David Truss :: Pair-a-dimes for Your Thoughts

moments

2009-11-16T09:41:59Z

How would you define a moment?

I love how this video takes absolutely random visuals and makes a story out of them… a story about the value of time, or at least single moments in time. This video changes my breathing pattern, it alters my thoughts, moment by moment, in a way that says more than words can. I think too often we let moments slip by when they should be cherished. Take a moment now and enjoy…

(for those of you behind a filter who can’t get YouTube: Watch it here.)

Cassie and Katie have blogs!

2009-11-01T11:48:37Z

Please welcome my daughters, new bloggers Cassie and Katie to the blogosphere.

Cassie has uploaded some photos of our Xi’an trip to tell you a bit about our recent vacation. Katie started her blog with 3 simple introductory sentences and an updated ‘About’ page. I’m not sure how much they will use their blogs yet? My hope is that they will chronicle their adventures here in China, however I don’t plan on making writing on their blog mandatory. They get enough homework here that I don’t want to add anything to their plate that they don’t want to do.

I was waiting for a friend to help me get my daughters set up on a blog. Turns out that my host, Bluehost, makes Wordpress blog integration really, really easy and a quick Google search led me to this blog post with an instructional screencast to help me out.

I’ve added clustermaps and feedjit traffic feed information to their blog sidebars because I think an authentic global audience does a lot to maintain interest in blogging, as does getting comments and feedback. I try to – comment – on – student – blogs – regularly because I know how much it is appreciated.

If you have a moment, drop by and say ‘Hi’, or just click on their sites to give them a visit from your part of the globe. Comments are moderated, I’m letting Cassie moderate her own comments via her email address, with more supervision early and less as we go. I’ll be moderating Katie’s comments, showing her as I go. This should be fun!

Drum Tower - Xi'an, China

Caring across the curriculum

2009-10-19T02:34:36Z

Caring across the curriculum

Sometimes I get tired of seeing the school day broken into subject-matter based courses. We don’t teach subjects we teach students, and students of all ages engage in a real life that matters across individual fields of study.

Watch the video* Miniature Earth:

How many different ’subjects’ can we teach with this video? How real is the Math? How relevant is the Social Studies? Can we tie in History? Current Events? Economics? Environmental Issues? Healthy Living?

How far can we extend the learning? These are 1990 statistics from the state of the Village Report. What are the stats now? Can you predict what they will be 10 years from now? “Write a paragraph from the perspective of…”

But caring isn’t just about identifying a problem, it is about doing something about that problem.

Watch the video* World on Fire by Sarah McLachlan:

More real life relevance across the curriculum and proof that one person can make a difference!

So what can a class do?

Kiva.org is a great example of what can be done. Mico-Loans to poeple from many parts of the world that would have a hard time getting regular loans.

Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

The people you see on Kiva’s site are real individuals – not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs’ profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need. (About Kiva )

If you want to know how meaningful this can be to a class of students, check out what Jen Whiffin has done with her Grade 4/5 class. She starts her post: Math Made Compelling: The Kiva Renaissance with this quote:

“Building a thought-filled curriculum serves the larger agenda of building a more thought-filled world–an interdependent learning community where people continually search for ways to care for one another, learn together, and grow towards greater intelligence. We must deepen student thinking to hasten the arrival of a world community…” (Arthur L. Costa, “The Thought-Filled Curriculum”, Educational Leadership, 2008)

If you enjoy that post, check out her other related posts Math Made Compelling and Math Made Compelling: Phase One of the Kiva Project . Also check out her class’ Kiva profile.

Grade 4’s and 5’s learning about GDP per capita? Why not? But take this real-life meaning away and the math just isn’t… compelling.

A curriculum of caring and making a difference, across many fields of study. Learning that matters and connects our students to the world they live in.

*Update: For those of you ‘Behind the filter’ like my teachers here in China, since you cannot see the embeded and linked YouTube videos. Here they both are: Miniature Earth and World on Fire. You can watch them online or download them thanks to drop.io!

Facebook Revisited

2009-10-11T12:34:09Z

A 2nd year teacher that I keep in touch with sent me an email yesterday:

“Hey Dave!

How do you feel about adding students as friends on Facebook? I use my Facebook mainly as a communication tool.

