Tag Archives: retirement

Pay Attention – Grad Speech

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I didn’t read it all word for word, and I ad libbed an ending to coincide with a couple references by student speeches and a video shared before I got up to speak… but here is my last grad speech, titled ‘Pay Attention’ as it was written.

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Yesterday was Father’s Day… and yes, I’m keenly aware that starting my speech with that suggests I wrote this speech as last minute as many of our grads completed their assignments over the last 4 years… but I digress. 

Yesterday was Father’s Day and I was out for lunch with my family. Two tables next to us showed me a stark contrast in how families connect or disconnect. Both of these tables had someone my age at them. One of them, a woman, was alone with her elderly father, the other, a man, was with both of his senior parents. 

The woman was leaning forward and listening intently to her dad. Juxtaposed to this, the man had his phone in his left hand for the entire meal, and barely ever looked away from it. 

He scrolled, and typed, scrolled and typed, and even when his parents spoke to him, he didn’t look up when he responded. His parents had to wait for him to finish his meal to order dessert, but he didn’t speed up his eating, he focussed far more on his phone. Two tables, two totally different dynamics. 

We live in an era of distractions. When our attention is elsewhere, it’s not where it should be. 

And with that I’ll address our grads directly: Pay attention to what matters.

You’ve had a rich high school experience with teachers who didn’t just teach you the curriculum, they taught you how to think, how to formulate your ideas, and how to come to your own conclusions about the things that matter in this world.

Don’t pay attention to people who talk about their own truths. Don’t pay attention to AI slop designed to steal your time and attention. Don’t pay attention to extreme political views that are more interested in exciting anger than encouraging understanding. And don’t pay attention to those who profit from division, outrage, or fear.

Instead, pay attention to evidence. Pay attention to people who ask good questions. Pay attention to those who listen before they speak. Pay attention to the people in your life who challenge you to become wiser, kinder, and more courageous.

You’ve had a head start. You’ve been going to school in a community that fosters your individuality; a community that is accepting of different opinions, different perspectives, and let’s face it, different levels of quirkiness. All the while, allowing you to express your true self within a kind and accepting community. Take this with you wherever you go. Be the one who others appreciate, who others admire, and who understands when to speak up and to speak out. 

The reality is that no other school makes you present and voice your views and opinions with authentic discourse more than iHub. And so, you are uniquely skilled to filter the BS that comes your way, to see through insincerity, and to be the one who speaks up and speaks out when no one else will. 

However, it all starts with your attention. 

A few of our former grads came back to talk to you a couple months ago. One of them who is on a sports team training for 20 hours a week and working part time on top of a full-time university course load said that Inquiry Hub prepared her to use her time well, and she’s shocked at how students feel overwhelmed with just their course loads. Another student said her professor complimented her on how good her essay was and she replied, “Really, I think my high school Humanities teacher would have given this a high ‘B’.”

I bring this up because you are headed into new learning opportunities where you can choose to be like other students, or you can design your learning journey like you did here at iHub. And the experience you have can be one driven by your attention, or by distractions. 

Your attention is one of the most valuable things you possess. Where you choose to invest it will, in many ways, determine the person you become when you get to my or your parent’s age… You’ve already gotten off to a good start. 

Now I’d like to address the family and friends of our graduates.  The Inquiry Hub staff: our teachers, secretaries, and custodians, have watched these young folks blossom over the past four years. They came to us with unique talents and gifts, and while some of them needed a lot of help to figure out how to thrive at school, some needed no help at all. But no matter their starting point, they have all grown tremendously in ways that are hard to measure. 

You have a lot to be proud of in this group. They have not only thrived at school, they have also thrived in their activities in the community and thrived at work. They have made us so proud of them, and you should be proud too. Think back to what they were like four years ago. 

Pay attention to the things they value and share with you. Watch the way they interact and engage with the world around them. They are wonderful human beings, and while parents can take pride and pat themselves on the back, remember that these young grads are also young adults who deserve to be appreciated for the fine people that they have become. 

Stop and pay attention, and we can see what a community can build when people choose to invest their time, their energy, and their care in one another.

Graduates, in a world where everyone and every deviceis competing for your attention, remember that your attention is your life. Every hour you give away is an hour you never get back. Spend it on people. Spend it on ideas worth wrestling with. Spend it building things that matter.

