Category Archives: Jen Reinwald

“You unlock this door with the key of imagination…”

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When I took on organizing the Sophomore Community program for the fall, I initially struggled with its shape and structure.  Through conversation with Stacie, Sarah, and the rest of the Student Life Team, the purpose of the program was clear.  We wanted to build on the community building and social emotional learning pieces that Frosh Advisory began nurturing last year.  With this in mind, I have tried to capitalize on what the year brings in order to build community and engage with school traditions.  






The October Soph Community date happened to fall the week before *St. Marty’s party.  Decorating for St. Marty’s Party is a wonderful way for the Sophomore class to bond, give community service, and participate in a school tradition.  Maggie let me know that the Sophomores traditionally decorate classroom doors for the trick or treating section of the party.  These decorated doors are for the time when the children, dressed in costumes that they choose, trick or treat through our academic building. It’s an important part of making this event festive and welcoming for these children.  Since the theme this year is Pixar, she wanted the doors to be themed using the films. 

With the help of the wonderful Sophomore Council and their moderator, Andrew Kjera, doors and themes were assigned to the eight Soph Community groups.  Last Thursday, during the afternoon X, students were assigned doors, themes, and working groups.  They were told that they had 30 minutes to design, decorate, and put up these doors.  The Community group with the most successful doors would earn a pizza party for November’s Community meeting.  Maggie and I also decided that a bag of candy would be awarded to the Community group that produced the best decorated single door. 

Students worked diligently.  Ideas abounded.  Mistakes were made, set aside and work began again.  Students helped groups not in their Soph Community group.  Other students shared resources with those around them.  Additional materials were requested, found, and utilized.  The controlled chaos was electric.  Watching the Sophomores, I was surprised to see how quickly and efficiently most students were working.  They were focused and having fun.  Andrew pointed out to me that these students all took Think, Make, Share last year and had worked on these kinds of design challenges.  They had experience tackling a problem with limited resources and time.  Watching the students work, I saw how their shared experience was helping them with this challenge.  This was an unintended and welcome consequence of this Community session!

I’m now planning November’s Sophomore Community session in conjunction with Sophomore Council.  I’m eager to continue to build this program.  What else can we do to come together as a community and build on the common skills we are working on as a school?  It’s an interesting problem.

*St. Marty’s party is a wonderful school tradition.  For those of you who are new to the community, Carondelet puts on a Halloween party for children who may not live in an area where it is safe to trick or treat and/or may not have the means to celebrate the holiday.  This event is called St. Marty’s Party, as it was originally put on for the children of St. Martin de Porres Elementary School which has since closed. Today, we serve the children of Monument Crisis Center.  Hopefully you had a chance to stay and participate in the party. The children had so much fun this year.

Empathy Fitness

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I’ve been thinking a lot about empathy this school year.  When I started the year talking about Social Emotional Learning using Brene Brown’s empathy RSA short, I began to see the impact of empathy or lack thereof almost every day.  I truly believe that empathy is a starting point to understanding myself and others.  It’s a point to build connections with each other and the larger world.

Image by huoadg5888 at Pixabay

As some of you know, I love podcasts.  One of my favorites is Hidden Brain with Shankar Vedantam.  I highly recommend it if you enjoy podcasts that explore human behavior.  This past week I listened to the episode entitled, “The Empathy Gym.”  This episode explores the idea that empathy is a skill that can be developed if exercised.  If one doesn’t work on empathy, that skill will wither.  One of the more interesting assertions made is that empathy in the developed world has actually decreased in the 21st century mostly due to the decline in the need to meet and connect face to face as well as a rise in people living alone.  This idea does make sense to me.  The more we have to talk, relate, cooperate, and experience each other, the more we can see and learn how others feel and live.  Another nugget in this episode explains why I am so exhausted at the end of some days.  The more a person uses empathy and is open to experiencing and considering another’s experience and story, the more tired and uncomfortable this person can become.  In a sense, those days are ones where I did a hard workout in the “empathy gym” which can make it hard arriving home to family life and its own stresses and need for empathy.

How might this view of empathy help me at school?  First, I need to be kind to myself.  Those days when I feel worn out and have the urge to come to a snap decision without considering all sides, I’ve actually expended all my empathy energy.  Stepping away for a second, focusing on something else, resting the empathy muscle, will allow me to come back to an issue fresher and more capable of discerning a way forward.  Second, when working with students who may be having trouble empathizing with others, there are ways to help develop that skill.  Perhaps that student actually has hit their threshold of empathy and cannot take on more.  Perhaps that student needs more time to walk with someone different from herself.  Restorative practices can help in both instances.

