• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Dan's Daily

  • Blog
  • About
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / Blog / Above and beyond

Above and beyond

Dan Cullum · May 9, 2025 ·

The best teachers from my childhood went above and beyond. They did things for our class that were well outside of what was expected, but these actions had an outsized impact on my life.

When I was twelve, Mrs. J would take a small group of us out of our scheduled class once every two weeks to run a full day workshop on a surprise topic. I remember one was on the life and works of Galileo, and how we tried to simulate the gravitational experiments he conducted at the Tower of Pisa.

I can’t remember much of the subject matter from these workshops, but I certainly remember how I felt. Bursting with energy, curiosity, and confidence. Mrs. J created an environment where asking questions was celebrated, where learning was a joy, and where the pursuit of knowledge was cherished.

Those workshops set a baseline expectation for me going forward. I expected learning to be fun and rigorous. And when future teachers found my incessant questions annoying, I wasn’t phased because those behaviours were validated by Mrs. J in earlier years, so I knew I should continue to question everything.

Twenty years later, the dividends from Mrs. J’s lessons are still paying a return. They influence how I approach new challenges at work, and will influence how I choose to raise my children.

That’s above and beyond.

Blog

Primary Sidebar

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up via Email

Recent Posts

  • Above and beyond
  • The future train driver
  • Everything in one place
  • The risk doesn’t change
  • Don’t get beat by the broken camera

Archives

  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • January 2019

© 2025 Dan Cullum · Log in