And to your families: Thank you for giving these graduates your attention long before they ever earned a diploma. They are sitting here today because of countless rides, conversations, encouragements, reminders, sacrifices, and moments that probably seemed ordinary at the time. They weren’t ordinary. They mattered.

So today, celebrate this milestone. Put the phones away and look around this room. Pay attention to these graduates, to your families, and to this moment.

Because years from now, you won’t remember what was on your screen. You’ll remember who was sitting with you, who leant you an ear when you needed someone to listen to you, and who disagreed with you in class, but did so in a way that was respectful. And even if you never do another fishbowl discussion, you’ll remember that Inquiry Hub was the school you chose, you attended, and you gave your full attention to. 

Congratulations, Class of 2026.

Last day with staff

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Tomorrow is my last day with my staff before the summer break. While I’m not quite done yet, this is it with respect to working with my two teams I’ve had the privilege to work with for 14 years (COL) and 13 years (iHub).

Farewell to being a principal.

It has been an honour to serve both communities. I was blessed not to be moved for that duration. Both schools are so unique, I really feel like I would not have thrived in the same way in a more traditional context. Fortunately I didn’t ever have to find out.

On to new adventures soon enough, but first, some heartfelt goodbyes tomorrow.

The last grad

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I wrote my last Principal’s grad address last night and I’m delivering it tonight. I’m proud to say that since we started our first grad ceremony in 2026, every speech I’ve given has been uniquely written. Nothing is rinsed and recycled. This one is about where we put our attention, and while it’s a bit more preachy than in the past, it is also very much about praising our grads and our school community.

I’m looking forward to my final grad, and I’m happy to say that nothing in this speech is about me. I’ve had my retirement parties and celebrations, and they have been wonderful. Tonight is about our grads at our tiny, unique school, and they deserve all the attention to be on them.

I’ll miss this. I think of all the nostalgic feeling I may have about retiring, the grad is the thing I’ll miss the most. Seeing the culminating event of awkward, young grade 9’s blossoming into amazing young adults is something I cherish every year, and it’s going to be sad seeing the last one end. I honestly haven’t said that about anything else related to retirement. I feel ready to retire and to close this chapter, but I’m really, really going to miss grad.

Fortunately, I know that I’ll be invited back to watch, and I’d love to do so for at least 3 more years (when the current Grade 9’s graduate). Knowing that I’ll have a chance to be in the audience at future grads makes this transition a lot easier.

Closure rather than ending

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Maybe it’s just semantics but I think the word choices we make are important. Our words frame our understanding of the world.

I’ve been having a lot of ‘lasts’ recently as I head into retirement. My last interview for a hire, my last field trip, my last principal’s breakfast meeting, etc. For a while I was seeing these as endings, kind of a shutting of a door never to be opened again, with a sense of finality. But I’ve had a shift recently.

Now I think of these endings more like closure. It’s not about an ending as much as a sense of completion. Like putting the last piece of a puzzle in. When a performance ends, the show is over, it’s time to go home. When a puzzle is completed there isn’t an instant finality to it. Closure in this sense invites time to admire what was accomplished.

It’s a small shift in language, but a large shift in perspective. It’s not an ending, it’s closure.

Career spanning wisdom

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When I shared this story with my Principal and Vice Principal colleagues this morning, I joked that I’d blogged about it previously. However, while I was able to find a couple references to the story, I realized after a search of my blogs that I have not shared the full story before.

This morning was our final face-to-face meeting of the year, and our assistant superintendents shared a few words about retirees before each retiree got a chance to say something. I shared this story.

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It was early on in my teaching career, long before I knew if I’d ever get into administration, and so I didn’t know the impact this conversation would have on me.

I was teaching a class about 10-15 minutes after lunch when a good student, Garrett, showed up at my door. He didn’t show up after lunch and I just assumed he signed out, this is not a kid who would skip a class. I looked up at him as if to ask ‘Where were you?’ And his face sunk as he said, “I got in trouble.”

We had the attention of the whole class and I didn’t want him to have to share what happened in front of everyone. “Have a seat,” I said, “We’ll talk about it later,” and then I caught him up on what he missed. The day ended and I totally forgot to follow up with him, so around 4pm I headed down to the office to learn about what Garrett had done.