So, I’m curious.  Have you been thinking about empathy lately?  Have you found any “exercises” that help build the empathy muscle?

Can’t be a Hypocrite: Why I Finally Wrote a Blog Post

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As most of you know, I love to talk. It’s something that has always come natural to me. If given the option to write an essay, take a test, or give a presentation, I was always thrilled to have the opportunity to present. I am fine with tests. I absolutely hate essays.

I feel like part of expecting our students to be vulnerable with us is to be vulnerable with each other.

I am deathly afraid of writing a blog on this platform. Okay, that was a little dramatic. I am extremely hesitant to write a blog on this platform. Why? My original reasoning was because all of my past English teachers work here and I would be extremely embarrassed if I made any sort of grammatical error in my writing.

But I realized that my first reason was only an excuse. Lisa, Jenny, Hayley, and Jen are some of the most understanding and loving people out there. They would not burn me at the stake for a comma splice. I realized that my reason for not blogging was something that I have told our students not to do a thousand times.

I have been comparing myself to others, and fearing that my blog post would not measure up to theirs. I have read heartwarming, hilarious, and insightful posts on this blog that have left me in states of deep contemplation or hysterical laughter. After each one of those posts, I thought to myself, “Maybe I could write one too.”

At one point, I actually sat down to write a post. I had just come back from the CSJ Student Leadership Conference and was absolutely ecstatic. This is the result.

I kept writing, then deleting, then writing again, then growing frustrated that I didn’t have at least three funny quips in by the sixth sentence. I spent ten minutes alone thinking about a clever title. I eventually gave up and thought, “Meh, I guess this just isn’t for me.” I logged out of Blogger and continued on with my day like nothing had happened.

Why write now? Well, after completing our Mission PD activity, I realized that I was not living up to the expectations that I had for our students. As I reflected on my own response as well as the responses of my coworkers, the words that stood out to me were confidence and fearlessness. How can I tell my students that they should not care what others think when I can’t write a blog post without the same fear? How can I tell them to push themselves past roadblocks when I could not?

Our roles as educators and role models is to rise up to challenges. Maybe some of you have shared the same sentiment on being afraid to write blog posts. Or maybe you fear eating in the Faculty/Staff Lounge because you don’t have anyone to sit with. My advice? Take a look back at an article Ashley Clemens sent to us before we went off to break about positive self-talk. Here is the link to the article. I hope to talk to myself in a more positive manner and to keep taking on challenges that scare me.

Work/Life Balance: Is it possible?

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I (along with most people I know) have spent my entire adult life trying to figure out a healthy work/life balance.  If I am going to be completely honest, I have struggled with this from age 12.  Lately, this issue has been one that I have thought about a lot both personally and professionally.

When I shifted from classroom teaching to administration, I quickly realized that if I didn’t make time with family, friends, and those activities that refresh my spirit a priority, that I could very easily spend all of my time on work concerns.  There is always something that can be done, an initiative to brainstorm and plan, a conversation to be had.  Now, this is not to say that when I taught I didn’t feel this way.  I did, but I depended on school breaks for this release.  I knew this wasn’t healthy; but it was the way I organized my leisure time.

In several conversations that I have had recently with both the Student Life Team and my teaching colleagues, this work/life balance is a pain point for our students as well.  When life balance is out of whack, students get sick, stressed, anxious, and depressed.  We are seeing this more and more.  How can we help our students address this issue in their own lives?  The answer isn’t clear.  One thing that I have heard over and over is that we can’t help our students prioritize their lives when we don’t do it ourselves.  How do I talk to a struggling, stressed student about the importance of scheduling time with friends, if I haven’t talked to my friends in any real way for months?  How do I encourage an anxious student about the importance of pursuing hobbies and enjoyable activities if I haven’t knit a stitch on my latest work in progress in three weeks?


I am not sure what the answer is or if a perfect work/life balance is always possible, but working on the question is important.  It is important if for nothing else, it reminds me that this is vital if we are going to remain healthy in mind, body, and spirit.  We can’t forget that to affect change in our students’ lives, we need to make this change in our lives.  So, what about you?  How do you work through this question?

