Tag Archives: reflection

Worthy goals

This video came up as a Facebook memory from 4 years ago.

The process of applying for an award like The Cmolik Prize for the Enhancement of Public Education in BC was rewarding because it forced us to reflect on what we do. We have really evolved as a community since this video was made, and while we don’t necessarily give students as much freedom as we have in the past, we’ve created better scaffolding to support students getting their work done… on both the school work they need to do, and the projects they want to do.

A couple recent Daily-Ink posts have focussed on the school: Students design the school about student designed and created murals; and, Obstacles become the way about a student working through a problem rather than letting that problem become an obstacle or a failure point in his project. Creating the space for these things to happen is, as Al says at the end of the video, a worthy goal. Weve fostered a pretty special community where we get to see our students thrive.

Over before we know it

In some ways this has been a long, challenging school year. Covid-19 has made the year a shadow of what is normally expected. That will happen with a global pandemic’s agenda undermining activities, events, and plans usually completed in a school year. Yet here we are at the start of May, with just two months of school left before the year is over. Normally at this time of year, I start thinking about what I’d hoped to accomplish in the year, and reflect on if I’ve met my goals. I also think about what I want to accomplish before the school year is over.

My mind goes to our Grade 12’s, thinking about our grad ceremony, that I want to be special for them despite greater restrictions than what was possible last year. I find myself thinking about our June PAC barbecue that usually comes after grade 8’s spend a day at our school, organized by our students, to help our future grade 9’s learn about what September will be like at our school. Holding this virtually doesn’t give the incoming students the experience we want, and doesn’t give our current students the leadership experience they want and enjoy.

I have never before entered the month of May thinking about what I can’t do, rather that what still needs to be done. No year end field trips, no student organized pot lucks, no gatherings of any kind. It’s hard to look towards the end of the school year without thinking first that it won’t be what I hope it to be, and second that it will be over before we realize it. It’s also hard to think that September will likely be quite similar, with few restrictions being lifted.

I’ve been saying since before the Christmas holidays, ‘Things will start to return to normal by January 2022″. This has given me some solace because I don’t find myself disappointed when the vaccine rollout is slower than I had hoped, or when there are promises of things being normal by September when I know that won’t be happening. The long horizon of waiting for the start of the next calendar year before we see movement towards normal has kept me from holding unrealistic optimism that would surely end in disappointment.

But here at the start of May, the disappointment is hitting me a little. I want to see an exciting year end. Our grad is usually an epic year end annual celebration, student run, with entertainment and performances by our student body. But for the second year in a row this won’t happen the way we wish it could. If I’m honest, I’m starting May without the excitement I normal feel. Normally I would see so much to do ahead and realize the year will be over in the blink of an eye, but this year I’m just hoping to end the year positively. I’m hoping everyone stays healthy, and I’m hoping my expectations for January 2022 come a little sooner than expected.

Choosing to share

Yesterday I wrote ‘Choosing or observing?‘ In which I said, “How much time do we spend being observers of this world, mere victims of our circumstances, versus creators of our world, choosing our path and seeking out new experiences, new things that our senses can take in?“

On LinkedIn, Kelly Christopherson responded, “…I definitely need to be more active and choose to create and share more.”

I hadn’t though of creating and sharing at all when I wrote that post. I was thinking about time, focus, and attention, but not about the choice to share our work and what we do. I have an educational blog that I’ve barely contributed to these past few years; a podcast I keep wanting to, but rarely, add to; and a monthly email subscription that I haven’t written in over a year. I’ve also drastically reduced my sharing on social media. I’m not sure if this is just a phase I’m going through or if social media just feels less social these days?

That said, since July 2019 I have written and shared a blog post daily. That’s a year and 3/4 now of sharing something every day. I won’t lie, it has been a challenging commitment. I’ve written a few later than midnight and back-dated the post… I was still awake and consider this part of the day before, since I haven’t gone to sleep yet. Beyond that, I might have missed one or two along the way, but I don’t think so?