I don’t put anything up that I wouldn’t want people to see. In the evening, my students have trouble getting in touch with me via [district] email, so I’ve had a few messages via facebook (which they can do without being my friend.)

I have had a few requests from legitimate students. There have been a few requests from students I don’t want on my list…and I have denied their request.”

Here was my response and a few points I’d like to make afterwards.

________________________________________________

The fact is that I’m not a huge fan of Facebook, just because I’m already connected to so many people online and it feels like just one more place I have to go. Also I tend to get stuck talking to old friends and former students who just want to say ‘Hi, how’s it going?’ rather than having meaningful or learning conversations. That has changed a bit since moving to China.

- So yes, to answer your question, I do have students as friends on Facebook.

Here are my self-designated rules:

1. I never invite students, they invite me. It just feels weird asking a kid to be my friend. It could put them in an awkward situation too, “I don’t want to add Mr. Truss but then what would he think of me?”

2. I accept one so I accept all. My choice, and an easy one since I don’t really use facebook much anyway. If I’m open to all my students I can’t be seen as unfair or leave someone ‘out’ and disappointed. Think of the rumor mill that could get started: I say ‘no’ to a guy student and he starts writing about how ‘Mr. Truss only facebook friends girls’ – If I’m going to accept students as ‘friends’ then I shouldn’t turn anyone down. To me this is as much a reason for teachers to choose ‘not to connect’ as it is ‘to connect’ and should always be a personal choice not one made by a school or a district!!!

3. I put students on a very ‘Limited Profile’. For my Facebook use, I chose that they can’t see my wall. Why? Because I don’t use facebook much and I don’t feel like monitoring it often. Of all the setting I choose, this is the one most likely to be different from other teachers who see Facebook as a place to connect with students.

Something important to be aware of with Facebook and settings: When you join a group or a fan club etc. your profile becomes open to all the other members for a limited time, (I don’t remember the timeline or know if this has changed or not). This is a great example of why, if you are a teacher on Facebook or anywhere else you MUST be professional at all times. We don’t know when or why Facebook will change their rules like this? We don’t know what Facebook does with our records or how secure what we have said in the past will be protected in the future? They are a private company and have private motives.

On the point of being careful about what you do and say online, here is a great lesson for teachers and students alike: Check out my blog as of July 14th, 2008. I got this from the WayBackMachine on the Internet Archive. I cannot change anything on this permanent record! Digital text is (or at least can be) forever!

4. If I see something inappropriate then I say so:

Example:

Hi [Student Name],

I hope things are good with you and that you are enjoying [Secondary School]!

I’m not sure why you thought I’d be interested in joining:

“Support my cause, F*** The Police. Help by joining, donating, or inviting your friends!”

Not really appropriate. Hopefully you won’t be sending similar things like that to me because I can’t have that kind of stuff in my facebook community.

It is nice to stay connected, but if you wanted to remove me as a friend, I understand. And likewise, if I get invitations such as this then I’ll need to remove you as a friend. Hopefully this won’t be something either of us feel we need to do.

Good luck with exams, but first, enjoy your Christmas break!

Mr. Truss

Also, with kids that I don’t know that well, I usually send them a ‘Thanks for inviting me’ message:

Hi [student name], Thanks for inviting me into your network. Have a great weekend!

I always find it a bit strange when a kid I barely know invites me to facebook, with my rule #2 above, I accept them, but I send a ‘thanks’ message just so that I have evidence that they started the friendship. This might be a good idea to do with all student connections.

5. I do not erase any messages between me and students. If they want to quote me out of context, then I want to have a record of what that context was.

Read my last post on the topic for more details: Facing Facebook

This does not mean that we get ‘chummy’ with our students online… we are simply a significant adult presence, modeling appropriate behavior, and connecting with them in a meaningful, respectful way. The internet is no place for an unsupervised playground!

Also check these other two posts out and read the comments on all 3 to see how differently teachers look at this.

Social Networking Sites: Public, Private or What? by Danah Boyd (Found via Dana Woods)

“When a teen is engaged in risky behaviour online, that is typically a sign that they’re engaged in risky behaviour offline. Troubled teens reveal their troubles online both explicitly and implicitly. It is not the online world that is making them troubled, but it is a fantastic opportunity for intervention.”

