Feeds:
Posts
Comments

The Long Game

May 26, 2026 by cultureofyes

My colleague Sandra-Lynn Shortall recently published a post, Ten Years Strong: Building Physical Literacy, One Move at a Time, and it got me thinking less about physical literacy itself and more about what it means to stay committed to something in education long enough for it to become part of who you are as a community.

I have been in the district office for about 19 years. That is long enough to have seen a lot of ideas arrive with genuine excitement and then quietly disappear. It is also long enough to have watched a smaller number of ideas take root, grow, and become something real.

Physical literacy is one of those ideas, and it is worth pausing to understand why.

Back in September 2013, I wrote a post called But Can They Throw a Ball? I was wrestling with a genuine concern. We were doing a lot of work to get kids more active, which was necessary and important, but I worried we were sometimes confusing physical activity with physical literacy.

The ability to move with confidence and competence, to develop a positive relationship with movement that could last a lifetime, felt like something different.

At that time, Diane Nelson had begun laying the groundwork for this work in our district. There was energy behind it, but also a real question about whether it would last. That was not so long ago. It was also a very long time ago.

Reading Sandra-Lynn’s account of the decade since, I am struck most by how difficult it is to change the actual makeup of school. Not just the program. Not just the schedule. Not just the policy. The felt experience of what school is, what it values, what it looks like to walk through its hallways, sit in its classrooms, and experience learning each day.

That kind of change is slow. It is stubborn. And most initiatives, however worthy, do not survive long enough to produce it. The graveyard of promising educational ideas is vast.

Physical literacy has been different.

It has made it through budget pressures, shifting priorities, a global pandemic and the relentless churn of new urgent things demanding attention. It has lasted because of people.

Diane Nelson’s vision gave it a foundation. Amber Pascual and Erin Crawford gave it a heartbeat, showing up in classrooms year after year, building the trust and relationships that no program document can manufacture. Over the course of a decade, they have delivered more than 5,000 workshops.

I think about that number and what it actually represents. Thousands of individual moments of connection with teachers and students. Thousands of times someone walked into a gym, a classroom, or a professional learning session and made the case again that this work matters.

That is what I find myself writing about here, more than physical literacy itself.

It is the thing I return to again and again in this role. Powerful educators change things. Not systems in the abstract. Not policies on their own. Not initiatives because they appear in a plan.

People change things.

People who care enough to keep showing up. People who are stubborn in the best possible way. People who continue to make the case even when the attention of the institution has shifted to something else. They are the reason anything of lasting value happens in schools.

I have written about physical literacy several times over the years, in 2019, in 2024, and earlier this year. Each time, there was more to say because there was more that had actually happened.

That is the thing about a sustained commitment. It keeps generating stories. You cannot tell an ongoing story if there is no ongoing work to tell it from.

In our district, we have been explicit about positioning physical literacy and AI as two key areas of innovation. At first glance, they may seem like very different priorities. I actually think they belong together.

One speaks to preparing students for a world that is increasingly digital. The other speaks to preparing students for a world that is increasingly sedentary.

Together, they reflect something we believe about the whole child. Being ready to learn and ready to live requires both a capable mind and a capable body. Neither is more important than the other. Both require attention. Both require leadership. And both require the patience to become part of the culture rather than just part of the calendar.

That is the thing about the long game. It is harder than it sounds.

It asks something of leaders that is easy to describe and genuinely difficult to practice. It asks us to protect something through the moments when the excitement has faded and the real work of sustaining it has arrived. It asks us to look at something that is working and resist the temptation to move on simply because something newer has appeared. It asks us to trust that depth, over time, produces something that breadth never can.

Time moves quickly. 19 years in the district teaches you that.

What it has also taught me is that the most meaningful things in a school system are almost never the newest things. They are the things someone refused to stop believing in.

To Diane, Amber, Erin, Sandra-Lynn, and everyone who has kept this work alive and growing: thank you for playing the long game.

The students in our schools are better for it.

The image at the top of this post was generated through AI.  Various AI tools were used as feedback helpers (for our students this post would be a Yellow assignment – see link to explanation chart) as I edited and refined my thinking.

Posted in Change, SD45 | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Considering Running for School Trustee? A Few Things to Know First

May 12, 2026 by cultureofyes

Full disclosure upfront: I am writing this post about an election where the trustees who are elected will become my bosses. Make of that what you will. I will try to be objective anyway.

In October 2026, communities across British Columbia will elect school trustees. In West Vancouver, the five seats on the Board of Education will be on the ballot. While trustee elections rarely generate the headlines of municipal or provincial campaigns, I would argue it is important for everyone in your local community to vote. The trustees elected in October will help guide a school system that locally serves thousands of students, employs hundreds of staff and can shape what learning looks like for years to come.

I have had the privilege of working with several boards of education during my time as a superintendent. Watching how those boards approach their work, the questions they ask, the relationships they build and the way they navigate difficult decisions has shaped my thinking about what good governance looks like in public education.

So this seems like a good time to ask: what does a school trustee actually do? And more importantly, what does it take to do it well?

The Role Is Not What Most People Think It Is

Here is where I want to be honest, because I have seen the disappointment up close. People run for school board because they care deeply about education. Maybe they had a frustrating experience as a parent. Maybe they want to champion a cause they believe in. Maybe they want to make sure their community’s values are reflected in the school system. All of those motivations are completely valid.

But the role itself often surprises people.

Trustees do not run schools. They do not manage teachers, intervene in individual classroom decisions, become involved in individual parent concerns or direct the superintendent on operational matters. They do not have a role in day to day operations of a school district. What trustees do is govern a system. As the BC School Trustees Association (BCSTA) describes it, trustees listen to their communities, guide the work of their district, hire and evaluate the superintendent, and set plans, policies and oversee the annual budget.

That is different from managing. And that distinction matters enormously.

Over a decade ago, I wrote about what makes board governance work well and the relationship between a board and its superintendent. Those posts came out of a presentation with our then-Board Chair Cindy Dekker at the BCSTA Fall Academy. One of the things we kept coming back to then is still the thing I come back to now: when governance works, it is because the board and the superintendent have a clear and respectful understanding of who does what.

In West Vancouver there are twenty board policies and more than a hundred administrative procedures. That distinction is not bureaucratic tidiness. It is the foundation of a functioning organization.

