Tag Archives: students

Just show up

I shared this in an email home to parents recently:

While I know this has been a challenging year for many students and families, I think it’s important this time of year, as we head into a report card next week, to remind families of how important attendance is at our school. Students with significant absences tend to fall into a very unhealthy loop that includes:
Falling behind in work; Telling parents they work better at home, but missing key instructions to help them at home; Not getting the support they need; Not feeling good about being behind and finding reasons to avoid school.

Ultimately, we can’t help students that aren’t here at school, and the best ‘medicine’ for a student with too many absences is a dedication to getting to school as long as health conditions don’t prevent it. This isn’t a problem we can find a solution for without parent support. Please contact us if you’d like to discuss attendance further. I, or one of our team, will be contacting some of you after report cards go out.

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Report cards have now gone out and I will be calling a few parents to talk about concerns we have around poor attendance.

We live in a society now where there is so much pressure to do well; to be your best; to shine. It’s not easy. But sometimes the message doesn’t have to be ‘you are awesome’, ‘you have so much potential’, or ‘push yourself’. Sometimes the message of ‘just show up’ is all we need to hear.

  • Don’t plan an hour workout, just show up at the gym.
  • Don’t worry about how much you have to do, just start.
  • Don’t create a huge ‘to do’ list, pick 2-3 things you know you can get done and check those off… even if showing up is one of those things!

It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than thinking your way into a new way of acting. ~Richard Pascale

Just show up!

How can I add value?

I have a friend who asks this question a lot. When we connect, if there is ever anything to be done together that’s the question he asks, “How can I add value?”

It’s simple and direct… I’m here to help, and happy to add some value to what is being done.

When I taught leadership to students, sometimes I came across a kid who was like that. They didn’t really see themselves as leaders, but they were. They were not necessarily the kids who wanted to run the show, but they were the ones who arrived to an event early, they stayed late to clean up, and if they saw someone working on something like stacking chairs or creating a poster, they went to help without being asked. They found places to add value.

People like this don’t always get the recognition they deserve… if you know someone like this, take the time to thank them, to appreciate them. It’s a special kind of person who doesn’t look for the attention or limelight, but is always there to help.

Perfection Paralysis

Most of us can’t imagine working on something for an hour or two then ripping it up or clicking ‘Select All’ and then hitting delete. But for students who are bitten by the perfectionist bug, it’s just something they do when what they’ve done doesn’t meet the high standard they place on themselves. They will miss a deadline because what they have written will only get them a low ‘A’, rather than a much higher one that they have their heart set on. They will have done 2 hours work on something they think will get them a 90%, then another hour and a half making it a 95%.

This is achievable for a perfectionist working on one project, but will absolutely bury them when they are trying to do this on 3 or 4 assignments simultaneously. The thing is, trying to tell a perfectionist something is ‘good enough’ is like telling a Golden Lab to save some food for later. It’s just not in their nature.

The message we try to give at our school, which has its fair share of perfectionists, is to choose your perfectionism. Don’t disregard it, but use it in some places and not in others. We do agile/scrum projects where part of the project is ‘defining done’ so that students can achieve tasks and move on, rather than spending too long on too many parts. We set challenging timelines where the focus is on completion rather than perfection.

It’s not about taking perfectionism away from a perfectionist, this is a skill many others need to learn. Instead, it’s about helping them learn to harness this skill without it consuming them. It’s about channeling perfectionism where it matters, on projects that matter, and not overwhelmingly on everything. It’s not a habit to break, it’s a skill to use when doing things where perfectionism makes a difference, rather than being something that consumes a kid with unrealistic stress and hours of wasted time.

Good kid, bad choices

Sometimes good kids make bad choices. They do things they shouldn’t, and when they are caught they have to face some consequences. But when they do, it’s a lot easier to work with them, to come to an agreement about how behaviours need to change, when dealing with a good kid. It’s easier to work on what wrongs have to be righted, when you know they are good kids. It’s not hard to deal with good kids when they make bad choices, the bad choices don’t make them a bad kid.

The thing is… all kids are good kids. When you start with the premise that every kid is inherently good, then the important thing becomes dealing with the issue. The focus becomes restitution and not punishment. The discipline becomes logical consequences. The issues and circumstances that led the good kid to make bad choices becomes the thing being dealt with.

Making things right might include the student doing something they don’t want to do. It might include challenging consequences, this isn’t about giving a good kid a break. It’s about seeing the good in someone and asking ‘how can I help this kid see that they are good and help them realize they made a bad choice?’ It’s about making the situation better, then laying the groundwork for the student to make better choices the next time.