Teachers and Facebook by Dana Huff

“One positive aspect of using Facebook is that nothing else is as quick in terms of communicating with students. I have often asked students to get together on Facebook and study or to spread a message I want to make sure they get. Because I am not friends with students who don’t request it, I can’t use it as a reliable method to contact all of my students. I created a Facebook page, and they can become fans of that page without being my friend, but again, it’s not something I feel comfortable requiring.”

“We” -meaning teachers/parents/adults -need to be on places like Facebook, but “we” as individuals have a right to choose: ‘Do I want to be on facebook?’ and ‘Do I want to be friends with students there?’ If the answer to both questions are ‘Yes’ then we must figure out what our comfort zone is with connecting with students in a meaningful and thoughtful way. And whether or not we choose to connect with students on sites like Facebook, we must be professional in our online conduct… always!

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A few final thoughts.

I firmly believe that districts and schools have no right to tell teachers that they can not connect with students on social networks. It would be like saying, ”As a teacher, I don’t want you going to the shopping mall at the end of the street and if you are there, you certainly can’t talk to the students that go there.”

However, I also believe that as teachers our professional code of conduct extends into the digital world and we need to be accountable and professional.

Also, as I said in the comments on Dana Huff’s post:

Personally I wouldn’t use Facebook in the classroom. I think there are so many good tools out there, like Ning networks for example, that I’d rather not take a site my students like to socialize on and somehow make that site ‘work’ for them.

Forcing kids to participate on Facebook, or insisting that they add classmates as friends or that they must become fans of a group is not an ideal way to create a meaningful learning space.

And finally, I’ll end with this from my Facing Facebook post:

If we (educators and parents) don’t participate with students online, then we run the risk of having misguided or inexperienced friends, or worse yet bullies, becoming greater influences than us in their lives.

Students today will have a digital footprint. Are we going to let them figure it out on their own? Or will we be there with them, educating them along the way?

Openness and Acceptance, Mr Deng and his Allegories of Windows, Flies and Coloured Cats

2009-10-05T22:24:37Z

We just completed a vacation in Xi’an, one of China’s oldest cities and the starting point for the silk road. The silk road was the first gateway to and from the Orient, it was the first real global link to the ‘Eastern’ countries of India and China. Trade of spices and silk, as well as cultural exchanges, started to take shape and lay the foundation for ‘world trade’ long before Europeans ‘discovered’ the America’s (in their quest for a shorter route to the East). This was the first of many ‘windows’ open to a new, more connected and more multicultural world.

While in Xi’an we witnessed the celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Communist Party. In a very patriotic country, with only one time zone, the festivities were focused primarily in the capital city of Beijing, and so a vast majority of Chinese were glued to their televisions to see what was a really spectacular parade, on a scale only possible in a country with over a billion people. A very conservative guess would put 25,000 plus participants in the parade, and more than double the population of North America (including Mexico) sitting in front of televisions watching it. Even more ‘windows’ were open as live streaming of the event also happened via the internet.

Until fairly recently, China was a very closed society. Outside of Hong Kong, very few exchanges of information occurred (for the general masses) beyond what was shared from the times of the silk road. Of course this is a blatant exaggeration, but my point is that the central government held a tight grip on what products and information most Chinese got to see from outside the Great Wall. Things changed dramatically about 30 years ago, thanks to Mr. Deng Xiaoping.

On our trip, our tour guide Tony shared a lot of Chinese history beyond just the touristy sites we visited. On one excursion Tony told us about the much revered Mr. Deng loosely quoting him, “A country is just like a house, it has windows and gates. If you close the window, you get no fresh air, and also no flies. But if you open the window fresh air comes in and also some flies.” This marked the first step in China opening many windows and doors to the outside world. Yes, with the fresh air, some flies will follow, but China has become a world economical powerhouse because of it’s choice to ‘open the windows’. What I find interesting is that the one key window they still try to screen (filter) is the internet, much like many schools do today. But there are so many ways to get through the screens and so many tools to help you do it. It’s a battle not really worth fighting, yet in order to keep some of the ‘flies’ out, a lot of fresh air is also filtered out.