There is also a second gap that can catch people off guard. Trustees are elected as individuals, but they govern as a corporate board. Your personal passion, your neighbourhood concern, or your single issue does not become policy simply because you hold a seat at the table. Trustees are also not there to represent a small circle of voices, whether that is friends, networks or a single issue group, but to consider the needs of the entire system.  Governance requires building consensus, thinking system-wide, and sometimes accepting and articulating decisions that reflect the collective judgment of the board rather than an individual preference. That is not always easy, especially when you care deeply about an issue. But it is central to how public governance works.

And then there is a third gap: much of the work is policy and budget, not community events and ribbon cuttings. The work of the board is done in the board room. The unglamorous work of reviewing financial statements, navigating complex funding formulas, understanding collective bargaining context, and studying Ministry directives occupies far more time than most candidates anticipate.

What Makes a Good Trustee

Before answering that question, it is worth saying something clearly: school trustees across British Columbia volunteer extraordinary time and care to their communities. The role is demanding, often misunderstood and rarely glamorous. Yet hundreds of people across the province step forward each election cycle because they believe deeply in public education. Our system depends on that commitment.

The best trustees I have worked with over the years share a few things in common.

They are curious more than certain. They arrive at meetings with questions rather than verdicts. They understand the difference between the governance work they do and the operational work staff does, and they respect that boundary even when the issues are complex or emotionally charged.

They stay connected to their communities without treating the board table as a platform for a single constituency. Strong trustees think about the entire system — every student, every school — even when the conversation begins with a local concern.

And they commit the time the role actually requires. It is not a full-time job, but requires an ongoing regular investment of time. The learning curve is real, and the work demands preparation, reading, and thoughtful engagement.

One of my favourite lines from those 2014 posts still holds: if you show us a district that is going strong, you will almost certainly find a board and superintendent who are in sync and committed to doing what it takes to work together for students. That relationship is not accidental. It is built deliberately through clear process, trust, and mutual respect.

I also think about a post I wrote in 2023 called Different Voices after a BCSTA session where I was struck by the range of perspectives in the room — student leaders, Indigenous education representatives, international families, 2SLLGBTQI+ voices. Boards are strongest when they actively listen to the many voices that make up their communities rather than assuming they already know what those communities need. That kind of listening is a skill, and it matters in public governance.

BCSTA provides extensive professional learning and resources for trustees through the Trustee Academy, the various virtual and in-person workshops, and other supports. None of that replaces the learning that comes from showing up with openness and humility, but it is helpful that new trustees do not have to navigate the role alone.

Why This Work Matters Right Now

School systems are navigating a moment of significant change.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how we think about learning and knowledge. Student mental health needs have increased in ways few people anticipated a decade ago. Communities are becoming more diverse, and expectations of public institutions continue to evolve. At the same time, school districts operate within complex financial constraints and shifting provincial priorities.

None of those realities are solved by a single board meeting or a single decision. But they do shape the conversations that happen around board tables across the province.

Thoughtful governance matters in moments like this. Communities benefit when people step forward who are willing to listen carefully, ask good questions, and make decisions with the long-term health of the entire system in mind.

If You Are Considering Running

If you are thinking about running for school trustee, there are a few simple things that can help clarify whether the role is the right fit.

Prior to running attend several board meetings. Not one. Several. The texture of the work becomes clearer over time, and a single meeting rarely shows you what the job actually feels like month after month.

Talk with current or former trustees and ask them what surprised them about the role. Ask what they wish they had known when they started. And if you have the opportunity in your district, learning about the school system you would be governing can be valuable context as well.

The school trustee role deserves to be approached on its own terms. It is demanding, consequential work that benefits from people who are genuinely interested in governance and in public education.

As BCSTA has put it for more than a century, a high-quality public education system is the foundation of a strong democracy. The people who help guide that system locally matter. October is closer than it seems. Now is a good time to ask yourself seriously whether you want to do this work. If the honest answer is yes, I hope you run.

That work belongs to all of us.

The BCSTA is hosting an evolving series of resources on board elections available HERE. 
The image at the top of this post was generated through AI.  Various AI tools were used as feedback helpers (for our students this post would be a Yellow assignment – see link to explanation chart) as I edited and refined my thinking.
 

Posted in Change, SD45 | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments »

The Snap Back?

April 21, 2026 by cultureofyes

Balance.

There is a bit of a snap back happening in education right now.

You can feel it in the conversations, see it in policy, and hear it in the tone. A renewed emphasis on basics. A return to exams. Attendance and work habits being folded back into grades. A growing narrative that student achievement is declining and that schools need to get “back on track.”

In Ontario, we are seeing moves toward mandatory exams and the inclusion of attendance in final marks. In Sweden, the shift is toward textbooks and a reassertion of foundational skills as the primary purpose of school. Australia is hearing prominent calls for a back-to-basics approach in reading, writing, and mathematics, framed around declining national assessment results. And in England, a national curriculum review is underway, explicitly building on what it calls a “knowledge-rich” approach while examining whether current assessments are serving all students well.

The same conversation, across very different contexts.

It is not hard to understand why this is happening.

We are in a moment where the world feels less stable than it has in a long time. AI is accelerating change. Students are more distracted. Engagement feels uneven. The aftershocks of the pandemic are still with us. In that kind of environment, there is a natural pull toward clarity. Toward things we can see, count, and understand.

Exams feel clear. Attendance feels concrete. “Back to basics” feels reassuring.

And in uncertain times, reassurance carries weight.

There is also something deeper underneath this. A sense, for some, that perhaps we have drifted too far. That in trying to broaden what we value in schools, we may have lost focus on the fundamentals. That narrative is gaining traction, and it is one we should take seriously.

Because there is truth in parts of it.

Attendance matters. Foundational skills matter. Engagement matters.

But this is where we need to be careful.

The risk is not that we are paying attention to the basics. The risk is that we begin to narrow our definition of success at the exact moment learning is expanding.

In West Vancouver, we are clear about the importance of strong foundations. Literacy and numeracy are not optional. They remain one of the three key tenets of our work in schools. And we have not shied away from the Foundation Skills Assessment. We see it as a useful reference point for families and a source of data for teachers to inform instruction. A snapshot, honestly taken, that helps us understand where students are.

But we also hold tightly to the idea that you can be pro foundational skills and pro innovation at the same time. These are not competing values. We intentionally connect literacy and numeracy to our work in AI, and to physical literacy, recognizing that learning is cognitive, creative, and physical all at once.

And we hold tightly to “all means all.”

Not just in access, but in success.

That belief matters in this moment, because when systems feel pressure, there is often a quiet shift in who we design for. Measures that feel clear and consistent can begin to advantage the students who already know how to do school well, while creating new barriers for those who need something different to thrive.

