Part 1

I had a really funny exchange in the office with three Grade 10 students. They were talking to my secretaries when I came in and they told me how good their presentation was in their last class. The Grade 10’s are in scrum teams researching books like: Good to Great, Dare to Lead, Atomic Habits, and The Practice, and creating presentations that summarize the book and run students they are presenting to through an activity to learn a concept or two from the book.

One of the girls was sharing some strategies they used to keep students engaged, and another one said, “It was so good, we were awesome. I wish you were there to see it… Actually, no, I’m glad you weren’t because we were already nervous enough.” To this I responded, “You see me in your class all the time and I stay and watch presentations whenever I can. Have I ever been scary? Why would me watching make you nervous?”

She responded, “Well… because… you’re the Big Shebang!”

I laughed and told my secretaries that I needed a new name plate for my office.

Part 2

One of the other projects that Grade 10’s are working on is to make improvements at the school. Four of the groups have decided to do murals and part of the process created by the teacher is “Mr. Truss’ approval”. This has been great and has given me the opportunity to share some feedback. Often, I’m very aware that my suggestions can come off as instructions, and I have to be careful not to derail their plans or vision by making an off-the-cuff suggestion that they think they now need to meet to get approval. While on the other hand, some suggestions just make sense and should be done.

An example of the latter is a mural with 3 panels, and in the middle panel a small item (a blueprint) was coloured a different colour than everything else in the mural. I suggested they use one of the colours of the image the blueprint was about, visible on both the other panels. This simple change took attention away from this small item, and created continuity for the piece. That suggestion was given as, “Try changing the blueprint colour to one of the colours of the item it’s a blueprint of, and see if that ties the 3 drawings together.” And they came back agreeing that it did.

I was far less pushy with another suggestion about an identical grass silhouette at the base of each hill they are drawing, to suggest that these panels are of the same hill rather than 3 different ones. While I like this idea, I didn’t push it the same way, because it was a suggestion that they could take or leave. It would tie things together, but it’s not as compositionally important, compared to an out-of-place, uniquely coloured item pulling attention to it unnecessarily, like the blueprint.

What I’ve really enjoyed is that “Mr. Truss’ approval’ is a big thing. It’s an affirmation that their work meets a standard of expectation. What I’m keenly aware of is that as the approval giver, I can overshadow or derail the vision of the students if I’m not aware of how my feedback can be taken.

Part 3

Inquiry Hub is a very unique school. As principal I get to see students visit my office with ideas, suggestions, and permission requests all the time. While I’ve dealt with minor discipline issues, they tend to be so minor that they don’t even make it into my office. So, I don’t hold the presence of a scary principal. Furthermore, I’m invited into classes all the time to see presentations (I wish I had more time to actually go sometimes). Yet, there are still times when students get nervous that I’m watching. There is the Big Shebang effect. To me it’s humourous, but I need to remember that to some students, it’s a big deal.

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