Mr Deng was smart enough to realize that an ‘open’ policy would bring with it some things that were not desirable, but that closing the ‘window’ would be far less desirable. I think this ‘open window’ metaphor continues to exemplify my concerns with schools filtering the internet. We fear the flies, and so the windows get shut… thus we also lose a lot of ‘fresh air’. I’ve already mentioned that we need to remove the bubble wrap from our schools, and expressed in that post why filters actually hinder rather than help in education. We need to educate students about the world of information available to them on the internet. We need to teach them to search for information intelligently and we need to show them how to avoid the ‘flies’. We… teach… them!

We also need to teach students to be tolerant of others. To be respectful of other cultures and other ways of doing things. To treat each other with dignity and generosity and to offer friendship… face-to-face and online.

Tony shared another quote by Mr. Deng, “No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat, as long as it could get a mouse it is a good cat” and as Tony continued he explained, “So, no matter who you are, if you do good deeds you are a meaningful person.”

From every country, from every part of the world, from every culture, there have been wise men and women who have thoughtfully shared values that transcend the time and place they come from. Thirty years ago, Mr. Deng was not really talking about windows, flies and coloured cats, he was talking about openness and acceptance. The leaders of today may not always share these ideas, but the school of today can help to ensure that these ideas are valued in the years to come.

Think Good Thoughts,
Say Good Words,
Do Good Deeds.

Blogs as Learning Spaces

2009-11-07T09:59:57Z

Sue Waters, a friend who has always stepped up and helped me out with just about every request I have ever made to my PLN, sent me an email a couple nights ago. In it she said:

I’ve been asked by some 4th year preservice students to put together a video on the value of blogging. They had wanted me to answer the questions but I decided that it would be considerably better to get videos from people around the World sharing their thoughts — that way we get more ideas.

If you are able to video yourself answering some or all of these questions that would be excellent.
What are some of the benefits of blogging?
How have you used blogging with your students and how has it helped them?
How do the students feel about blogging?
What are some tips for educators new to blogging? (with using them with their students)

So here is the response she got from me, a Canadian living in China:

This was the first time that I used Camtasia, compliments of Techsmith and Alan November teaming up and providing it to all of the BLC09 presenters. It is a great tool that is easy to use with all the features that a Mac lover like myself would expect. The transitions are a little choppy, but I basically sliced and diced up a Powerpoint presentation, ‘This my blog has taught me“, and then recorded my screen as I spoke. The whole process took just over a couple hours and it was a lot of fun to be doing a project like this again, after creating my POD’s are Coming presentation this summer.

I noticed as I watched this and listened to myself that the idea of a blog being a ‘learning space’ came up both when talking about my own blog and when I spoke of the classroom and what technology could do to expand the classroom space. I think that our idea of where learning happens has made a fundamental shift from book knowledge of the last century to anywhere/anytime information access of today. It is exciting to see classrooms make this shift too. Last night I commented on a blog post by a student of Clarence Fisher’s, in Snow Lake Manitoba, Canada. In a way you could say that I visited Clarance’s class. We live in an amazingly connected world and I love that sharing and learning has become so global.

I’d love to see others share their blogging story, and if you do, share them with me and Sue too!

___
(Youtube version)
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Credits: I mention Alec Couros’ ‘Thinning Walls’ in the video and I use the following images which I credited, but not very clearly:

• Head Inside: Brain Wash by ArtWerk / Yanko on flickr
• we need more of it. By wei never sleeps / Wei on flickr
• The World through your eyes By The eclectic Oneironaut / Rubén Pérez on flickr

Bubble Wrap

2009-09-21T19:19:53Z

After a month in China, I’ve come to realize that North Americans live in a bubble wrapped world.

In the ‘Western’ world we walk around oblivious to our surroundings, going about our business feeling safe and secure. I don’t mean safe in the sense of being cautious of others, since in actual fact, I have always felt safe in China (other than in the occasional taxi), and in fact Dalian feels safer than downtown Vancouver or Toronto when I’m out late at night. I mean safe, in the West, in the sense that there are laws and bylaws and rules in place to make sure that we are ‘protected’ from unexpected harm: Guardrails and warning sign and lit-up crosswalks with pedestrian controlled lighting abound.

