"Dragonfly Visit"

Moped

We are on vacation in Thailand. Four days ago I hopped on a moped to take a practice spin before talking my girls for a ride. My first mistake was staying too close to the edge of a bend in the road… which led to driving over some gravel on the road… which led to my second, rookie, mistake of tapping on the brakes… which led to me body surfing onto the pavement then gravel at the side of the road. Ouch. Stitches required on my left knee and just below my right elbow. As I fell, my right arm instinctively went up to protect my helmeted head, so the road rash along my arm and even through my shirt is what hurts the most. Daily hospital visits for cleaning and dressing my wounds have not been fun.

Perspective: I feel blessed. Yes, this has been a royal pain in the… arm & knees, but I didn’t break any bones. I didn’t slide into traffic or get run over from behind. And, most importantly I didn’t have my daughters with me on the bike. The nurse at the hospital said that most often passengers come off far worse than drivers and that even my 4cm long & 1.5cm deep gash in my knee is considered superficial compared to what they see quite frequently in the emergency room. Blessed.

Dragonfly

The day after the moped accident happened, I was up early… too uncomfortable to sleep. I took my computer onto the balcony to catch up on some online reading, and I had a visit from a little dragonfly, pictured above. I shared this photo on Twitter and Charlotte Bradley, @CharlotteB, said,@datruss wow – how cool is that. Some believe dragonflies represent change…” And while out there with my dragonfly, I had a great talk with the head of HR about my job when I get back to Coquitlam, BC, Canada.

I’m going to be Vice Principal of LINC (Learning Innovations Network Coquitlam), which includes in its’ umbrella Continuing Education, COL (Coquitlam Open Learning), and CLC (Customized Learning Centre). LINC has exploded with respect to enrolment and growth and innovative practices in the 2 years that I’ve been away.

Perspective: I left a short 1.5 year VP job to become a Principal in China. I’m heading back into a VP job and almost everyone who has congratulated me has asked, ‘What do you think of this?” or “Happy with your new position?” Meanwhile, I couldn’t be happier to join this great team. I think my skills will compliment what is happening there, and this news is a real highlight to the thought of going ‘home’.

The dragonfly sat with me for over an hour, flying away 4 or 5 times, and always returning within minutes. For me it has ushered in some changes I’m sharing with you now.

Moving on

Packing up is never easy. Probably the hardest thing I did was move our school with almost no notice at the end of last year. The new building has proven to have some real challenges. This has significantly slowed down my personal goals for the school. Still, I couldn’t be more proud of the teachers and what they’ve done to maintain programs and still provide excellent opportunities for students. Although my 2 year contract is over, leaving now seems too short. Our family discussed staying another year, but in the end we’ve decided that it is time to head home… another move to make.

Perspective: I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. I think as a family we have really come together. Missing family back home is one of the main reasons we will return. I don’t share all that much about my family on my blog, but they are amazing and I couldn’t love them more. My online profiles read: A husband, a parent… An educator, a student… A thinker, a dreamer… An agent of change. It is deliberate that I have husband and parent first in my profile.

Reading this a couple days ago, by Derek K. Miller, who died 2 years younger than I am now, really helped inspire this post on perspective:

Here it is. I’m dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote…  by Derek K. Miller.

Attention

There seems to be some backlash about blogging recently. Lyn Hilt said in her post: Inspired, selfish, or both?

“Are administrators who blog and tweet self-indulgent at the expense of their schools?

My response to that question is also a question. Why is this a topic of conversation? Is this not yet another example of how the work of educators is viewed through such a critical, judgmental lens?”

My comment response also begs the question, ‘Why is this a topic of conversation?’

I’ve come across a number of teachers and administrators defending their use of social networks and blogging recently. “It’s attention-seeking and self promotion” seems to be a common thing said by those uninitiated to the power of social media.

