just 81 students, it’s great that we had 24 of them nominated for awards. Seeing the kinds of things they do in school is nothing short of amazing. These kids really put efforts into their projects and their passions. They are all on journeys to do great work and share their accomplishments.
This isn’t a school where kids spend all day following their teacher’s assignments and handing in work that looks like everyone else’s work. This is a school where students get to explore interesting self-chosen projects, and the results show that this is what’s valued at our school.
I was originally against the idea of holding an award ceremony. They are often just about highlighting the already successful kids that get recognized by their marks, and everyone knows who will get an award. But last night, and at our previous award events, there were students mentioned that normally wouldn’t be recognized in a traditional award ceremony. Students who have been given the freedom to explore their interests and students who step up to make the school great… even if they don’t shine academically.
By showcasing that contributions to our community matter we get kids wanting to contribute to our community. By sharing how important that is to us, other students see that we value it, and they too rise up.
I was worried that after 2 years of pandemic mode, and keeping kids separate in individual classes, that we’d lost the community feel of the school. But a couple weeks ago we had a cross-grade project that all our students participated in. Then last night seeing the students work together to run the event, and seeing the student projects shared, and the performers giving their all, I realized that we still have a strong community. And, our students are still stepping up and contributing to be creative and do good work.
If you create the time, space, and expectation for students to be creative and do great work, they will. I can’t wait to see what’s possible next year, when things go further back to normal. I suspect that next year the kinds of things we’ll see from our students will be far from normal… they will be exceptional.