When I got down to the office our Vice Principal, Gary Kern, was just finishing up with a student. I didn’t teach this student, but I knew of him. In fact, just a couple months before this, I saw this student being arrested with a man, who I think was his dad, outside of a neighbourhood grocery store. As this student walked out of the office, Gary trailed behind him, shaking his head with a bit of an exasperated expression on his face.

I asked what Garrett got in trouble for? Gary said it wasn’t a big deal, he and a friend were horsing around at lunch and Garrett pushed his friend, who fell back and hit his head on a tree. It was witnessed by a noon-hour supervisor who brought the kids to the office, and the only follow up was an apology. Then Gary said something and I carried this ‘lesson’ with me for my entire career.

Gary said, “This job has taught me a new respect for the kid I’d never want to be.”

He continued, ‘Your kid, Garrett, I’d trade lives with him… Good family, respectful, plays hockey, good friends.’

‘…This other kid? No way I’d want his life. This job teaches you to provide a kid, who you’d never switch lives with, with forgiveness, understanding, and respect, because if you wouldn’t want to be them, they deserve a break.’

I know my colleagues understood this when I shared it with them. I went on to share how this impacted me. And I thanked all of my colleagues for their understanding of this idea. I thanked them for not treating kids like life is baseball and knowing when a kid deserves more than 3 strikes. I thanked them for being a student’s advocate and for treating a kid with dignity and respect, even when the kid’s parent didn’t treat them the same way. I thanked them for all they do to support the needs of the students in their community, and thus making our entire community better.

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I can’t tell you how many times I thought of this conversation with Gary in my career, but I will say that this was a frame of reference that I held with me, and reminded myself of time and again. It gave me strength when I felt frustrated. It allowed me deal with angry people, and to not take a kid’s attitude personally.

Now, at the end of my career, I can say that Gary was absolutely correct, “This job has taught me a new respect for the kid I’d never want to be.” Because that’s the kid that needs us to be their advocate.

Writing speeches

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Last Friday my buddy Dave and I delivered speeches that we combined together. At our Principal and Vice Principals association retirement dinner, the tradition is that someone speaks for the retiree, then the retiree speaks. Since we were going to speak for each other, we just went up and took turns.

We came up with a theme: Gratitude, Attitude, and Magnitude. And we took turns talking about each other and ourselves, after thanking people we appreciated the support of, (many of whom were in the room). It was a really fun way to mix it up a bit and I hope we made it entertaining, not just self indulgent.

Now I’ve got one more speech to do before I retire, and that’s to the graduating class at our graduation ceremony. I write a unique speech each year, and try to embed relevance to the current class. What I’m really cautious about is to downplay my retirement. This night is not about me, and should not be about me. So, in a way it’s a bit easier to write than the one last week.

Still, every year I spend a lot of time thinking about what I’ll say to the graduates, and this year seems quite challenging. It’s our smallest grad class in years and if I had to describe them as a group, the thing they have in common is that they are all so different. They get along great, but they really don’t have personalities or interests that are alike in any way.

I’m literally thinking as I write this that the differences are what the speech will focus on: Individuality Within Community. That said, I’ll probably change the topic 5 times before I give the speech in two weeks. I enjoy this process because I enjoy writing. A speech is an opportunity to story-tell. It’s a chance to acknowledge and appreciate others. It’s a way to share values within your community.

Writing speeches is also something I’m going to miss in retirement. Not because I like the limelight, but rather because when I write a speech I find that I am able to consolidate my thoughts and ideas into words in a way that I simply wouldn’t if I didn’t have to write the speech. Speeches to me aren’t just about the external sharing of ideas, they are also about the internal synthesis of my thoughts while I write them.

Both good and busy!

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I’m exhausted. Thursday night was a late retirement dinner event, and so was Friday night. Then I finally got to the weekend. This morning, Saturday morning, I drove my mom to the airport. From there, I took my daughter into town to look at a rental apartment. We had 45 minutes to kill so we went for coffee and a couple scones. I didn’t realize that would be lunch. We viewed the apartment and walked around the neighbourhood for a bit. Then it was off to the next event.

We met my wife, in-laws, and youngest daughter at the theatre and we saw ‘Come From Away’. This was my second time seeing this wonderful play. Then I took my oldest daughter directly from the theatre to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal so she could head back to Victoria.

I was very hungry by that point and headed to the outlet mall to eat. I arrived home nine and a half hours after heading out this morning and walked straight up to my bedroom and fell asleep for 2 hours. I haven’t even been up an hour and I’m ready to go to bed for the night.