In the bubble wrap West we occasionally read or hear about someone who slips right next to a ‘wet floor’ sign or trips on an uneven curb and they end up blaming and suing others: “It wasn’t safe”, “It was faulty”, “The step was too high” or “The railing was too low”. Our day-to-day environment is safe, secure, sheltered… and sterile.

In China, things are different. Pedestrian walkways are a suggested crossing location and give no rights to the pedestrian. White and yellow lines on the roads are mere suggestions for where a pedestrian should stand as cars zip by at speeds up to 60km/hr, the occasional horn blast reminds you not to make any unexpected moves.

Here, doorways have immediate steps going up or down as you cross the threshold. You must walk with your eyes on the curb as a missing tile, or a sudden step may appear, unexpected by Western terms but fully expected here.

At the far end of Xinghai Square there is a structure I’ve only ever heard called ‘The Open Book’. The book opens up with concrete slabs raised to more than 6 meters on the sides, with no rails and a simple yellow line painted to suggest a caution. Nearby a beautiful walkway has a single chain fence that sits gently near the path, supported by short concrete posts- on the other side of the rail, a two+ meter drop onto rocks. Two examples of things that just wouldn’t exist in the west… there just isn’t enough bubble wrap present to permit them.

I think schools have become a bit too bubble wrapped too. We protect the kids from impending harm, bubble wrapping their learning. However I think sometimes we harm them in our attempt to keep them safe. Here are a few digital examples:
1) Instead of teaching them intelligent searching, we filter websites.
2) Instead of teaching them online safety we stop them from creating online profiles.
3) Instead of letting them connect and learn socially, we ban them from social networks where there is potential for bullying.
4) Instead of letting them seek out experts, we hand pick the guest lecturer.

What we are doing is creating a facade of security, nothing more than an illusion of bubble wrap.

1) Filters prevent teachers from know what a search will show students at home.
2) Students create online profiles behind teachers and (more specifically) parents backs and put personal information on the profiles since they have not had any adult advice about how to protect their identity.
3) Social websites like Facebook, unsupervised, becomes a playground where the bully tends to ‘win’.
4) Students have no idea how to ‘talk to strangers’ online, but they don’t have their parents or teachers advice when (not if, when) that happens.

Well now it is time to pop some of the bubble wrap. It’s time to remove some railings and teach kids to be careful. There is a whole world ‘out there’ to explore! Yet, I’m not saying be reckless.

My daughters have experienced freedom here like they have never had before, ‘Go play outside and be back by dinner.’ – something I got to do at their age, but my kids didn’t really get in Canada. But, I’m not letting them cross a busy street on their own yet, (the overprotective dad in me says they won’t cross a street alone in Dalian until they are in their 20’s), because they are still at a stage where, if scared they might do something a driver won’t expect, and human/car mistakes aren’t ones I want my daughters to learn the hard way. My point: we will all have different comfort zones, but if we don’t start popping some bubble wrap, we are not really protecting our kids like we think we are.

Variable Flow

2009-09-08T23:20:51Z

No-Flow:

I still don’t have Internet at home after a week. But from using my phone, I know that Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Wordpress blogs, and quite a few more sites are blocked here in Dalian. I think both Facebook and Twitter are newly blocked, this past June, as a pre-emptive move before the 20 year ‘celebration’ of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

As I say in my ‘POD’s are Coming’ presentation, ‘Filters filter learning’ and I’m finding the lack of information flow rather challenging to deal with.

One-Way Flow:

For over a year now I’ve had my blog posts automatically imported to Facebook as a note. Every now-and-then I’d get a comment there rather than on my blog. With my move to Dalian, I’ve now had many friends and family, who don’t normally read my blog, commenting on my Facebook notes. But with Facebook blocked, although I get email notices about the added comment and can read the comment in that email, I can’t respond. Thanks to those that have commented. I look forward to connecting more via email & skype when I get Internet at home.

I have discovered that I can update my Twitter status through ping.fm. But for me Twitter has never really been about my status updates, it has always been about learning conversations, so sending one-way updates to Twitter doesn’t really appeal to me.