(Pictures taken on the Black Diamond Trail, Clayton side.  Beautiful run and/or hike for those looking to enjoy nature.)

The Messy Nature of a Classroom Discussion

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I love a good class discussion.  The best class discussions are the ones where the students take ownership of the topic.  When I design a whole class discussion, my main goal is for students to have a forum to share what they have learned, test their ideas in a public forum, and then allow their ideas to grow, shape, and change as they participate in group idea sharing.  Usually, I prepare readings and resources for students to read and process, and develop discussion questions to be prepared for discussion.  For a recent class discussion on contemporary Islam, I decided to hand the reins over to my classes.  The results were fruitful.

To complete a unit on Islam, small groups of students researched contemporary topics such as the application of Sharia Law, women in Islam, the rise of ISIS and fundamentalism in Islam, the tension between Sunni and Shia, and discrimination against Muslim groups globally.  Students worked together to find resources, shared them with each other, and analyzed them according to bias and accuracy. I have given this kind of assignment in the past.  At this point, traditionally, I would ask groups to present their findings to the class.  Instead of this, I asked these small groups to choose the best resource they found, to develop a discussion question from this resource, and then to assign this resource and discussion question to the rest of the class.  Student groups chose a wide variety of resources to share including articles from the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, Time, The Pew Research Forum, and The Economist.  Videos were also assigned from a variety of resources like Vox, Ben Shapiro, Now this World, etc.  I did not limit them in terms of biased resources, asking that they acknowledge the bias presented. 

Overall, I felt that the discussion questions that students generated were interesting and complex. Here are a few sample questions:

  • Does political climate affect the way that groups of people, specifically Muslims, are treated and thought of in a country?
  • Why do you think that certain followers of Islam practice fundamentalism and participate in terrorist organizations, while so many other followers of the faith manage to follow it in peace?
  • Based on the empowering Qur’an verses, do you think that Islam is inherently sexist?
  • Do you think a secular state, such as the law of Western societies, is more beneficial to society as a whole as opposed to Sharia? Why?
To prepare for the discussion, students read the articles, viewed the videos, and prepared their thoughts on all the possible discussion questions created by their peers.  
On the day of the discussion, students took control, offering their ideas, and calling on each other.  I interjected from time to time to clarify a comment, move the discussion, or ask a follow up question.  As students discussed, I took notes on student participation and what was said.
Each class experienced a different discussion that expressed the chemistry and interests of each class.  
I felt that the discussions went well, students learned more about contemporary Islam, and were able to develop their own points of view.  On the summative quiz, I included a short answer question that asked students to talk about what they learned from the discussion and connections that they made.  Student responses did show that they liked hearing what others had to say, and that their knowledge and opinions did grow and change as a result of this activity.    I have included pictures of some student comments below.

Overall, I feel like giving my students more agency in the process of developing the discussion prep allowed for students to be more engaged in the process.  My learning goal that students develop and test their own thoughts and opinions in the public forum did happen, as most students offered a  nuanced position on their quiz, referring to the conversation (and sometimes outside research).
I want to play more with student centered research and class discussion next year.  

The 5 AP day: Shadowing a Senior

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Last Friday, I had the opportunity to shadow a
senior, Rin Oisaghie. Rin’s schedule is a challenging one.  She takes five AP courses: Physics C,
Literature, Computer Principles, Calculus BC, and Government. She is also
taking spiritual journey after lunch and is in student leadership which meets a
couple times a week at 0 period. To prepare for the day, I reflected on what
question would guide me as I experienced her day. I decided to consider one
main question: what would this day feel like physically, intellectually, and
emotionally from the perspective of a student. For the purposes of this blog, I
will not go through the experience of each class, but will rather share themes
that ran through my day in light of my guiding question.
A day at school means a lot of sitting. Students
sit a lot. Most of the classes that I attended included a lot of group and
student interaction. Few classes had students passively taking in information
in the form of a lecture or individual reading. Physically though, students did
not move. I felt stuck to my chair, and frequently felt uncomfortable, but
unable to stand up and move around. Conversely, Rin and I had a hard time
making it to class on time when we had to travel between De La Salle and
Carondelet during the 7-minute passing period. We power walked, but stairwells
and the crosswalk at Winton create choke points that slowed our progress. I
found trying to make class on time stressful. This stress then translated to
having a hard time adjusting to the next class. 