It’s June, school is busy, retirement celebrations are busy, family life is busy. Everything is going well, it’s just a lot of busy. I’m exhausted and I’ve got to get up early and do a few climbs up the Coquitlam Crunch tomorrow morning in training for Everesting the Crunch in August… again something good, going well… just a lot right now. Off to bed to ensure I get a good night’s sleep, because I need it!

Celebration after celebration

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Last week I had a personally organized retirement event that I shared with a friend. Yesterday was a dinner for all district retirees. Tonight there’s a dinner for principal and vice principal retirees, and then Monday is a celebration organized by my staff. After this I have one more retirement on July first, organized by my wife for a handful of friends.

It feels like a lot right now. It also feels quite surreal. I’m not used to this much attention coming my way, and if I’m honest, it makes me feel a little uncomfortable. It’s funny, sometimes in a school it feels like anything and everything comes my way and that’s a kind of attention I handle with no problems. But the moment the attention is on me rather than towards me, I want to just avoid it altogether.

Still, I don’t want to come off as complaining, it has been wonderful to reminisce and celebrate with people who have lofted me up, supported, and collaborated with me over my career.…

Part 2

I didn’t get this completed this morning. It’s now 10:15pm and I just got home from the retirement. The speeches are usually a person talking about the retiree, followed by the retiree speaking. My buddy Dave and I took turns talking about each other. I’ll probably share more about this later but for now I’ll just say that this made it extra special. I’m lucky to be retiring at the same time with him and couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate tonight.

I started off the day thinking this all feels like ‘too much’, but I ended the night feeling like my gratitude cup is spilling over… and that’s a completely different and wonderful kind of ‘too much’.

The June rush

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I want to say that I’m not going to miss the June rush, but I will. I always chuckle a little when people who are not in education say things like, “You must be winding down to summer now.” It’s much more like ‘ramping up’ than ‘winding down’. There is so much going on in a school in June, and adding retirement events to this just makes it feel a little overwhelming.

Today is a crazy day for me. We have next year’s incoming students visiting for the day, followed by our final PAC meeting, followed by a district retirement dinner. From the moment I hit the gym at 6am until 8pm tonight I don’t have a moment to spare. That said, it should be a really fun day too.

That’s the thing about the June rush, it is simultaneously great and exhausting. It’s a month of dichotomies. It’s I time of event-after-event, but each one of those events is a bit of a celebration. There is excitement about graduation, and ending the year, and there is the sense that the pace is all too much. There is the excitement of changes to come, and the sense of sadness of things ending.

Here’s the thing about the June rush, it’s easy to get stuck in the busyness, in the rush and the planning of event after event, in the checking off the last time you have to do something, and in the melancholy of knowing things are coming to an end. Meanwhile, each event is a gift. Each event is an opportunity to spend time with students and colleagues, and to celebrate the year that was. Yes, June is really busy, but within that busyness is hidden many moments to appreciate.

I can’t wait

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Yesterday after work I wrote a longer, rather dystopian post about the future of AI. I developed the idea and the start of the title the night before. I thought up the end of the title, the 3 scenarios, on the drive to work, and I sat at my desk at about 4pm and wrote the post in just over an hour. This was a rare opportunity where I was able to sit, completely uninterrupted for that long, and just wrote a piece, start to finish… I did need some edit time after I published it because I had another work event in the evening, so I couldn’t sit longer and do the final edits.

And that’s what I can’t wait to do when I retire. I want dedicated, uninterrupted writing time. Not like right now, when I’m rushing to get most of this done before connecting with a friend to get a pre-work workout in. Not a 30 minute window where I try to get everything down, create an image, post and share online. Instead, I want an hour or more of undisturbed writing time.

This doesn’t always happen in the summer. I’ll often still feel rushed, with family commitments and other daily activities getting in the way. But it is my hope that in retirement I can actually schedule time to write, make it a priority, and a regular part of my daily routine.

Since joining a gym back in November, I’ve felt very rushed with my writing. It only takes about 12-15 minutes to get to the gym, but the commute costs me roughly a half hour more than my regular morning routine before joining. My workout is also a bit longer than it used to be. So the cost in time has come at the expense of my writing. And often I have to push my daily write to the evening when I’m tired and just want to get it done for the day.

I can’t wait to have more time just to write!