Good kid, bad choices. If that’s where the conversation begins, if that’s what you see, then the work done to make things better feels authentic, and is more likely to foster better behaviour in the future… Because you expect good things from good kids, and good kids learn to do good things when they believe they are good.

Favourite question

Inquiry Hub is a school where students need to be self directed. A good portion of a student’s day is determined by the student. On any give school day students can have 1-3 hours where they are deciding what they want to work on. There is always work to be done for courses. There’s always a student chosen inquiry to work on. There’s always a distraction that can pull them away from their work, since they have full access to their laptops and the internet, and access to any other personal device they bring to school.

It’s a subject of a future post, but I’d love to develop a K-12 Inquiry Hub with a vision where it’s a school for every kid. But we get students at grade 9, and if they come to us without self-directed skills, and distractions prevent them from independently working and getting things done during their school day, or if they don’t self advocate when they are stuck, then our school becomes a really challenging place. It becomes a place where a student is always overwhelmed, or catching up on work, and never doing their inquiry projects… which is precisely why they came to our school.

When we interview our applicants (an interview with students and parents), we have a series of questions we ask, which really help us uncover their learning habits, and if they will thrive in our school. One question that we ask near the end doesn’t always tell us a lot about this, but it’s my favourite question. “Tell me about a time when you really had to work hard to accomplish something.” I then elaborate, “You felt a great deal of accomplishment when you were done, but it wasn’t easy.” And, “It doesn’t have to be school related.”

This question is about grit. It digs into a personal story of perseverance. And students often share some really interesting stories. We often learn about an aspect of their lives that we would not have learned otherwise, like the student has their black belt in Karate, or they’ve done 8 years of dance. I also like asking it at the end of the interview, because it finishes the interview with students thinking about something that gave them a good sense of accomplishment.

Last night we did our last scheduled interview, and I’m looking forward to a freer evening schedule, but overall, I really enjoy the process we go through and we end up with some truly amazing kids in our school. Students who thrive and find their tribe.

We are (digitally) open

We had our second digital open house in 2 years last night. 9 students were there, 2 crew and 7 presenters, but there were many more that were showcased in videos, and involved in music and artwork to help make the show possible. It was definitely a student-made production.

This year the presentation relied heavily on audience participation. One of our seniors opened the show then manned the back end of our online form where people watching could answer questions. Then he and our host decided who would answer the question. We had 3 stations set up with microphones, one for the host, one for students, and one for teachers.

Doing this live with 3 camera views, 5 microphones, and a program that bounced back and forth between these based on audience question… live, is no easy task. On top of that there were videos scheduled, and when each person spoke, their names would come up with a slick animated graphic, designed by a student.

Anyone that has tried to run a live event would know just how challenging this would be to run. And our students did a fantastic job! It’s awesome to be able to work with these students and our team of teachers. And hopefully our open house will draw more great students to the school.

Satisfactory Work Habits

When report cards go out, they include Work Habits. The usual standard is either that you got a ‘G’ for good, or you haven’t done a good enough job. Admittedly, as a parent, I wanted to see ‘G’s more than ‘A’s, because I wanted to know that my kids were trying their best.

At Inquiry Hub we look at it differently. We think the scale is skewed to the negative with ‘Satisfactory’ being something bad, when in fact in means you are doing a ‘good enough’ job. This was part of my message home to parents that went out on report card day:

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Work Habits – The work habits provided are ‘G’ – Good, ‘S’ – Satisfactory, and ‘N’ Needs Improvement. 

Many middle and high schools break this up as ‘G’ = anything above average. ‘S’ = There are some issues. ‘N’ = Not good. Some schools even give awards for students that get “All G’s”. That is NOT what we do here. The word ‘Satisfactory’ is not a bad word. Satisfactory means doing what needs to be done. That’s not a bad thing… could it be better? Yes, it is possible that a student can step up and do more than they need to… that’s ‘Good’. And for us an ‘N’ means that work habits need improvement, like most other schools. 

We like to have a positive distinction between ‘Satisfactory’ and ‘Good’ rather than ‘Good’ being the only measure of doing good work. It’s more important to us to separate 2 kinds of ‘Good’, than 2 kinds of ‘Needs Improvement’. In fact, we have many over-achievers in our school, and one thing we stress is that sometimes it’s perfectly OK to do ‘enough’ work in one area so that you can focus more attention in another area. Can you still talk to your child about moving from ‘S’ to ‘G’? Sure, but please don’t put a lot of emphasis on this! ‘Satisfactory’ can often mean, “I did what I needed to do to get the job done.” If everything you do is always good, that’s a heck of a lot of stress to deal with when you have a lot on your plate. 