What stresses
do 5 AP classes exert on a student’s day? In terms of class experience, all
classes offered challenging content and learning activities. Throughout the day
I worked through a Physics Free Response problem (well I watched and tried to
keep up), discussed a draft of body paragraphs analyzing social commentary at
the heart of the play, Oedipus Rex, learned some basic computer
programming, watched students take a Calculus test, read a chapter on
spirituality, and sat with a group debating in support for the electoral
college in American politics.  My brain was challenged in each
class.  What I found most difficult was shifting my thinking processes for
each class.  Listening to the in class group assignment for AP Lit, I kept
thinking about how lost I was in Physics just 15 minutes before. 
The purpose of an AP curriculum is to provide
rigorous content previewing college level work and allowing students to explore
subjects of interest more deeply.  I can clearly see how these AP courses
do these things for students.  Speaking for myself, I was not interested
in every AP class I shadowed.  I could not imagine taking all of these
courses because of personal interest.  In terms of previewing college
level work, the high school day is nothing like a college student’s
schedule.  The compression of five such rigorous subjects between 8 and 2
felt rushed.  I think that this affects students’ experience and
interaction with the subject.  There was never enough time to go deeper on
the concepts presented or worked on.  The default then becomes what ideas
do students already know or can find and then recycle these.  Perhaps this
is also a problem in student schedules that do not carry so many APs. 
Perhaps the real problem is the schedule, but I do think that with each AP
added, the more intense this pressure becomes.
 This
brings me to the emotional impact of the day.  I felt stressed.  This
stress came from the physical impact of a sedentary day punctuated by mad
dashes to the next class.  This stress came from the mental shifts from
class to class.  This stress came from the difficulty to go deeper with
the rigorous content in short 45 minute blocks.  Rin, however, took the
whole day in stride.  She worked diligently in her courses, chatted with
her friends while power walking to her next course, and used any down time in
her classes to study or do work for other courses.  She did confess at the
end of the day, that she was tired.  I have no doubt that she was. 
So was I.

Flow Charts in Philosophy

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One of the most useful things I’ve tried in my philosophy class is the humble flow chart.  Philosophy ideas and writings lend themselves to this graphic model.  So far, I have used a flow chart to explain how St. Augustine gets from the question: “If God is all Good and all powerful, why does evil exist” to “Free will allows us to choose to turn away from God which leads to evil or the corruption of Good.”  Bertrand Russell’s idea about the four hour work day also lent itself to the use of a flow chart.

Last week I decided to put the power of the flow chart in the hands of the students.  We read a selection from Rene Descartes, First Meditation.  We read the first section together.  I constructed a flow chart of Descartes idea on the board with student input.

The students were then told that the second reading section would complete the flow chart.  I then had students create groups of 3-4.  Groups read the second section together and then were tasked to fill in the rest of the chart.  I walked around and checked in with students as they worked.  Students struggled with the reading, but they discussed and tested their ideas with their groups.  The final flow charts represented collaborative learning, and critical thinking.

After completing the flow charts, students posted the work, review them, and voted on the charts they felt was the most complete.

Fun with Flow Charts!

What’s your “Big Question”?

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One of my main goals for the new Introduction to Philosophy class is to encourage students to explore big questions and concepts that they find interesting or relevant to life today.  I want students to move beyond passively learning about philosophers, ideas, and theories throughout our history of thought to actively evaluating and connecting these concepts to their own experiences and world views.  To this end, I have assigned my students a “Big Question” project.  Here is a link to the details of the first stage process.  The project is inquiry based and will be developed throughout the first semester.

Currently, students have chosen and refined a “Big Question” of interest.  They are researching what other philosophers and schools of thought have said about this concept.  As the semester progresses, students will continue to make connections between what we are learning in class with the question, find articles and media that develop it, and finally come to their own understanding.

I am impressed by the questions with which my students have decided to grapple.  Here are some examples.  Is an utopian society possible?  What is the nature of love? Why are human beings so often dissatisfied?  What is beauty?  I meet with students individually to discuss the question.  I also communicate with each student through Schoology as they research and struggle through difficult reading.  So far these discussions have shown students working with these ideas, clarifying what and why she is interested in the topic, and how she is seeing these ideas’ relevance today.

This exercise does highlight the need for a different way of organizing instructional time during the day.  These topics require sustained focus, questioning, and thought.  Our current school day and year don’t allow students this kind of time to deep dive.  With the time we have, students are beginning to scratch the surface of sustained philosophical inquiry.