Perspective: Rather than trying to justify how I’m not attention-seeking and self-promoting, I said this in a comment recently:

The reality is that I unashamedly want more attention… but not for the reasons people think. I’m not looking for fame or a new job. I’m looking to be the greatest influence I can be and a bigger audience to my blog means I have more influence, richer conversations, and more opportunities to learn. If I didn’t want that, I’d journal privately and not blog.

So here it is: please subscribe to my RSS, or get updates by email, and follow me on twitter, and check out my Daily-Ink blog. If you think I link too much to myself on Twitter then stop following me, just don’t ask me to apologize for my self-promotion. I want to be a change agent, I want to make the educational experience for my children and all children the best it can be… now. I want your attention, your comments, your feedback, your criticism, your insight. I’d like to hear thoughts from other bloggers about this too… look deep into why you blog and tell me if you don’t want the same?

Leadership

My job in China is not over, I’ve got tons to do to make the final five weeks of school great! Knowing about my new position back home does not diminish the job I have have to do now!

Perspective: I’ve got an even bigger job to ensure that the new incoming principal has a smooth transition and that next year can be even better than this year. If I leave a void behind, then I’ve failed in my leadership.

Perspective

One of my first posts upon moving to China was Destinations and Dispositions: ‘…My disposition is something that I can choose. My choice will make this journey everything I hope it can be, and more!’

I’ve also mentioned before that I learned a valuable lesson from the movie ‘The Razor’s Edge’ starring Bill Murray,

I realized then and there that we tend to pay far more attention to people and things that are negative and annoy us than on the things we should be happy and appreciative about. I’d like to think that this is learned and not human nature. We don’t have to focus on the negative, and we are better people when we don’t.

My knees and arm have been stinging for every waking moment of the past 4 days, and still I feel blessed. Life is too short to mope. Carpe Diem

10 comments on “Perspective

  1. Great post David…AWESOME! Perspective is huge and we can truly choose our attitude and response to anything we experience in life. I believe that having gratitude now puts us in the right frame of mind and allows us to be more open to more of the good things to come. Be negative and you get negative; be positive, optimistic, and grateful and you get more of that! Good luck with the move!

    Tom

  2. Congratulations on your new position as VP with LINC! I teach at a small Distributed Learning / Continuing Ed school in BC so I’ll be interested in hearing your perspective things. Oh, and is it ‘Life is too short to mope’, or ‘Life is too short to moped’? 😉

  3. David: What great thoughts and reflections on transitions, goals, and new challenges…and of course, perspective! All the best in your new experiences and journey ahead!

  4. Hi, again! So, so very glad you blogged this section on “Attention.”(as usual, you beat me to it ~ must be a novice blogging kink I need to work through) 🙂

    Hopefully this comment will serve as a quite perfect example of the how’s and why’s regarding a teacher’s need and desire to blog. Before partaking in this conversation and others about “attention-seeking” behaviors, I did sometimes question myself only after being called out about it. Literally, “Am I doing this for some self-serving, narcissistic purpose? What do I want to ‘get’ out of blogging? Scary as it may be, I answered myself, too, “I don’t want to ‘get’ anything from this, I just want to ‘give’ of my experience. When I give and someone else gets, it motivates me to work harder, to do more, to be better. That’s it. Because, if I can have some influence on others locally, my school & my community might be a better place because of it. My son is growing up in this community. Parenting can inadvertently change our perspective on just about anything.” Dan Pink’s Drive (http://www.danpink.com/drive) helped me better understand this about myself this year.

    By nature, teachers who are in this business for the right reasons are altruistic. Our intrinsic motivation to do just about anything comes from being able to give and to give back. And the ‘attention’ or rather, the encouragement, support, and accolades we receive serve only to make us better at what we do. Period.

    I’ve learned a lot in the past two years, you see, and it is because of the graciousness of others who shared their experiences via their blogs. Likewise, I am certainly not after fame or a new job. Political rhetoric and the current systematic state of the American Education system aside, I really like my current job. This is my home. This is my community. My virtual world is my community, too. You do well to acknowledge those uninitiated to the power of social media; those who criticize the meaningfulness of online relationships.

