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.
Some of the smartest people I know didn’t do well in school. Two in particular got into trades are are both very successful and run their own business. Both have more saved for their retirement than I ever will. Both have a common sense intelligence that is superior to mine.
I have a sister who is street smart. I’d say she’s also people smart. She can read a situation and read people better than others can read a book. She builds strong friendships with people who will do anything for her, because they know she’d do the same for them. Lucky things happen to her because she creates her own luck, with no expectations of an outcome. Some people do a kindness expecting praise or accolades, she just wants to do good, and good things happen to her as a result.
Have you ever meet someone that your pet was drawn to? They share a bond with animals that seems effortless. I’m not just talking about someone who goes out of their way to connect with an animal, but rather someone who the animal reaches out to. They seem to communicate with animals nonverbally.
There are many forms of giftedness. Many natural talents that can be fostered and developed. Sometimes it seems connected to a disposition, a positive outlook. Other times it can be intuitive, a knowledge that seems unlearned yet fully acquired. And still other times it can be connected to perspective, and seeing things from points of view that others miss. Some of this can be honed and learned, and some of it just seems to be a natural intelligence.
None of these kind of smarts limit someone from being a good student. But sometimes intuitively or creatively smart people don’t do well in school. We need to recognize peoples gifts independently from their grades. We need to recognize that there are different kinds of smart.
After 6 weeks holidays, I’m back to work today. While work creeped into these holidays a fair bit, it was the most ‘off’ I’ve been in years… and quite frankly I needed it. I spent over a month of this break away from home, and it’s nice to be back in my own bed.
I feel refreshed and ready for the new school year. The long hours don’t start until September, and so I can get acclimatized over the next couple weeks. This starts today with my writing, meditation, exercise, and stretching first thing in the morning.
I’m someone who both dislikes and requires good routines. I dislike them because they make the days seem a bit robotic, like I’m just going through the motions. I require (and even like) them because I can get a lot done and feel accomplished.
This holiday started really strong with maintaining my routines but my Toronto trip home was quite disruptive. I was stuck on Vancouver time, staying up until well after midnight in Toronto, but still waking up early. I moved a lot of boxes, but didn’t do any cardio, and I don’t think I meditated more than once in 11 days. I accomplished a lot helping my mom, but really broke my routine and ate too much.
But then again, I was on holidays, and had a wonderful time. I got to spend a lot of time with my wife, and a bit of time with my kids too. I think as school starts, I need to build time in with them as part of my routine as well. It’s easy to put in long hours and not make time for family… not on purpose, just by nature of the job.
Routines can help to regulate things that can normally be neglected. My morning routine lets me feel like I’ve accomplished something for myself before I start my job in the service of others. I think the next step is to routinize some quality time with family, or before I know it the school year is over and work was the only priority after my morning routine.
Who else just flakes out at the end of the school year?
At least I didn’t get sick. That sometimes happens… I reach Christmas break, March break, or summer, and my body crashes.
After work Friday we hopped on a ferry to visit my in-laws and oldest daughter on Vancouver Island. We were there for a little over 24 hours and then back home last night. Today I started with my Coquitlam Crunch walk, and that was the extent of any physical effort I put into the day. Its also a great opportunity to connect with a friend.
After I came home I had a hot tub, and a nap. I cooked stakes for dinner. I’m on the couch with my wife watching Jury Duty.
It’s 11pm and I’m finally writing my post, and I still need to meditate. I’ll hit my targets… and that’s it. That’s enough… A typical start to a holiday. A good flake out day.
Although I’ll be working next week, today is the last day of school with staff. It’s always a day that feels melancholy for me. I’m grateful for the approaching summer, but it’s a final farewell to a year that feels more significant than a December 31st year-end celebration.
It was a challenging year for me on many fronts, but mostly health-wise. I shared this recently in my email newsletter to students and their parents:
After a couple months of working in pain every day, I took most of May off with a herniated disc in my neck, which was pinching a nerve going down my left arm. The good news is that I’m almost completely pain free now and my discomfort level is quite low. The challenging thing is that combined with a few other absences this year, I missed more work this year than I probably have in all the other 24 years that I’ve been an educator. Many of you have heard me speak of how challenging absences are at Inquiry Hub, and how good attendance has a direct correlation to overall success… and unfortunately I got to live the consequences of missing a lot of school first hand. I am so thankful for the team that I work with, and I appreciate how much added work they covered in order to keep the experience so positive for our students.
Add covid which, while not herniated disc painful, left me with a week-long low grade headache in November, and a nasty flu in January that knocked me on my butt worse than covid did, and it seemed to me the year was all about being sick or recovery and catch up. I didn’t mention the loss of my father in the message above, but that also happened while dealing with the physical pain.
I’ll be glad to wrap things up next week. All that said, there is a lot of positives to appreciate. Our grads got into the programs they wanted. Planning for next year has me excited about the year ahead. And while I am having some residual issues with the nerves in my arm from the herniated disc, I’ve been pain free for 3+ weeks.
My left arm is weak, and sometimes uncomfortable, but discomfort is so much better than constant pain. My heart goes out to people with chronic pain. I had just over 3 months of it, and working every day for over 2 months in agony before taking time off was brutal… I can’t imagine what life is like for those that live with daily pain and don’t get to feel the relief I now feel.
This gives me perspective, and makes me feel lucky, despite the challenging year I had. I get to look forward to a summer of recovery and revitalization, not of choosing between being in pain or being so medically intoxicated that I don’t want to do, can’t do, anything productive. I get to look forward and see positive things in my future.