So, my educational blog and podcast have been pushed aside, and maybe I’ll try to get that monthly newsletter out starting after this summer, but I’ve shared something here on this Daily-Ink for well over 600 days in a row… and I don’t see myself changing this habit any time soon.

So, why did Kelly’s comment strike a cord with me? For a while he and I, along with Jonathan Sclater, shared our fitness adventures with each other. Recently, I’ve been going through the motions with my workouts, struggling to push myself, and I wonder if I shouldn’t start connecting with these guys again to help push me. I think it’s time to share a little more. To not just engage but interact, be more social, and share.

Longer days

Last night it was still bright out at 8pm. This morning I could see the blue light of the morning, rather than complete darkness, at 5:15am. This is such a welcome shift from the winter gloom that darkens the skies at 4:30pm and doesn’t brighten them again until after 7am. It might still be spring but the feeling of summer is here.

I enjoy waking up to a room lit by natural light. It feels so much more effortless to begin my day. I find myself more eager to get the day started, and find that my eyes widen to take in the light in a way that darkness doesn’t invite.

It’s hard to believe it is almost the end of April. I feel like the year has simultaneously been long and drawn out, while it has also disappeared in the blink of an eye. It has felt long with restrictions being something always on my mind, both at work and in my personal life. Meanwhile, every year seems to go faster, and time slips by without the realization that the days and months are gone.

As the days get longer, I’m left wondering how the years seem shorter? Perhaps it’s because to a 10 year old, 5 years is half a lifetime, and to a 53 year old 5 years isn’t even a 10th of my life. Does time go by faster simply because relative to my age, any significant unit of time represents less of my total life?

Whether that’s the case or not, I’m reminded to value the time I’ve got. To cherish the family and friends I have, and to seize the enjoy the moments that make up my day… starting with the appreciation of natural light helping me to start my day, and reminding me that summer will be here in no time at all.

On fire

Before yesterday, my personal best in archery, on a Vegas 300 score card was a 281. (10 ends, on 3 targets, 30 arrows total with 10 being the highest score of an arrow, whether you hit the X-ring or 10-ring, for a maximum score of 300). I had hit 280 three times and 281 twice. Yesterday I scored a 285.

Today I shot two more rounds. In round one I got a personal best again, and I also achieved one more goal too… 30 arrows all in the gold (scoring only 9’s and 10’s). I thought I would have to practice a lot more before doing this. In the process, I scored a 286. I was on cloud 9!

I took a short break to prep some targets. Then on my first practice arrow back on the line I did this:

It was the ‘perfect’ return to the archery line because it stuck a little humble pie into my growing ego.

Then in my second round, I got a couple 8’s in my 4th and 5th ends. I knew that I was shooting well beyond that, but wasn’t sure how well? My final end started with an 8 after I struggled to keep my bow steady and stubbornly didn’t let down and reset. I was shooting alone and a profanity might have crossed my lips in a rather booming voice. Still, I took a deep breath, reset my breathing, and hit two 10’s to finish off my scoring. I still had no idea what my score was, and thought maybe that last 8 stopped me from tying my 286. I was wrong. I scored a 289.

TWO-EIGHTY-NINE!

A couple stats that I’m blown away by:

1. 22 of 30 arrows scored 10. For perspective, when I shot my 286 I only had 16 arrows score 10.

2. Although I scored three 8’s, my score on those ends were all 28’s, with me getting two 10’s for my other arrows, and those were my only 28’s. All other rounds were 29’s with two 30’s. That means I scored at least two 10’s every round!

Add these to the fact that I scored an all gold round, and I have to say that I’m on fire! I thought I was a month or two away from an all gold round, and many, many months away from a 289. So now my goal is consistency. I’m more focused on another ‘all gold’ round scoring in the 280’s than I am on a 290. That won’t come without consistency, and so reducing the bigger errors now will get me to both ‘all gold’ and 290 sooner than worrying about the difference between a 9 and a 10.

