trust

Taking A Very Personal Risk

/ Dave Eberwein / 6 Comments

Learning something new can be exciting — it can also be intimidating. A story I am about to share with you today captures both of these realities.

Several of my blog posts have talked about taking risks — about taking that chance at a new idea or new way of doing something to be better.

It can be uncomfortable. Sometimes, it can be downright frightening.

I’ll start with an example of a fairly low-risk professional learning journey I took last year. I wanted to learn more about racism — what it looks like and how it weaves its way into our language, decisions and actions. I immersed myself in the topic, wrote a few blog entries about it and even shared my learning journey with my Board of Education and others in the school district.

I learned a lot, but I felt pretty safe while doing it. Admitting that I don’t know everything about a topic is usually easy for me, so learning more about racism, while important, wasn’t super risky.

But, there WAS something I worked on last year that was intimidating — something that actually had me doubting myself along my learning journey.

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Painting a Picture with Numbers

/ Dave Eberwein / 2 Comments

Numbers are a great place to start a conversation. While they never tell the whole story, they do offer a launching point.

Take a look at the ones above.

They represent some statistics on an important topic — a part of a story from across our province and country. And while they don’t offer a complete narrative about the topic they do help to paint a compelling picture — a picture that reaffirms for me why schools need to be an important place of understanding and acceptance.

The topic I want to talk about today is also a polarizing one in our communities. My experience has shown that few people are without a strong opinion on the topic.

Let’s begin today’s discussion by looking at the two largest numbers …

1,000,000

  • The approximate number of persons in Canada who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer or questioning (2021)

75,000

  • The approximate number of persons in Canada who identified as trans or non-binary (2018)

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I Don’t Know Very Much

/ Dave Eberwein / 3 Comments

I know less every day.

I say this with sincerity, because everything I learn exposes other things that I don’t know — new questions, new unknowns, new explorations. As Superintendent, this provides that ‘fire-in-my-belly’ for me to push ahead.

The opportunities to learn are limitless. There is no finish line.

Does increased knowledge translate into having wisdom? Are people who know lots of stuff necessarily wise?

Wisdom requires more than knowing a collection of stuff.

WISDOM results when one’s knowledge is blended with HUMILITY, REFLECTION and GROWTH.

  • Humility provides the mindset to truly understand your learning journey;
  • Reflection results when you process context and previous learning into your new learning; and
  • Growth happens when the knowledge you learn broadens your understanding.

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