That is not the intent. But it can be the impact.

Because while schools are feeling pressure to simplify, the world our students are entering is becoming more dynamic, more unpredictable, and harder to navigate.

AI is a big part of that shift.

Students no longer need school primarily for access to information. They carry that in their pockets. Increasingly, they can generate it on demand.

What they need now is something different.

They need to be able to make sense of information, to question it, to apply it in new contexts, to create with it, and to work with others in increasingly complex environments.

Those are harder things to measure.

And so there is a temptation to double down on what is easier.

Exams. Attendance. Compliance.

Exams are not the problem. But they are not the solution either. We should be careful when the things that are easiest to measure become the things we value most.

Because when that happens, we can unintentionally move away from “all means all,” and toward a system that works very well for some students, and less well for others.

This is where the narrative of declining achievement also deserves a closer look.

There is some truth in the data. In many jurisdictions, including high-performing ones, we have seen dips in international assessments. That should get our attention. But it should not become the entire story.

Because at the same time, systems like ours in British Columbia continue to perform at high levels globally. And perhaps more importantly, schools have taken on a far broader and more complex role than they did even a decade ago.

We are asking more of students.

Not just to recall information, but to think critically, to collaborate, to adapt, and to navigate uncertainty. If our measures remain fixed while expectations evolve, it is not surprising that the story can begin to feel like decline.

So when we say achievement is declining, it is worth asking: declining in what, measured how, and against what expectations?

Globally, the picture is more nuanced than the headlines suggest. Some systems are leaning into structure, standardization, and a renewed focus on foundational skills. Others are pushing further into creativity, agency, and broader competencies. The most thoughtful approaches are not choosing one over the other. They are trying, imperfectly, to hold both.

In British Columbia, we have spent the last two decades moving in that direction. We have worked to build a more balanced understanding of student success, one that values both strong foundations and the ability to think, create, and connect.

That work has not been perfect, but it has been meaningful. And in many ways, it has positioned our system as one others look to.

That is why the current moment matters.

Not because we should ignore the signals we are seeing, but because we should resist the urge to respond by retreating.

There are things we should absolutely strengthen. Literacy and numeracy need continued focus. Attendance matters and needs to be addressed. Engagement is something we should always be working on.

But we do not need to abandon a broader vision of learning to address current challenges. In fact, doing so may leave our students less prepared for the world they are entering, and may move us further from the idea that all students can succeed.

In times of uncertainty, there is a strong pull toward simplicity. Toward clearer measures. Toward more familiar approaches.

That pull is understandable. But it is not always wise. Because the future our students are heading into is not becoming more simple. It is becoming more dynamic, more unpredictable, and more complex.

Our challenge is not to make school feel simpler.

It is to ensure that students leave ready for that reality. Grounded in strong foundations, yes. But also able to think, adapt, create, and navigate a world that will continue to change around them.

For all students.

That is the goal.

And it requires us to resist the easy answers, even when they feel right.

Not a swing of the pendulum, but a commitment to nuance.

The image at the top of this post was generated through AI.  Various AI tools were used as feedback helpers (for our students this post would be a Yellow assignment – see link to explanation chart) as I edited and refined my thinking.

Posted in Change | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Disagreeing Without Dividing

April 8, 2026 by cultureofyes

There is a particular kind of book that arrives at exactly the right moment and knows it. George Couros’s Forward, Together is one of those books. Not because it is timely in a trendy way, but because it names something that is genuinely hard to name: that how we disagree matters, and that curiosity and conviction are not opposites.

I have known George for close to twenty years. We came up together in education, both starting in schools, both trying to figure out what good leadership looked like. At some point our paths diverged in the way that happens in this work. I stayed rooted in school district leadership, and George went deep into writing and speaking. Neither path is better. They are simply different ways of trying to contribute.

What I have always appreciated about George is not that we agree on everything. We do not. Over the years we have called each other out and pushed each other’s thinking. But it has always been done with respect, with honesty and with a shared belief that we are both trying to make education better. That is the context in which I read this book, and I think it matters.

George has always had a knack for writing for the moment. The Innovator’s Mindset arrived when schools were ready for a different conversation (I wrote about it HERE in 2016). It gave educators language for something many were already feeling and invited them to think differently about learning, leadership and possibility.

But the moment this new book speaks into is a very different one.

We are not in a season of broad optimism about educational innovation, at least not in the way 2015 felt. We are in something harder. Public education is facing more suspicion, more polarization and more certainty than curiosity. In some places, especially in the United States but certainly not only there, public schools themselves have become the target rather than a shared foundation. In that context, a book subtitled Moving Schools from Conflict to Community in Contentious Times feels timely in the best possible way.

The book draws on George’s experiences as a teacher, technology facilitator, administrator and parent. It is structured around principles and stories, which is a smart choice. The principles matter, of course, but the stories are where George is at his best. That is where the book becomes more than advice. It becomes an example.

Because what stayed with me most was not the structure or even the specific ideas. It was the posture of the whole thing.

George acknowledges, genuinely and without performance, that he has been wrong. Early in the book he reflects on a moment from 2011, sitting in a leadership conference listening to a presenter argue against the use of technology in schools, even as George had been working hard to integrate it meaningfully in his own context. He does not tell that story simply to show he was ahead of the curve. He uses it to examine his own reactions, his own certainty and what that certainty may have cost him in terms of connection.

That kind of reflection is in short supply right now. And it matters.

One of the central ideas running through the book is that progress rarely comes from winning arguments. It comes from building trust, fostering connection and helping people move together. That does not mean avoiding disagreement. Healthy organizations need challenge. They need people willing to ask hard questions, resist easy answers and push on assumptions.

But there is a difference between disagreement that sharpens thinking and disagreement that hardens people. And that distinction feels especially important in this moment.

George has talked about the idea of moving education forward through understanding rather than agreement. That is worth sitting with. Understanding and agreement are not the same thing. You can hold your ground and still genuinely try to understand where someone else is coming from. That is not weakness or indecision or compromise for the sake of appearances. It is what keeps conviction from becoming useless.

At the same time, I want to name something the book also gets right: the language of listening and curiosity can sometimes become a way of avoiding hard truths or delaying necessary action. Public education does not need more timidity dressed up as nuance. There are moments when leaders need to be clear, direct, and willing to stand for something. Forward, Together is not a call to soften everything or make endless room for every perspective regardless of harm. It is a reminder that if we want change to last, people have to feel they are part of it, not simply on the receiving end of it.