But that’s all in the future, right now it’s time to celebrate. I scored an ‘all gold’ round today, and then I crushed my personal best and got a 289!

Oh yeah!

Still a rookie

I sometimes need to remind myself that I’m still new to archery. Yesterday I did something bizarre. Twice in less than an hour, I launched an arrow into the wall about 8-10 feet above my target, mid draw. My trigger release didn’t misfire, I somehow pulled back at a bad angle and let the string slip out of the release. Both times I was shocked. Both times I had no idea what I did to cause this. Both times I knew it was human error and not my equipment, but didn’t know what to do differently?

I spent the rest of that practice paying so much attention to my draw that I didn’t shoot very well. Today in practice I looked down at my hands just before I drew and I saw the problem.

Before I begin the draw cycle, I put tension on my bow string to get the feel of my bow into the right spot in my bow hand. I don’t know when I started doing this, but I was pulling on the release with my thumb up. However, the draw cycle involves drawing back with my pinky finger up. So, I’d put tension on the string, thumb up, raise my bow, and as I started my draw cycle I’d have to rotate my wrist 180°. In that process I must have twisted my pinky finger too far back allowing the string to slip out of the release… twice. Two arrows destroyed, and at the time, not a clue why?

Today I shot very poorly in my first round, then mostly much better the second round. Mostly.

I scored a 280 and my personal best is 281. But I don’t see the the good shots, I see the 7 in the red outer circle of the third target.

I don’t see the perfect score in end 2, I see the two 8’s in a row in end 6… the 7 after the two X’s overshadow the X’s in end 8.

Cognitively, I know that I need to ‘let go’ of the mistakes. To learn from them. To not let the previous shot affect the next shot. I like archery because it can sometimes feel like meditation. But then I treat it like a competitive sport and get mad at myself for not being better than I am… Like I’m not still a rookie, learning the ropes and shooting arrows accidentally, because I lack body awareness.

I’m my own worst enemy, placing too much pressure on myself, and not celebrating the successes. I forget that scores under 270 were a regular thing for me just 3 months ago.

I forget that the journey is what matters, and that I’m on a good path to getting better. And I forget that the path will be faster if I focus more on doing things right, again and again, rather than being upset and clouding my brain with unproductive thoughts and feelings.

I’m just a rookie, and I’ve got a lot to learn. 1,000 arrows from now I will be better. How much better? Well, that depends on if I can keep my expectations realistic, and focus on improving rather than beating myself up with unrealistic expectations. 280 is a great score, I only got 281, my personal best, a few days ago. I learned a valuable lesson today, and hopefully won’t ever release an arrow during my draw again. I am getter better!

A Simple Reset

It took a whiny rant yesterday to help me reset my frame of mind.

I rethought the rut I was in last night, after I had a massage. Usually my massages are painful ordeals, working out deep muscle knots, but most of my discomfort was from muscle soreness from working out. This is really unusual because I generally deal with a lot of back discomfort, verging in pain. So, my workouts haven’t been as lazy as I thought. Then I looked at some not too old archery scores and I truly am happy about where I am right now in my progress.

Sometimes it doesn’t take much to set my brain on a bit of a tailspin, but overall I see myself as a positive and happy person. I work in a school with some truly amazing students and teachers. I have a wonderful office staff. And I come home to an awesome family.

I’m blessed, and when I get into a rut like I did yesterday, I need to get over myself and appreciate how truly lucky I am.

The weather is wonderful all this week, and it’s going to be a great day today!

Removing the obstacle

Since buying my new bow, I haven’t had a new personal best score. I’ve made a lot of adjustments and changed arrows, and have learned a lot, but my best score hasn’t moved up. One challenge I’ve had is that the fatter arrows I purchased are harder to keep on my tiny arrow rest while I draw the bow. I start to pull the string back, and the arrow bounces off of the rest and I have to let down the bow, reposition the arrow, and draw again. With a 50 pound bow, those extra draws that are unsuccessful get really tiring.