As a side note, even 3 years ago I would not have been limited by this one-way flow of information, but I live in a different world now and I expect information to flow differently… Wouldn’t this also hold true for students? And so this leaves me wondering what a 1 hour lecture feels like to a student who thrives on communication being something more than just one-way?

Traffic Flow:

I continue to be amazed by how traffic works here. I was in a taxi yesterday and had to ask him to take it easy after he forced a third car to screech it’s tires as he swirved in front of them… done to get me to my final destination all of a minute or two faster. As both my wife and I have learned, taxi drivers have their own rules.

Despite that, there is a distinct orderliness to the general ‘rules’ that basically give priority to any vehicle that has claimed a space in front of another vehicle. You have to be an assertive, good driver to drive in this city!

When it works, it works well, but a couple days ago the sound of endless, unusually ‘angry’ (prolonged) horn blasts led me to my balcony. There I saw a bus stuck in the middle of an intersection with cars driving around it, claiming the space in front of it, and not letting it move forward. Other cars were driving in the oncoming traffic lanes to turn left and avoid going through the intersection. It was absolute chaos!

This traffic flow just seems in complete contrast to the people here. As foreigners, we are treated with kindness and generosity. Doors and elevators are routinely held for us, kind words are always exchanged, as are smiles and attempts to speak English. This disappears when vehicles are introduced, and nowhere is this more evident then when you start to walk across a street and an oncoming car speeds up to claim the space on front of you, kindly honking the horn to warn you that you had better wait.

Life Flow:

Generally speaking the pace in a city of 6+ million is faster than we are used to in the suburbs of Vancouver. Our family joined another family for a visit to the beach yesterday, (our anniversary). We had a wonderful time doing a whole lot of nothing.

I found it interesting to see so many adults wearing innertubes, life jackets and inflatable arm bands, but it makes perfect sense in a place were swim lessons would not have been a childhood norm.

Our kids draw a lot of attention. So far they are taking it well, and willingly being corralled into photographs with people they do not know and will probably never meet again. It will be interesting to see how they handle it as the novelty wears off.

Food adjustments have been a huge challenge for everone but me. Being from the Carribean, having a Chinese grandmother and best friends growing up that were Greek and East Indian, my take on food is that I’d rather not have it still moving while I’m eating… But all else is worth trying, and usually enjoyable! As for the rest of my family, this will take time. We had Pizza Hut for dinner last night and I think Western food will be something we look for at least once a week as ‘comfort food’ for the family.

Work Flow:

Tomorrow morning I meet my staff at the school for the start of the year. We have a week together before the students start. I have most of the day planned or at least outlined. I’m moving to a system very different than I’m used to and I’ll be relying on teachers with experience here to help me fill in the gaps. I like that I will be in many situations where I’m not the ‘expert in the room’ and so I will need the leadership of others to help make the coming week and year successful. This sits well with my leadership philosophy. I’ve met all the staff before, returning staff in June, and new staff at the airport and the day after. I’m really excited about the potential for this year!

Here are 3 personal/school goals that I’ll share:

1. Visit every classroom every day. I hope that, while there, I can contribute to the learning going on in the classroom.

2. Increase the technology available to teachers and students. I’m working on a technology implementation plan, that in turn will be focussed on student learning and achievement.

3. Continue to research ELL -English Language Learning. There is so much I have to learn. Which brings me to the last of my chapters in this Variable Flow post:

Communication Flow:

I’d forgotten what it was like to be spoken to in another language with the assumption that I would understand… Challenging! I came here knowing how to say ‘thank you’, and ‘hello’ in Mandarin, that’s all! I’m learning my numbers now and for the first time I really ‘get’ what it is like for a student new to a language and a country. I’m not sure how much this ‘old dog’ will pick up, as I have a horrible track record in language learning, but I will give it a sincere try and keep my humility and humour about the process.

Destinations and Dispositions

2009-09-09T16:42:57Z

The adventures in China have begun, and I find myself learning life lessons that only a ‘foreign’ experience can offer.

Yesterday we bought my youngest daughter a bed. I’m not sure if I’d call it a curse, but assembling IKEA furniture has always afforded me opportunities to test my patience and my tolerance towards inanimate objects. After breaking a screw that has left an almost completed bed too assembled with one-way screws to be unassembed and returned, it occured to me that I was missing the slats that the mattress lies upon. Yes, the easy to follow ordering directions did show them as a separate item to be purchased, but I looked at those directions long before we decided on purchasing that specific bed.