But today is melancholy. Today is about saying goodbye. Goodbye to colleagues, and goodbye to the school year. It’s the final countdown to a year I don’t ever want to repeat. I need to focus on expressing my appreciation to my staff for being more supportive of me than I feel I was to them this year… and I hope to make up for that next year!
The end of the year can feel like a constant pace of go-go-go! From wake up to head on pillow that night there is too much to do and too little time. Then things (finally) wind down and you see all that you’d like to do but you’ve been too busy doing what you needed to do. Time suddenly slows, and tasks are more easily accomplishable.
This becomes a time when I need others to collaborate with. Time to have learning conversations and time to co-plan. I notice that working with others motivates me and keeps my productivity pace up.
It’s easy to take a deep sigh of relief as things slow down, and to slow down myself. But the year hasn’t ended and there is still a lot to get done, a lot to accomplish, and an opportunity to better prepare for the new year. Just because the pace has slowed doesn’t mean productivity should too.
Staying motivated as the pace slows isn’t easy. It’s easier to coast through to the ending. My motivation is to do whatever I can to make next year better. Because as crazy as the year-ending June pace can be, the year-starting September pace can be equally frenetic. And so the work I do now will help my productivity in the new school year.
It has been a long ride this year, but I’ve got to stay in the saddle and keep riding at a good pace. I’ve got the whole summer to trot and canter, right now I need too keep the gallop going. Giddy up!
I remember running an assembly as the leadership teacher back when I was in middle school. It was for a Terry Fox run, and we had a former teacher and coach of Terry as a guest speaker. I’d heard him before, he’s both articulate and engaging, and I knew it would be a good presentation. But what I remember most about that assembly was that our guest speaker was the only adult who spoke.
My grade 8 leadership kids completely ran the show. They helped classes get seated. They greeted him. They quieted the audience. They introduced him. They thanked him. They gave out the instructions for the run. These aren’t huge tasks, but they take planning and rehearsing to do well. And to me it looks so much better when students run the show.
Tonight we have our grad and I have an amazing teacher who is behind the scenes helping make sure everything goes smoothly. But it’s a student who set up the YouTube live stream, it’s students performing musical acts, it’s students doing most of the work. And it’s student MC’s that will host the show.
It wouldn’t happen all that smoothly without this teacher behind the curtain, but no one in the audience is going to know what he did, how hard he worked, and how other teachers also helped from behind the curtain. What everyone will see is a student run show.
Our school prides itself in being student driven and led… and it really is. But it isn’t like this just because of the students, it’s because of teachers providing the opportunity. Teachers making sure students have the skills, and have put in the practice. It doesn’t just take student leaders, it takes teachers that make room for students to lead and to shine.
My teacher won’t take a bow today. He won’t get any of the limelight. He’ll stay behind the curtain and he’ll get satisfaction from the students doing a great job. That’s what great teachers do.
I’m tired. My routines are a mess. I’m playing constant catch-up rather than being on top of things. That’s June in a nutshell. So much to do, so little time.
The good news is that we have grad tomorrow. And while it’s going to be a 12+ hour work day, it’s also going to end on a really positive note. So, as I lay in bed writing something I usually write 16 hours earlier, (if I was on a regular routine), I am thinking about how I can revitalize my routines and and make June a little less crazy.
Routines and positive habits are self-fulfilling. They add energy to the system rather than drain them. And on that note, I need to get off my screen and get enough sleep for a big day. If you see another post in about 8 hours, that’s a good sign that I good to bed and am back on track. Two things that help with June fatigue are my regular routines, and at least 7 hours of sleep. June is now 66.6% done… only 1/3 more to go!
Today a group of Grade 8 students who will be joining our school next year are spending the day with us at our school. Our Grade 9’s have planned the day for them. Our school only takes a few students from each of our middle schools so students arrive at our school in September knowing very few other students.
While students will be nervous today, this event really breaks the ice for students when they join us in September. It allows them to arrive at their new school already knowing a bit more of their community, both students in their grade, and older students who have already welcomed they to our community.
It’s a long day for me because we also run an after school barbecue for parents followed by our Parent Advisory Committee meeting in the evening. But I love days like this. I enjoy seeing our students welcome other students to our school. It’s fun to see the nervousness of the new students fade away throughout the day. And it’s great to feed our community.
Last year we only ran this event for an afternoon, and we didn’t run it at all during the two covid years before that. So it’s nice to bring back the full tradition, and to provide this community event again. It adds to the welcoming feeling to our school, gives our Grade 9’s an authentic leadership experience, and gives our future students a great sense of our school community.
Today I went to my youngest daughter’s university graduation. Earlier this week I went to our Indigenous Grade 12 Honouring Ceremony, and in two weeks I have two more school grads to go to.
I am not big on pomp and ceremony, but I do like graduation celebrations. It’s a rite of passage, an honouring of the work a student has done, a recognition of accomplishment. It doesn’t matter if a student eked out a pass or graduated with honours and distinction, they did what they needed to do to cross the stage. They get to say, ‘This part of my journey is complete.” And family are there to join in the celebration. Their peers are there crossing the stage with them.
Speeches are often filled with cliches, even the good ones, but that ok. The event is not about the people who get to speak, it’s about honouring the people who completed a task they set out to do, and who are moving on to new adventures. But first they get to cross the stage, they get to shake some hands and be told ‘Congratulations’, and they get to be the center of positive attention.
If I could share one thing with grads, it’s to enjoy the moment. It’s just a single moment to celebrate a long journey, so enjoy it, and feel… actually feel the sense of accomplishment. You did it, and now you get to cross the stage. It doesn’t matter what’s next in that moment, it only matters that you set out to do something and you did it. You graduated!
“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.