    The power of social media accelerates the notion of six degrees of separation. In the present, you and I have never met. However, over a year ago, I, too worked with Julie and Vicki but in Mumbai, not in Beijing as you did most recently. I still do a lot of work with Flat Classroom Projects and as far as I am concerned, yes, I do ‘know’ you. I know I can trust your words of wisdom as genuine and authentic. I am only just beginning and I need people like you to keep blogging.

    SO, thank you. Through blogging, you just helped me to learn it is OK to say, “Yes! I am doing this for attention, albeit not in the typical, misconstrued perception of what ‘attention’ may mean to some.” And, I’ll continue to do so. A resounding, “Yes!” to the question you pose about looking deep into the reasons behind our blogging… I do want the same.

    Thank you, my friend, as I’ve learned much from you in just a few short months. And, that was never planned… but that is what happens when we not only exist, but start to participate in our virtual world.

  5. David!
    What an intense period in your life!
    So,
    May your injuries heal quickly and the transfer to the new principal go smoothly. Good luck n your new job and do keep us posted! When you have a chance explain what this new place is (I’m not familiar with the terminology) – is it a private language school? For what ages?
    Good luck!

  6. Thanks for all the wonderful comments!

    I came back to school and we had a flood in the library & computer lab. I can say with assurance that neither books nor computers like to swim. It made for a long first day back, but watching my teachers, and their students, step up to help has made it a good day. We will have a fully operational library in a different room by lunch time tomorrow~ Wow. I don’t have inspirational quotes and things like that in my office, but I do have one little magnet a friend gave me: “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

    Tom, Elan & Sheila,
    Thanks for the kind words, and well wishes!

    Claire,
    I originally wrote ‘Life is too short to mope(d)’… but deleted the (d) as I didn’t think it read well… Still, I thought of it just as you did. 🙂

    Suzie,
    We have been traveling in the same ‘digital circles’ ever since I went to the Flat Classroom Conference & the ‘Attention’ section of this post was at least partially inspired by ‘conversations’ we’ve had on both of our blogs and elsewhere. So, here is a link to your blog: http://coalcrackerclassroom.wordpress.com/ … because you deserve more attention! 🙂

    Naomi,
    I’m still learning what all the terminology means myself. Here are two links for you:
    Coquitlam Continuing Education: http://www.sd43.bc.ca/ce/Pages/default.aspx
    and
    Coquitlam Online Learning: http://www.sd43.bc.ca/col/10-12/Pages/default.aspx
    I love the way Coquitlam is trying to personalize, not just blend, the education between what happens in schools and online. I’m sure I’ll have more to share as I learn more!

    ~Thanks again, Dave.

  7. Hi Dave:

    Quite a wide-ranging “Perspective”: from a painful but blessed moped misadventure, to a synchronistic encounter with a dragonfly, to the eulogical musings of a dying man (I read Derek Miller’s The Last Post), to Somerset Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge” which I read more than 50 years ago (the book was better than the movie). It was certainly a reflective perspective. Hope you are on the mend.
    Hugs for my munchkins. Love,

    Dad

  8. Hello David, congratulations on your new post and all the best in all of the transitions to follow.

    In a Pair-of-Dimes for Your Thoughts you share your ideas, perspective and values. You do not own readers’ intrepretations of your musings nor do I believe that their interpretations need a response unless you care to give one.

    Keep the ideas coming.

  9. Hi Martin,

    Actually that’s a very perceptive observation. Recently I went over some old posts and realized that people said things that I should have responded to and did not. I think now I’m taking it to the other end of the spectrum responding to all, even when a comment from me is not really needed.

    That said, one of the most rewarding things about blogging is the dialogue. I have thoroughly enjoyed our discussion on my Slowly by Slowly post and have been pondering a response to your last comment… hesitant simply because if I do say something I want it to add value. So that said, your point above is well taken and appreciated. ~Dave.

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