Curiosity is not the absence of conviction. It is what keeps conviction from becoming useless.

This is also a reminder those of us inside public education need to hear about our own debates. We argue about curriculum, assessment, technology, pedagogy, and structures with real energy and sometimes real sharpness. Some of that is genuinely healthy and I would not want it any other way. But the people who care enough to argue about how best to serve students are not each other’s real opposition. There is plenty of pressure on public education coming from outside, from people with very little interest in whether we get the assessment model right or the homework debate resolved. Those of us who have devoted our careers to public education, whatever our disagreements about how best to do that work, are on the same side. It would help if we acted like it more often.

That is part of what makes Forward, Together land the way it does. It does not ask us to give up our convictions. It asks us to hold them in a way that leaves room for other people. And it models that rather than just prescribing it, which is probably the highest compliment I can give any book.

George has been doing this work publicly for a long time. This book feels like one of the clearest expressions of that work yet: not a guide on how to agree, but a reminder of how to move forward without dividing ourselves beyond repair.

The image at the top of this post was generated through AI.  Various AI tools were used as feedback helpers (for our students this post would be a Yellow assignment – see link to explanation chart) as I edited and refined my thinking.

Posted in Book Club, Change | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

Breaking News: AI Report Cards! Because Why Should Teachers Have All the Fun?

April 1, 2026 by cultureofyes

It seems like everywhere we turn these days, AI is there to help. It writes our emails, plans our meals, reminds us to breathe, judges our parallel parking, and tells us whether we would look better with bangs. It was only a matter of time before we asked the obvious question: why are teachers still writing report cards like it is 1987?

After extensive consultation with the Institute for FRANK (Feedback and Reporting through Algorithmic Narrative Knowledge), and a surprisingly aggressive chatbot named Derek,  West Vancouver Schools will be piloting a revolutionary AI Report Card Generator this spring. Derek has already asked to be credited as a “strategic thought partner” in this initiative. But here’s where it gets exciting: parents will be able to select their preferred “feedback mode” to customize how they receive information about their child’s progress.

“We recognized that different families process feedback differently,” explains Dr. Loof Lipra, our lead consultant from the Silicon Valley Institute for Educational Automation. “Some parents want gentle encouragement. Others want the unvarnished truth. Our system delivers both, and so much more.”

The Six Feedback Modes

After analyzing 14,000 report cards and cross-referencing them with parent satisfaction surveys, our AI has been trained to deliver comments in six distinct modes. Here is how each might describe a student who, shall we say, participates actively in class discussion:

During testing the AI produced the comment “uses class time creatively” which teachers confirmed was the most accurate report card sentence ever written by a machine.

Diplomatic Mode “Shows a genuine enthusiasm for verbal contribution that enriches classroom dialogue and ensures no silence goes unfilled.”

Growth Mindset Mode “Continuing to develop the executive function skills that will one day help distinguish between moments for sharing insights and moments for quiet reflection. This is a journey, and what a journey it is.”

Brutally Honest Mode “Talks constantly. Has opinions about everything. Shared a 12 minute review of a sandwich at lunch. Last week’s topics included ranking all of the colours, contemplation of taking up yodeling and a theory about how birds are really just sky fish. Please advise.”

Motivational Coach Mode “THIS KID IS AN ABSOLUTE COMMUNICATION WARRIOR! Every word is a VICTORY! Every hand raised is a MOMENT OF TRIUMPH! Keep CRUSHING those classroom discussions, you LEGENDARY LEARNER!”

Poet Laureate Mode “A voice rises in the learning space Filling silence with boundless grace Thoughts abundant, eager to share Words floating gently through the air Though perhaps, at times, too swift the pace.”

LinkedIn Influencer Mode “Thrilled to share that [Student] is absolutely crushing it in the Grade 1 space. After a strong Q1 marked by exceptional carpet time presence and a bold pivot from crayons to markers, [Student] is now exploring strategic naptime optimization. Grateful for the educators who believed in the vision. Big things ahead. Stay tuned.”

Early Pilot Results

Beta testing at three district schools has yielded promising results, along with some unexpected developments.

“I selected Diplomatic Mode but somehow received Brutally Honest,” reports one Sentinel parent. “It said my son ‘demonstrates creativity in interpreting deadlines’ and ‘can create the strong impression that something important is happening, even when the results remain difficult to detect.’ It also noted he has ‘pioneered a method of opening his Chromebook and staring thoughtfully into the distance.’ I have never felt more seen.”

Teachers have reported significant time savings, though some have noted the AI occasionally “goes rogue.” One Rockridge teacher discovered the system had invented a seventh mode called “Passive Aggressive” that included comments like “Attendance has been noted” and “Continues to make choices.”

Chartwell Grade 4 student Ella Vator shared her enthusiasm: “I hope my parents pick Motivational Coach mode because then maybe they’ll finally understand that I’m a LEGEND.”

Meanwhile, Irwin Park Grade 6 student Doug Deeper raised concerns: “If AI writes all the report cards, does that mean AI is going to parent teacher conferences next? Actually, wait. Can it? Also, can it explain fractions to my Dad?”

Future Developments

Given the success of the pilot, the District is already exploring expanded applications:

Phase 2 will introduce AI Teacher Evaluations, featuring modes including “Supportive Colleague,” “Reality Show Judge” and the much anticipated “Inspirational Sports Movie Voiceover.”

Phase 3 will pilot AI Parent Report Cards, providing families with feedback on homework support consistency, permission slip response times, and “appropriate snack provision.” Early sample comments include “Shows growth in responding to emails within the same calendar month” and “Demonstrates resilience in the face of repeated requests to label clothing.”

Phase 4, still in development, will introduce an AI Superintendent Blog Writer. This initiative has been met with some resistance, particularly from me.  Chatbot Derek believes the job should be his and has already asked whether the position includes dental coverage.

Selecting Your Mode

Parents will receive a link to select their preferred feedback mode beginning April 15th. Those who do not make a selection will be automatically enrolled in “Chaos Mode,” which rotates randomly between all six modes within a single report card. One sample comment from early testing read: “Shows leadership potential. Needs reminders. Is a joy. Requires supervision. A poem follows.” Early testers have described this experience as “disorienting,” “oddly accurate,” and “like reading a report card written by six different people who have never met but somehow all know my child too well.”