So, off I went in search of a taxi to head back to IKEA. It was just after 5pm and there was a light drizzle of rain when I hailed the first of ten, (yes I said 10), taxis. My wife had given me an IKEA bag to show the taxi driver, to help me communicate my intended destination. After the first four taxi drivers denied knowing where I wanted to go, I asked a couple pedestrians for help. They were both kind with their time, but could not understand me. It was after I went back to unsuccessfully hailing cabs that I had my first ‘Im not in Kansas any more’ moment since arriving in China.

Four blocks of walking, three pedestrians and, as mentioned, ten hailed but failed taxis later, I decided to go into a western-looking coffee shop to ask for both coffee, and more importantly, assistance. A waitress and the barista worked together to understand me and armed me with a written note and the knowledge of how to request my destination verbally, (”E-jah-jah-joo” was my phonetic reminder I wrote below the Chinese characters).

Armed with this new information I stepped back into the drizzle and hailed another taxi… And another, and another. Now it occured to me that on my first 10 attempts, the ‘denial’ was not that of misunderstanding, but of willingness to take me to my destination. This realization came to me because the 13th cab driver had stopped, just 25 feet in front of me, for a well-dressed Chinese lady, holding a newspaper or magazine over her head for protection from the rain. I watched her lean her head towards the passenger window and request her destination. The cab driver shook his head ‘no’ and I hailed him as he left the woman at the curb. When I showed him my note, saying “E-jah-jah-joo” his face defined for me what I’d seen, but not recognized, many times before in my quest for a taxi. For the most part, the ‘no’ that I was getting was a choice, rather than a miscommunication of my destination.

It wasn’t me, it was the rain that made my request a challenge. Although I had not tried to hail any already-occupied taxis, I saw this happen a number of times in the hour-or-so that I was out in the light rain… Sometimes with the taxi-hailing person joining the other occupant, and sometimes not. With the rain falling, a seldom-seen occurrence here in Dalian in the summer, a taxi driver can make a lot of money taking passengers on short trips, sometimes picking up additional passengers along the way. Taking me to IKEA would likely mean a long, and probably passengerless drive back to the hub of the money-making locations. My trip would equate to a financial loss for the taxi driver.

I’m not sure why I hailed one more taxi, but his denial of service sent me sipping coffee on a quiet walk back ‘home’. During the walk I thought about the contrast in my disposition during the past couple hours. I wanted to scream at the IKEA bed for failing to be less than ideal, but faced with another less than ideal situation, I was willing time-and-again to unsuccessfully hail a taxi in a country where I don’t yet fit in. Perhaps this was because I recognized that it was my own failing that brought about the challenge. Perhaps I might have let persistence cloud my powers of observation, and I could have learned this lesson sooner. I could have also chose to be angry or cast blame on others, but what would that have accomplished?

I got a little wet, I had a nice cup of coffee, and I was given the opportunity to laugh at myself, and at my first misadventure in China. I came her for a journey, about a three year journey, and I can choose to make a failed trip to IKEA the first of a series of upsetting mishaps, or the first of many lessons placed upon this journey… My disposition is something that I can choose. My choice will make this journey everything I hope it can be, and more!

A letter to friends

2009-08-15T20:59:28Z

Dear friend,

I remember reading once that we, as human beings, have two consistent social difficulties, saying ‘hello’ and saying ‘goodbye’. Not in the general sense, but rather in getting to know someone and also in finding closure. This is easy enough to see with children getting to know one another. In the course of 3 hours two kids can meet, act shy and uninterested in each other, begin a conversation, start playing together and then on saying goodbye, feel like they are being torn from their best friend, before they even know each other’s last name. ‘Hello’s’ and ‘Goodbye’s’ can be difficult, and they can also provide us with new opportunities.
I’m writing this on a plane heading to Japan. My family will spend tonight in Narita (actually tomorrow night as we are not over the international date line yet), and then Sunday we are off to Dalian China where we plan to live for the next three years. We made the decision to move in late April and so there has been a whirlwind of activity to get us here, and (finally) on our way. As a result we had to go through many ‘goodbye’s’ in the past week.

