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.
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.