A Moment of Reflection

In all seriousness (and I use that phrase loosely today), this initiative speaks to a larger truth about where we find ourselves. AI is writing our emails, planning our vacations, summarizing our meetings, and suggesting what we should watch, eat, and buy. It was only a matter of time before it offered to tell us how our kids are doing in math.

But some things, I suspect, still benefit from a human touch. The teacher who notices a student is having a hard week. The comment that reflects genuine knowledge of a child’s journey. The honest but kind observation that could only come from someone who has watched a learner grow.

Then again, the AI did write a pretty solid 5 line rhyme about a kid who talks too much (Derek insists it was his). So perhaps the jury is still out.

Happy April Fools’ Day, everyone.

To catch you up on some of the other bold innovations I have shared in recent years, here is a list:

In 2012 I launched my FLOG.

In 2013 I made the announcement of Quadrennial Round Schooling.

In 2014 we formalized our System of Student Power Rankings.

In 2015 we created our Rock, Paper, Scissors Academy.

In 2016 we piloted the Drone Homework Delivery System.

In 2017 we introduced the Donald J. Trump Elementary School of Winning.

In 2018 we announced the construction of Soak City Elementary.

In 2019 we went back to the 80’s with the launch of the Belvedere Learning Academy.

In 2020 we embraced the latest in learning styles with our PBL (Pajama-Based Learning) Program.

In 2021 we announced we were going out of this world with our Galaxy High Program.

In 2022 we modernized our schools with New Nicknames for All of Our Schools.

In 2023 we embraced our expanded mandate with our Animal Kingdom Academy.

In 2024 we pushed the technology boundaries with several key initiatives including time travel field trips with Technology and Innovation: Where Next?

And last year we revolutionized athletics with Track and Field Without Running.

The image at the top of this post was generated through AI.  Various AI tools were used as feedback helpers (for our students this post would be a Yellow assignment – see link to explanation chart) as I edited and refined my thinking.

Posted in Assessment, Change, Parenting | Tagged , | 3 Comments »

What’s Your EGOT?

March 11, 2026 by cultureofyes

It started with TikTok. Not the way I usually begin a blog post, I know.

My 22 year old son was sharing something he had come across online about the EGOT. If you are like me and this was a new term, EGOT stands for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony, the four major awards in American entertainment. Winning all four is considered one of the rarest achievements in the performing arts. Only about two dozen people in history have done it. Audrey Hepburn. Whoopi Goldberg. Mel Brooks. John Legend. And just recently, Steven Spielberg completed his EGOT with his first Grammy win.

What makes the EGOT so compelling is not that someone won four awards. It is that each award represents mastery in a completely different domain. Television. Music. Film. Theatre. You cannot achieve it by going deeper in one area. You have to go wider. You have to be excellent across distinct worlds, not just within one. My son explained all of this, and we talked about some of the winners and how long it took them. Some achieved it in just a few years. Others took decades.

Then the conversation shifted in a way I did not expect. He asked me: What would be your personal EGOT? Not the entertainment version. A life version. Four monumental accomplishments, across different dimensions of who you are, that together would represent a kind of complete, well-lived success. Not one single promotion. Not a big moment. But four achievements, spanning different parts of your life, that when taken together would signal something rare and meaningful. I have been thinking about it ever since.

Why It Is Harder Than It Sounds

The instinct is to start listing accomplishments, but that misses the point entirely. If all four of your categories live inside your job title, you have not built an EGOT. You have built a performance review. A personal EGOT has to work the way the real one does. The four categories need to be distinct. They should span different dimensions of a life: your professional impact, your relationships, your personal growth, your creative or intellectual contribution. And at least one of them should sit in a space where no one is watching, where there is no audience and no award, where the only person who knows whether you showed up is you.

What Could Go Into a Personal EGOT?

This is where it gets interesting, because the categories will look completely different depending on who you are and what you value. That is the whole point. For a classroom teacher, maybe it is the lesson that changed a student’s trajectory, the relationship with a colleague that made both of you better, the years of quiet professional learning that no one saw, and the moment you realized your classroom had become a place where every kid felt they belonged. For a principal, maybe it is the culture you built in a school, the leaders you developed who went on to lead their own schools, the trust you earned from a community during a difficult time, and the personal discipline that kept you grounded through all of it.

For a parent, maybe it is the career you built, the marriage you sustained, the children you raised into independent people, and the personal passion you refused to let go of even when life got busy. For a coach, maybe it is the championships and the losing seasons that taught you more, the former players who still call you, the way you showed up for practice on the days nobody was watching, and the moment you realized coaching was never really about the sport. The categories are yours to define. But they have to stretch you. They have to cross boundaries. And at least one of them should make you a little uncomfortable, because it represents a dimension of your life where you have not yet done enough.

The Quiet Part

Here is what I think makes this exercise so valuable, and why it has stayed with me since that conversation with my son. Most of us, if we are honest, are chasing one or two of our four. We pour ourselves into our careers. Or into our families. Or into our health. And the other categories quietly fade. We tell ourselves we will get to them later. But later has a way of becoming never.

The EGOT forces a question that is easy to avoid: Am I paying attention to all four? Or have I let something important go silent while the other parts of my life got louder? I went through my own version of this exercise. I will not share all four here, but I will say this: one of mine has nothing to do with education. It lives completely outside my professional life, and it is the one I have been most tempted to neglect over the years. Naming it out loud, even just to myself, changed how I thought about the rest.

Your Turn

So here is the invitation. Think about your personal EGOT. Not four things you have already done, though some of them might be underway. Think about four categories of excellence that, if you could achieve all of them across the arc of your life, would represent the fullest, most complete version of who you want to be. Make sure they are distinct. Make sure they stretch across different dimensions. Make sure at least one of them scares you a little. And then ask yourself the honest question: if someone who loves you defined your four, would they match yours? It is a conversation worth having.

I am glad my son started it, even if it came from TikTok.

The image at the top of this post was generated through AI.  Various AI tools were used as feedback helpers (for our students this post would be a Yellow assignment – see link to explanation chart) as I edited and refined my thinking.

Posted in Change | Tagged , , | 3 Comments »

Repetition Is Part of the Work

March 4, 2026 by cultureofyes


We were putting significant energy into bringing Sarah Ward back to speak with families and staff about executive functioning in late January. It is important work, and we know it matters. Still, a small voice in my head said, haven’t we already done this?

And then I paused.

Sara last spoke to our community in 2017.

That was nine years ago.

In that time, more than half of our current parents likely did not have children in the system. A significant portion of our staff were not yet working here. And in a K–12 district, roughly 75 percent of our students weren’t even enrolled yet. Many of our parents’ own experiences of school are now twenty or more years old.