But ‘goodbye’ has a really different meaning in this day and age.

60 years ago ‘heading to China’, (more specifically for back then, Hong Kong), would have probably meant a boat trip and reconnecting with friends would have meant slow correspondence through posting letters that would take weeks to arrive back in North America.

Just over 30 years ago, when I was 10, my grandparents went with an Aunt and Uncle on a tour of Europe and Asia. Back then, a long distance phone call was quite expensive. So, Uncle Mike worked out a system to report back to us that ‘all was well’ for free. He would say he was my grandfather Leon, and call home collect asking for himself. When we got the call, we would reply, “I’m sorry, but he isn’t here” and the operator would hang up. Before hanging up, the operator would say, “I have a collect call from a Mr. Leon Burnstein for a Mr. Mike Woo from Tokyo Japan.” Thus we would be informed of their location and know that ‘all is well’. A few times on the trip they requested to speak with us and we accepted the call, but numerous times we used this little strategy to get free trip progress reports. [Sneaky, and effective… I have a whole other post in my head about how students today can also be sneaky and effective and we should be rewarding them for this].

From avoiding costly collect calls 30 years ago, we move to the free flow of information today. Elaan Bauder is now coming home from a trip she took to Europe and the Middle East. My wife and I had almost daily email reports whereby she gave us a wonderful description of her journey. This included a voice memo from Egypt, (or some would say podcast). We shared in much of her adventure.

So essentially we are not saying ‘goodbye’ like we would have had to on a similar trip years ago. With Google Chat, iChat, Skype, Twitter and even Facebook (when they aren’t blocked), we are connected in ways we never used to be. As Bryan Jackson said in a post about my POD’s presentation, I’m “moving halfway around the world (while essentially residing in the same place).” To many people I’m a blogger here on Pairadimes, or datruss on networks like Twitter and Diigo… Places I will continue to ‘reside in’ regardless of my geographical location. A quote by Marcie T. Hull has stuck with me for a while now, “Access to the Internet has changed our very concept of geography; it becomes almost an idea like time. It has a construct but all the miles melt away when you are on the web communicating synchronously and asynchronously.”

And yet we did have some very difficult face-to-face ‘goodbye’s’ to go through this past week. But as hard as these ‘goodbye’s’ were, they were also very therapeutic for me. You see this trip has taught me a valuable lesson… I don’t make enough times for my friends and family. Why? Because I let ‘life’ get in the way.

As I head on a new adventure, I’m ready to share that adventure in a new way. I’m not going to leave my friends and family behind, and in fact I’m going to make a concerted effort to reconnect in ways that I didn’t make the effort to do when my friends were in my geographical ‘neighbourhood’!

I’ve already started. I seized an opportunity to meet with Alec Couros and Jen D. Jones since they were in town for OpenEd09. I couldn’t join them in the conference, but as I scrambled to leave, my good friend Heidi Gable helped to coordinate the dinner meeting. In meeting them, I had the opportunity to also meet a number of great educators as well. Previously digital friends that I have now met face-to-face… connections new and yet old to foster further!

I got an email from my sister, Sharon, who lives in Toronto, today while we were in the airport. Our correspondence went like this:

From Sharon
Hi All,
You are probably in flight right now… I just wanted to wish you all the very best on the “Truss Big Chinese Adventure”.
Love to the kids… hope it is a smooth adjustment for them.
Keep in touch… send lots of pix.
Luv Shar.

From Me
5 min. from boarding to Japan. Love to all,
funny but we will probably make more of an effort to stay in touch now, so in a way we are moving closer! ;-P

From Sharon
Love u… always glass half full!!

I have two important personal goals to work on in making this move. I need to work on my ‘hello’s’ as there are many wonderful people I’m going to meet in China- new friendships to discover and nurture. And also, there are some great friends I must reconnect with and stay connected with as I move forward. My glass is getting ‘fuller’ by the minute, and I feel fortunate for the possibilities that good friendships bring! Perhaps I am simply avoiding the hardships of saying goodbye, but in this day and age, I don’t think geographical distance is a reason to say goodbye.

If you are reading this, dear friend, keep in touch.
Dave.