Yesterday I went to the archery store just before they closed and they installed my drop-away rest that I had on my old bow. This rest isn’t a tiny ‘V’ blade that the arrow sits on, it’s a big ‘U’ that cups the arrow and drops down and out of the way before the fletching at the back of the arrow hit it.

I then went and shot a round. First I had to recalibrate my sighting and get my bow adjusted to the slightly different location of the new rest, then I shot 30 arrows and scored a 278.

My personal best is a 280. Looking at my score card, the first round, when I was still adjusting my sight was the only round that I didn’t score at least one 10 or X in the round (you always score high to low score as opposed to by the order the shots went in). Also, I only shot 3 arrows outside the yellow 9-ring.

I shot two 8’s and a 6. The 6 was a really bad shot that I know my mistake. Part of the issue was I hadn’t lined everything up properly and was trying to readjust myself at full draw of the bow. I should have let down the bow and restarted, but having had the old rest where I kept having to redraw with the arrow falling off, I was accustomed to fighting through to avoid this. An old habit I’ll gladly break soon.

Still, if that 6 was even an 8, my other worse score on the card, I would have tied my personal best on my first attempt with this arrow rest on my bow. I know that not having to draw the bow so many times, frustrating me and tiring me out, will go a long way in getting me to my new personal best score.

After a couple weeks of dedicated shooting over the break, I saw no progress in my score. Then I remove one obstacle, and I shoot the best I have in a while and get close to my personal best. This reminds me of the quote, ‘the obstacle is the way’. That thing getting in your way is the thing to figure out, or it becomes the path forward. I thought I could persevere and learn to use the tiny ‘V’ blade but couldn’t. The archery shop has ordered a wider blade for me and I might try again… it is a better rest than the drop-away one. But for now, I’ll use this one, I’ll draw my bow back 30 times to shoot 30 arrows, rather than 100 times, and I’ll smash my personal best score very soon.

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.

Limbo

I was in our local drug store yesterday and they were taking walk-ins for the covid-19 vaccine. People just needed to be 55 years old or older to get it. I’m a year and a half too young and so I couldn’t get mine. It was wonderful to see, but also so frustrating that I still have to wait. I know it’s not a quick fix, I know I work in schools where students will not be vaccinated for quite some time. I know we will have strict protocols right through the end of June, and potentially when we start up in September again. I know all this, but I feel like I’m in perpetual limbo waiting for my turn to get the vaccine.

I also wonder about all the people choosing not to take the vaccine. Vaccines are not perfect, but neither are countless over the counter drugs that people use every day. For instance, ibuprofen is a drug many people take way too frequently and can be very bad for you.  Here is some information about ibuprofen:

“Regular use of ibuprofen may eventually cause:

  • kidney and liver damage
  • bleeding in the stomach and bowels
  • increased risk of heart attack.”

And, “NSAIDs such ibuprofen can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke in people with or without heart disease or the risk factors for heart disease.”

In a global pandemic, no vaccine is going to be perfect, but the fear mongering and paranoid opportunists have pushed the anti-vax stupidity to what would be comical levels if the consequences of their stupidity weren’t spreading so quickly. I’m frequently surprised by people sharing concerns about the vaccine who seem to have very limited understanding of what research has been done, people who confuse RNA with DNA, and people who cherry pick their information from biased news sources and spout their bias as ‘facts’.

All this leads me to think that when I finally get the vaccine, while I’ll sigh a little sigh of relief, and while I’ll do a little happy dance… I just might find myself in the same limbo a while longer. I’m not sure it’s going to bring me as much comfort as I would like it to.

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Meanwhile, as a PSA… Keep taking your Vitamin D!  (See ‘Vitamin D and Covid-19‘ and ‘Vitamin D could save your life‘.)