When you look at it that way, the idea that we have “already done this” doesn’t really hold.What is actually happening is something else entirely.

Leadership has memory. Communities don’t.

Those of us who stay in systems long enough carry the history with us. We remember when an idea was first introduced, how it landed, what worked, what didn’t. That institutional memory is valuable. It helps us avoid fads. It gives us perspective. It allows us to be steady.

But it also creates a blind spot.

While leaders remember, school communities renew themselves every year. Every September, new families arrive. New staff join teams. Students move through grades and eventually out of the system altogether. Culture, unlike policy, does not persist on its own. It has to be retaught, re-explained, and re-lived—not because it failed the first time, but because that’s how learning actually works.

Repetition isn’t stagnation. It’s how understanding is built. And it’s often what makes real improvement possible.

I think about our principals who meet with new Kindergarten parents each fall. The presentation is familiar. The questions are fairly predictable. For the principal, it can feel like Groundhog Day. But for those families sitting in the library, it is their first time. Their child is about to start school. Everything is new.

The work of leadership, in that moment, is to deliver that message like you did the first time.

Because to the people hearing it, it matters.

This is the companion idea to what I wrote in my last post, Steadiness as Strategy. There, I argued that steadiness isn’t the opposite of innovation, but its prerequisite. That without trust and a stable foundation, real improvement is hard to sustain.

What I didn’t fully name is what steadiness asks of leaders.

It asks us to say things we’ve said before, to people who have never heard them. It asks us to resist the pull of novelty when the work that matters is still unfinished. It asks us to stay interested in ideas long after they have stopped feeling new to us.

But here’s where it gets complicated.

Not all repetition is the same. Some repetition serves the community. Some repetition just serves us.

I wrote a few years ago about teaching and aging rock stars. Roger Daltrey of The Who once said there was no point in producing new music because fans just want to hear the classics. Just play the greatest hits. And I get it. There’s comfort in the familiar, for the audience and for the performer.

But the artists I admire most, people like Paul Simon, take a different approach. They know the crowd wants to hear the songs that made them famous. They play those songs. But they also keep creating. They rework old material. They stay curious. They resist the temptation to coast on what already worked.

The question for leaders is the same one facing any artist with a robust catalog: are you repeating because it still matters, or because it’s comfortable?

That’s the discernment this work requires.

Executive functioning matters. It mattered in 2017, and it matters now. So we bring Sarah Ward back. This summer, BCSSA is bringing Yong Zhao back to speak with superintendents from across the province, not because we have run out of ideas, but because these ideas still matter, and most of the people who need to hear them have changed since the last time they were said.

Capacity takes years to build. Communities don’t stand still while we build it.

But if I am honest, there are other things I repeat that are harder to justify. Familiar phrases. Comfortable framings. The Superintendent Greatest Hits. Sometimes I catch myself reaching for them not because the audience needs to hear them, but because I already know how to say them.

Steadiness is not the same as stagnation. But the line between them isn’t always obvious. The difference is intention. Am I repeating this because the community hasn’t heard it, or because I haven’t bothered to think of something better?

Earlier in my career, I might not have asked that question. Repetition felt like a lack of momentum. It felt like you weren’t moving fast enough, or far enough, or boldly enough.

Now, I see it differently.

Steadiness creates the conditions for learning to deepen. Trust allows people to hear ideas they may not have been ready for the first time. And consistency sends a signal: this matters enough to stay with.

But only if it actually does.

So when we bring an idea back into focus, when we invite a speaker again, revisit a framework, or restate a belief, we’re not circling.

We are anchoring.

The work isn’t to constantly invent. It is to welcome new people into ideas that matter, again and again.

Without coasting. And without apology.

The image at the top of this post was generated through AI.  Various AI tools were used as feedback helpers (for our students this post would be a Yellow assignment – see link to explanation chart) as I edited and refined my thinking.

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, SD45 | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

Steadiness as Strategy

February 24, 2026 by cultureofyes

In my year-end reflection last December, I found myself dwelling on something that might seem unremarkable: there wasn’t a lot of drama in BC education this past year. No major controversies. No political firestorms. No headlines.

And I wrote: that’s a good thing.

In a year when AI, politics, and social media all seemed determined to manufacture urgency, the absence of drama stood out. It felt almost countercultural to say it out loud, but it was true.

I’ve spent more than 500 posts championing innovation, asking “what if,” and pushing against “we’ve always done it this way.” I’ve written about AI, about rethinking assessment, about challenging assumptions. This blog is called Culture of Yes for a reason. I believe in trying things.

So let me be clear: this isn’t a retreat from any of that.

But here’s what I’ve come to believe in this work: steadiness is a strategy. And it might be the most underrated one we have.

This tension between innovation and improvement isn’t new. It’s been a sustaining conversation in education for much of this century, and I’ve returned to it in different ways on this blog. In 2011, I wrote about Valerie Hannon’s “split screen approach,” the idea that we need to improve the system of today while simultaneously designing the system of tomorrow. In 2013, I used the movie Groundhog Day to warn against simply repeating each year a little better, noting that we want to teach for 25 years, not for one year repeated 25 times. And in 2017, I explored the tension between getting better and getting different, and found that when we embrace doing things differently, traditional results often improve too.

So what’s changed in my thinking?

Maybe this: I’ve come to see steadiness not as the opposite of innovation, but as its prerequisite.

We live in a world that celebrates disruption. We reward the bold move, the big announcement, the pivot. In education, we talk constantly about reimagining and transformation. The language of change is everywhere.

And some of that is good. Schools should absolutely be places of wonder and joy and amazement. We should try new things. We should ask hard questions about whether what we’re doing is actually working.

But there’s a difference between innovation and improvement. Innovation asks, “What’s new?” Improvement asks, “What’s better?” Both matter. The problem is that improvement is quieter. It doesn’t photograph well. It rarely makes the newsletter.

Innovation introduces variance. Improvement reduces variance. Healthy systems need both.

I often come back to a phrase I’ve borrowed from others over the years: you don’t have to be sick to get better. That reframes the whole enterprise. We’re not in crisis mode. We’re not fixing something broken. We’re refining something that’s working, and that kind of work requires patience, repetition, and a willingness to resist the shiny thing.

What makes that kind of slow, steady improvement possible? Trust.