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This approach seems even more apt now that we are having students do SCRUM projects, because part of working on a scrum team is defining what ‘Done’ looks like. For some parts of a project ‘done’ doesn’t mean ‘excellent’, it means good enough to move on. This is an important skill to learn. The interesting thing is, when you are working on a team, the collective definition of done is usually more than just ‘satisfactory’, and is already better than ‘good enough’. This isn’t about putting the least amount of effort it, it’s more about not extending the team so much that they can’t finish a project on time.

Sometimes satisfactory work really is the goal, so that you have the time, energy, and enthusiasm to do other work at an excellent level. A satisfactory work habit means that you’ve done what you needed to do.

Moving forward

Yesterday was a crazy day. I have days sometimes where I set out with a plan and nothing happens as it should. I had no meetings planned until 3:30pm and I was going to get stuff done! Then I didn’t even get 3 minutes in my office at any time before 11:30am. My to do list got bigger, my stuff accomplished didn’t. It’s hard to move forward when when your day takes you a few steps back.

However, before school weight club students did come in and start their day with a workout. And some students asked if I’d do my 8-minute leg workout with them, that I showed them 2 weeks ago. And at lunch I was invited to join a group of students organizing the Remembrance Day assembly and found between 15 and 20 students eager to be involved. One of our Grade 12’s organized the meeting, invited anyone interested via our school-wide Teams channel, and took the lead in the meeting, ensuring everyone there had a role. And I was asked by other students about a budget for Halloween, as they plan events for the afternoon off for activities. An afternoon off that they negotiated with the teachers.

I love seeing students take ownership of the events we run at Inquiry Hub. They are all wearing masks, and being respectful of safety protocols. They are also moving forward with their lives and engaging in, and leading activities.

Helping students with job hunting

There’s a lesson I do yearly with incoming grade 9’s when they are working on resumes. I have them fill out a restaurant chain’s application form, and then we discuss what is important to share on application forms and resumes, then they get into threes and do mock interviews, with an interviewer, interviewee, and note-taking observer.

I share my experience as a busy Starbucks manager in a downtown store that received 90-110 applications a week, explaining how I didn’t have time to give applications 1 minute each, because just that first once-over would take me 90 minutes plus… so I’d look at just one question on the application to narrow the 90+ applications down to less than 12 that I looked at more closely. I make a big deal out of bad applications going into my ‘circular filing cabinet’.

I talk to them about how to emphasize strengths on a resume, but be careful not to exaggerate things you can’t really do. Then I share how I got a reference to help me get a job by emphasizing a strength, and I also share an embarrassing story of how I got fired because I exaggerated my abilities on an ordering system in a restaurant.

One interesting thing that happened when I was talking about references this year, was that after sharing a slide saying ‘Your references will be checked’, I shared this slide and talked about how these days potential employers will Google you.

A student who was very active in a local political campaign, in our recent election, asked if his political posts shared on social media could be an issue? I paused and had to say that personally, I like to see students involved in politics at a young age, because it shows that the student cares about the future, and their community, and is willing to volunteer time… However, I felt compelled to add that some people very well might see it as a problem if they disagree with your views. I wouldn’t have shared this a few years ago, but now it is something that I think could affect someone getting an interview. I also added that if a person who is going to be your boss holds your politics against you, they probably aren’t someone you want to work for anyway.

I enjoy doing this lesson with the new Grade 9’s. They get to know me a bit better. They get to laugh at my embarrassing story about getting fired, and the mock interviews prepare many of them for that first job interview that they will soon be doing. Because in the end, the application form and resume only get you in the door, and then the interview is what gets you the job.

Student involvement in meetings

When I recently quoted part of a post I wrote back in 2007, I shared this, “why do teachers have parent meetings about a teenage student’s education and not have the student there too?”

I can understand certain circumstances where a student might be too young, or the subject matter too sensitive for a student to participate in a meeting, but I’d guess from about grade 6 onwards, over 9/10 times it would be better if a parent-teacher meeting was a parent-student-teacher meeting. The ultimate question is, whose education is it? The students. So shouldn’t the student be part of the conversation? Shouldn’t the student see their parent and teacher both care and want what’s best for them… and are ‘on the same page’?

With that in mind, I think it’s awesome that at Inquiry Hub, students participate in Parent Advisory Council (PAC) meetings. We had one last night (online) and 3 students showed up, along with 18 parents. Last month one of them was on the agenda.

This started early on when our school was new. I began sending emails usually sent only to parents, to students as well. So when I mentioned the PAC meeting in an email a couple students asked if they could come too. When they came, the parents accepted their presence with open arms, and a tradition was started.

I can honestly say that students have only added value to the meetings. No downside. Parents love it. I love it. Students feel empowered. Students belong in conversations about their education, and their school.