For years, I had a pretty simple writing process. I would write something. Refine it. Read it again the next day. Send it to Tricia. Make a few changes. Then publish it. It was not especially sophi…

I love the first day of school. No matter how long you have been doing this work, there is something about this day that still feels like a beginning. For the last couple of weeks, our schools have…

The easiest post to write this fall would be the one against it. I could open with a warning about screens, line up every worry about AI, about cheating, about the slow erosion of thinking, then ca…

We opened our session at the Canadian School Boards Association conference with a show of hands. How many of you have personally used an AI tool in the last month? Almost every hand in the room wen…

Regular readers know this space is usually about schools. This post is a little different. It is summer, the pace is different, and I want to write about something work-adjacent that has been part …

My friends have a running theory about how this ends. One is convinced it will be a torn Achilles. Another has placed his bet on a catastrophic flight delay, the kind that traps you in an airport i…

For the past few years, I have ended the school year with a list. One reflection for every year I have worked in education. It has become a bit of a ritual for me. A way to mark the end of the year…

Some chapters in a career close the way they should, with time to say goodbye properly, to thank the people who made the work meaningful, and to mark the ending before the next beginning. And some …

At the start of this year, I chose a word for 2026: ALIVE It was a word I picked because it felt like both a reminder and an aspiration. Stay present. Stay curious. Stay connected to what actually …

Daniel Woodward Elementary School is just across a field from the house I grew up in. Last Saturday, forty years after leaving Grade 7, I walked back in. We were there for a reunion of the Grade 7 …

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 ab…

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…

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. Att…

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, bu…

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 bette…

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 ter…

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…

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.…

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 chan…

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. Tha…

I have been thinking a lot about assistance lately. Who gets it, who does not, and why we suddenly get moralistic about it the moment the assistance comes from AI. The spark for this post is Nick P…

What does a basketball court have to do with leading a school district? More than you might think. In this conversation, we sit down with Chris Kennedy, West Vancouver’s Superintendent of Schools, who...

This marks the 11th year of my One Word tradition. Eleven years. When I started this practice back in 2016, I was 42 years old and hungry. Literally, that was my word. Hungry. I wanted to compete, …

Here we are again. A final post for calendar year 16 on Culture of Yes. As I close out another year, I find myself in an unexpected place. This was the easiest year of writing in the 16 years I&#82…

For years, there has been a quiet understanding in many high schools that success in certain courses, especially senior math and sciences, required something extra. Not more effort or better attend…

There is a shift happening in our schools, and you can feel it. You see it in the staffroom, in the parking lot, in the subtle ways younger teachers talk about their work. They draw clearer lines b…

Last week, I sat in an education conference listening to a keynote speaker who was absolutely unequivocal about it: students must learn prompt engineering or they will be left behind. The speaker w…

Inspired by the recent Learning Forward BC conversation on human flourishing and AI. Last week, I spent three hours tweaking a PowerPoint presentation I already had help with. At the same time, I h…

Across Canada, and in many other parts of the world, literacy screening is having a moment. There is broad agreement that we need to be better at identifying students who may be at risk, and that w…

Tomorrow night, as the Blue Jays take the field for their first World Series game in 32 years, I find myself thinking about time, how it moves, how we mark it, and how certain moments seem to hold …

How I draft, edit, and stay human in the loop For years I believed my advantage was “writing.” Lately I’ve realized the real edge was not keystrokes, it was ideas, structure, and voice. AI has not …

Published on World Teachers’ Day At 22, I thought I knew what teaching would be like. I had studied pedagogy, completed practicums, and felt ready to change the world one classroom at a time. What …

Like many of you, I’ve been saying it for years: We are more distracted than ever. And most days, I still believe it.I’ve felt it myself, scrolling instead of reading, checking my phone…

More than 20 years ago, I was principal at Riverside Secondary in Port Coquitlam. One of the rhythms of that time was our Wednesday morning study group. It was a structure I brought with me from my…

You can’t watch sports these days without being hit by gambling ads. They are everywhere, plastered across hockey broadcasts, embedded in pre-game shows, sliding into social media feeds. And they’r…

I recently gave a virtual talk on AI in schools which forced me to solidify my current thinking and I tried to make some direct linkages to the Culture of Yes belief. I have included the video at t…

August 3rd was a day layered with meaning. It marked the final stop of Paul Simon’s A Quiet Celebration tour, my 25th wedding anniversary, and the 11th anniversary of my dad’s passing. …

This summer, I read a book.Not a blog post. Not a podcast transcript. Not a long-form article on Substack. A real book. A paper one. With pages. About a hundred of them.It’s the first book I’ve fin…

YouTube video by Mount Sentinel Performance and Media Academy

For the past few years, I have ended each school year with a list post, one item for every year I’ve worked in education. It’s become a bit of a tradition, a way to pause, reflect and take stock be…

I love graduation season.  I did a quick tally the other day and realized I have been to nearly 50 graduation ceremonies since I arrived in West Vancouver 18 years ago. Most years, I make it to at …

Every spring in schools, one of the most anticipated emails arrives: our principal and vice-principal appointments for the fall. This post offers a window into how these important decisions are mad…

How do we equip young people for a world that might advance beyond our expectations?Mat Balez is a local West Vancouver parent. We have had several great conversations in recent years — and just la…

There’s a moment right now—an opening that Canada, and more specifically Canadian education, has an opportunity to seize. As we watch political discourse in the United States grow increasingly pola…

Regular readings here know my love for high school sports and innovation.  This is why today is such a particularly exciting day for me. Following rigorous analysis of 427 track meets, 217 scraped …

I was recently having a “walk and talk” with a West Vancouver colleague, and the first thing he said to me was “the next 20 years will be my best 20 years.”  It feels like I’ve joined a club – one …