And trust, in a school system, is built through consistency. When the Board is consistent with its expectations, the executive team can plan. When the executive team is consistent, principals can lead. When principals are consistent, teachers can teach. When teachers are consistent, students can learn. That chain isn’t bureaucracy. It’s infrastructure. It is the solid ground that lets people take risks, because they know the foundation won’t shift beneath them.

Sometimes progress looks like not having to explain the same thing again.

I’ll admit something. Earlier in my leadership journey, I felt pressure to prove myself through visible wins. The flashy initiative. The big rollout. The thing you could point to and say, “I did that.” It’s natural. When you’re newer to a role, you want to show you belong there.

Somewhere along the way, that shifted. Maybe it’s experience. Maybe it’s just getting older. I have become more comfortable letting the work speak quietly. The best days in our schools aren’t the ones that make headlines. They are the ones where a student finally understands something that has been just out of reach. Where a teacher tries something new and it lands. Where a conversation in a hallway changes a kid’s trajectory.

None of that trends. All of it compounds.

So yes, I’ll keep advocating for wonder and joy and amazement in our schools. I’ll keep pushing us to ask whether we’re doing right by every student. But I have also made peace with something: the most important work often looks, from the outside, like nothing is happening at all.

Steadiness doesn’t make headlines. But it makes a difference.

The image at the top of this post was generated through AI.  Various AI tools were used as feedback helpers (for our students this post would be a Yellow assignment – see link to explanation chart) as I edited and refined my thinking.

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments »

The Educated Citizen, Revisited

February 3, 2026 by cultureofyes

In December 2011, I wrote a blog post asking whether British Columbia’s 1989 definition of the Educated Citizen still held up. The question felt almost rhetorical. Despite two decades of change, the document remained remarkably relevant.

Here we are, fourteen years later, and I find myself returning to that same question with fresh urgency. Not because the definition has failed, but because the world around it has transformed.

This is what BC said it wanted from graduates in 1989, in the Statement of Education Policy Order:

Citizens who are thoughtful, able to learn, and able to think critically. Creative, flexible, and self motivated. Capable of making independent decisions. Cooperative, principled, and respectful of others regardless of differences. Aware of their rights and prepared to exercise their responsibilities.

The document also named a lifelong appreciation of learning, a curiosity about the world around them, and a capacity for creative thought and expression.

Read that list again. There is not a single reference to specific content. No mention of any skill that would become obsolete. It is entirely about human capacities that endure.

The Question AI Forces Us to Answer

In 2011, I wrote that while so much had changed in our world, many of our values and goals had remained unchanged. The challenge, I suggested, was that the strategies employed would differ dramatically.

I did not know how dramatically.

Today, a student can generate a polished essay in seconds. Information is instantly accessible. Artificial intelligence can produce first drafts, solve complex problems, and simulate expertise in ways that would have been unimaginable even a few years ago.

This changes everything about strategy. But it changes nothing about what matters.

If anything, AI has made the 1989 vision more urgent, not less. As machines take care of the “what”, the distinctly human “how” and “why” move to centre stage. Critical thinking. Creativity. Ethical reasoning. The ability to collaborate, to persist, and to make meaning from complexity. The judgment to know when to stop, help someone else, or ask a better question instead of a faster one.

These were always the point. We did not abandon them. We simply allowed other pressures to crowd them out.

The Foreground, Not the Background

In the comments on my 2011 post, Bruce Beairsto, the former Superintendent of the Richmond School District, wrote something that has stayed with me. These attributes, he said, have been in the background, and now we are beginning to appreciate that they should be in the foreground. The subjects are the means, but it is the educated citizen that is the end we seek. We have said that before, but never really acted upon it.

He was right then. He is even more right now.

We built our systems around content and competencies that fit neatly into courses, units, and gradebooks. The human capacities described in the Educated Citizen do not fit neatly. They sprawl across subjects. They develop slowly and unevenly, often in moments that cannot be planned or scheduled. They resist easy measurement.

So we let them live in the in-between spaces. The hallway conversation. The coach’s feedback after a tough loss. The teacher who notices something is off and makes time to ask. This is deeply important work, but it is often invisible work. Dependent on individual educators rather than intentional system design.

From Background to Foreground

AI is not asking us to invent new priorities. It is revealing wisdom we already had and slowly drifted from.

In 2011, Tyler James shared a story in the comments about his daughter stopping mid race to help a fallen skater. His conclusion was simple and profound. We cannot teach educated citizenship. We must model citizenship. (Tyler’s comments and the rich discussion in the comments section of the 2011 post is a wonderful read.)

That insight matters more than ever. In an age of AI generated content, what students need most are adults who embody curiosity, solid judgment, presence, and integrity. Not because these things will be assessed, but because they matter. Because students notice who we are long before they remember what we cover.

The 1989 Educated Citizen is not a relic. It is a North Star worth returning to.

Perhaps the real question is not whether we have it right, but whether we are finally ready, systemically and intentionally, to act on what we have known all along.

The image at the top of this post was generated through AI.  Various AI tools were used as feedback helpers (for our students this post would be a Yellow assignment – see link to explanation chart) as I edited and refined my thinking.

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments »

The Persistence of Yes

January 20, 2026 by cultureofyes

This is Post #500. Writing that sentence feels both surreal and deeply satisfying. More than anything, these posts have taught me that leadership and life are sustained by one simple word: yes.

That yes began more than fifteen years ago, uncertain and small. When I pressed “publish” on my very first entry, I had no sense of where it might lead. Would anyone read it? Would I have anything worth saying after a handful of posts? Would the blog simply fade out, like so many others? And yet, here we are. 499 posts later.

The Early Yes

At the beginning, the simple act of writing was an experiment. By the time I reached 150 posts, I reflected that

Blogging has helped me become very comfortable with who I am … it has forced me to be specific about ideas, pushed me to share publicly, and given me a regular vehicle to reflect and refine my thinking. Blogging is different; it is the difference between telling and engaging, and I look forward to engaging in the next 150.

That shift, from telling to engaging, was one of my first and most important yesses.

At 150, I was already sharing advice for others who wanted to start: be clear about what you will and won’t write about … write for yourself, not for what others may want … think in blog posts … be a storyteller. Our schools are full of amazing stories waiting to be told. It was a reminder that blogging isn’t about volume; it’s about voice.

The Hard but Important Yes

Here’s what I didn’t know at the beginning: how difficult it would be to keep saying yes.

At 400, I wrote:

When I started blogging, I never really thought about how it would end. And I don’t think I fully knew that it was actually hard to write regularly. Anyone who tells you blogging is easy is lying! But most important things are not easy.

There were weeks when the words wouldn’t come. Stretches when I questioned whether I had anything new to say. Moments when the pressure of other responsibilities made the blog feel like one more obligation rather than an opportunity. Even at the 10-year mark, when I joked with George Couros that we might be “two of the last bloggers out there,” I wondered if persistence was just stubbornness by another name.

But then someone would stop me at a conference to share how a post resonated with them. Or an email would arrive from a teacher I had never met, describing how an idea sparked something in their practice. Or a comment would appear on the blog itself: thoughtful, challenging, extending the thinking beyond what I had offered. And the yes would return, renewed not by my own certainty but by the community that had quietly formed around these posts.

The persistence of yes, I have learned, is not a solo endeavor. It is sustained by every reader who takes the time to engage, whether directly on the blog, through social media, or in those wonderful in-person moments when someone says, “I read your blog.” Those four words matter more than you might know.

The Yes Behind the Yes

What I haven’t said yet is that I never wrote alone.

Before there was a blog, there was a newspaper column. And before every column went to print, it went to my dad. He was my first editor, catching errors, questioning word choices, and making everything a little bit better. When I started the blog in 2010, I had just officially become a superintendent. My dad was proud of that. He saw me settle into the role, saw the blog take shape, saw the first few years of posts. He passed away in August 2014, and I think of him often when I write. Some habits, once formed by people we love, thankfully stay with us.

When I started this blog in 2010, newspapers were still flourishing. I had grown up reading them, writing for them, learning from the columnists who made sense of the world in 800 words at a time. Over these 500 posts, I have watched that world shrink. Papers have closed. Bureaus have emptied. The people who made a living thinking in public, holding institutions accountable, telling the stories of communities, have largely moved on or been moved out. I miss newspapers, but more than that, I miss the people who wrote for them. Blogging is not the same thing, but in some small way it feels like an attempt to keep that spirit alive: a place to think publicly, to wrestle with ideas, to believe that writing for an audience, however small, still matters.

Since my dad, others have quietly taken up the work of editing. Tricia Buckley, and before her Sharon Pierce and Deb Podurgiel, have read every single post before it was published. Every one. They catch what I miss, sharpen what I muddle, and make this space better than I could make it alone. To write for 500 posts is one thing. To have colleagues willing to read 500 drafts is something else entirely.

I am also grateful to Jay Goldman, editor of School Administrator Magazine. Over the years, Jay and the magazine have repurposed a number of my posts and accepted other pieces of writing. What begins as a post for this small corner of the internet sometimes finds its way to a broader audience. That reach, and the connections it creates, has mattered more than I expected.

And then there are the bloggers who showed me what this could be. In the early days, I had a blogroll that was inspiring. I would read Dean Shareski, or Will Richardson, or David Warlick and be excited. The world of web 2.0 was booming and each post I read was opening me up to new ideas and a new world I was trying to understand. George Couros has been both friend and model for what it means to tell the story of education with optimism and persistence. More recently, I have found kinship with a small community of BC superintendent bloggers. Jordan Tinney and Kevin Godden have since retired, but for a time we kept each other going. Now it’s mostly Dave Eberwein and me. I also appreciate how Cari Wilson and Sandra-Lynn Shortall in West Vancouver blog regularly and keep the blog community humming.

The Yes in Ideas

Looking back across 499 posts, I am struck by something unexpected: the topics have changed dramatically, but the underlying themes have remained remarkably consistent.

Yes to innovation with curiosity: From early posts on social media in classrooms and mobile devices to today’s reflections on generative AI, the tools change but the thread remains: lean into change with curiosity, not fear.

Yes to mentorship that outlives us: I arrived in Mrs. Caffrey’s Grade 2 class unable to read and without confidence. I had her for Grade 2, Grade 3, and Grade 4, and left at the end of those three years a completely different student. I have written about her many times over the years because she represents something I believe deeply: a single teacher can change a life trajectory. From World Teachers’ Day tributes to stories of colleagues who shaped my early career, I have come to see mentorship as how yes persists beyond any single person, passed forward voice to voice, generation to generation. And now, at 52, I find myself on the other side of that exchange, trying to be for others what so many were for me.

Yes to well-being as core, not extra: Posts on physical literacy, wellness, and school sports remind me that joy, movement, and balance are not optional. They are essentials for students and leaders alike.

Yes to family and wonder as part of leadership: Interwoven among leadership reflections are personal stories: concerts with my wife, milestones with my kids, anecdotes from sports and community. Leadership is human work. Yes is sustained when it includes wonder, humour, and gratitude.

The Yes that Learns

Over the years, I have admitted when I was wrong. I have revised posts, shifted my stance, and acknowledged that what once seemed certain might now be more complicated. The persistence of yes doesn’t mean refusing to change. It is about holding fast to values while letting strategies evolve. It is about being willing to write in pencil, not ink.

The Yes Forward

So what does yes look like after 500 posts?

It looks like continuing to model thoughtful, transparent use of AI in schools, choosing curiosity over compliance, and reminding ourselves that technology should expand opportunity, not shrink relationships.

It looks like protecting public education as a place of hope, belonging, and possibility, even when the winds of politics blow cold.

It looks like saying yes to wonder, to the small joys that keep cynicism at bay.

It looks like believing, still, that education can and must be better tomorrow than it was yesterday.

After 500 posts, here is my promise: I will keep saying yes to relationships before technology, to students before systems, to hope before cynicism. Because public education still deserves our most persistent yes.

The Power of People

As I’ve been rereading old posts in preparation for this one, I keep being struck by the same thing: the people. Name after name, story after story. I am reminded of how many good people we have in West Vancouver, and more broadly across education. People who care deeply, who show up for one another, who make this work meaningful. I am lucky to be part of this community.

The Invitation

So here, at Post #500, I leave you with the same question that has guided me since the beginning:

What, in your corner of education, still deserves a persistent yes?

For me, the answer is unchanged: a stubborn belief in public education as a place of hope, possibility, and human connection.

When I pressed “publish” on that first post, I didn’t know if anyone would read it. 499 posts later, I still don’t know exactly where this is going. But I know the question is still worth asking, and the yes is still worth emphatically saying. This is not just persistence. This is the persistence of yes.

The image at the top of this post was generated through AI.  Various AI tools were used as feedback helpers (for our students this post would be a Yellow assignment – see link to explanation chart) as I edited and refined my thinking.

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, SD45 | Tagged , , | 8 Comments »

Older Posts »