Category Archives: Mitch

Social Justice

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Social justice is a cornerstone of every class I teach. It is so wonderful that Carondelet embraces this belief in social justice. How can any student truly understand the concept of “leadership and service to the dear neighbor without distinction” without first understanding the meaning of social justice? I consider myself so lucky to be in a school where these values are not just tolerated, but truly embraced.


Jeff Bezos is the world’s lone hectobillionaire.

This brings me to the topic at hand. Amazon. I love Amazon. It is so easy, and they have everything under the sun from my weird refrigerator water filters to the latest literature about education. But this convenience comes at a price. There is the environmental impact of packaging and fuel. There is the cost to local businesses, and even other online businesses. But the really big cost, the one that gets me the most is the human cost. The more I read about what Amazon is doing to its employees, and the comparison to the obscene income of Jeff Bezos, the more I realize that Amazon is becoming a giant symbol of social injustice.


Amazon is the leader of the new robber baron companies. The more I read, the more I realize how much I need to find ways to protest Amazon. A recent Atlantic Monthly article brought to my attention just how bad Amazon is for its employees and how bad an example it is of a “successful” company. “Bezos is the world’s lone hectobillionaire. He is worth what the average American family is, nearly two million times over.” Amazon pays below the going average wages for unskilled labor. Amazon works its labor force at a grueling pace. This is not Bangladesh or some other third world country. This is the American mainstream labor force. No wonder we have so many social problems.

Bringing this back to Carondelet, Amazon is only one of real world problems we present to our students. This is the type of problem that has the power to truly engage our students. As I see how our students respond to such problems, as I witness our students’ empathy, I am given hope that these are the students that will go out into the world and make a real difference. Carondelet is preparing students to bring light to an otherwise dark future. How many schools can make that claim?

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This is the 340th blog post. Only 16 of those are mine. Well, 17, if you count this one. Jasmine gave me the idea of recording all my posts. I did not bother to record my comments, but while I was looking through the posts I did notice that there are not many comments.  I have about 25 comments on my posts if you don’t count my comments on the comments. That’s about 1.5 comments per post. No a whole lot. It does not look like others are doing any better.

I was wondering how we might get more action on the site. The 340 posts looks pretty good, but how many people are reading them, and how many are taking the time to comment. As we know from our students’ work, if they do not get responses, their work becomes less and less inspired. The same with me. If I have something to say, it would be nice to get some responses. Even criticism is better than nothing.

So how do we make this better? I have started making myself read other people’s posts and have been adding more comments. I think of it like correcting papers, not always fun, but necessary. The students need to get the feedback or why give them the assignments? Maybe you have some ideas. Leave a comment.

Popsicle Sticks

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Most apps are about as exciting as furnace cleaning ads. It was with little hope that I searched for an app that would instantly and randomly create student teams. That was until I stumbled across Popsicle Sticks. Before I get into it, let me provide a little historical information for those of you who are in younger generations, the ones who are still under 60. In my old elementary school teaching days I would keep a can of popsicle sticks on my desk. Each stick had a student’s name on it. Whenever I wanted to randomly call on students to answer questions or randomly create teams I would pull popsicle sticks out of the can. It was simple and completely fair. It also got the student’s attention because they never knew whose stick would be pulled next.

You get the idea. So let’s move beyond the good old days. When I saw a random selection app called Popsicle Sticks after the memories came flooding back I gave it a close look. This program is even cooler than the original popsicle sticks in a can. Class and student names can be typed in or imported via a cvs file. The second method is quick and easy. Once the names are imported the app will randomly call student names each time the teacher pushes a button. It does this with a synthesized voice connected to your classroom speaker system. Not even you know which name is coming up next. How’s that for cool! It can also setup a scored discussion. The teacher can track every time a student gives a good or bad response during a discussion. And finally, the best for last, it randomly creates teams of any size you wish. What a great way to mix students for quick activities and projects. Never a dull moment, and everyone gets to meet everyone! Below is a screenshot of a set of teams I created with one click of a button. Let me know if you would like to know more about the awesome app.

Hot Seat Discussions, Part 2

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Remember my post on hot seat discussions? During my last round I added a new twist. It was such a big hit with my students I have decided to share the process. To recap, students are divided into teams of five. A topic is proposed. In this case we chose to discuss the place of transgender students in sports. This fit our study of 14th Amendment rights to equality.

The essential question we came up with was “Should transgender athletes be allowed to compete against cisgender athletes?” Keying on the essential question the class developed five supporting questions. The supporting questions are:

  1. Are male athletes, as a group, biologically superior to female athletes?
  2. Should there be separate competitions for male and female athletes?
  3. Should some sports be gender neutral?
  4. What defines a person as being transgender?
  5. How do we balance the concepts of competition and fairness in athletic competition?

One student in each team selected a supporting question to research. After completing the research we set up a day (or two in this case) for the discussion.

Beginning with the first supporting question, each student who researched the question took her or his place in the hot seat. Hot seat students then took turns volunteering to speak on their topic. Students were given a maximum of 30 seconds to speak in each round. Rounds continued until all hot seat students were finished adding new information. Other students were then given the an opportunity to ask questions. This process was repeated with new students for each question.

After the supporting questions were discussed the essential question was opened to the entire class for discussion. By this time many in the class were eager to discuss the essential question. Much information from the supporting questions was brought up during the discussion of the essential question.

Grading was rather simple. I gave students a check mark each time each time they spoke and crossed the check mark when they added new information. I added this to their research score for the final grade.

Student comments reflect the success of this assignment. Here are just a few.
” Listening to everyones different research and opinions opened my eyes to different outlooks and thought processes behind the topic.”
“I really enjoyed our discussion on transgender athletes and working to solve a difficult problem.”
“I thought researching and presenting an argument allowed me to be creative and stand up for what I believe in.”
“I thought the sub-questions were an effective way to tackle the question.”


Redos, Retakes, and Do-Overs

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Rick Wormeli

Who is Rick Wormeli? Keep reading to discover why I included a photo of this forward looking educator. Hint: It is not because he has grey hair.

More and more I have been encouraging students to redo essay assignments. Essays are my high stakes proof of understanding assignments. I break down essay assignments into four parts.

Students begin by turning in a research assignment. This consists of a list of references with quotes, notes and summaries for each reference. I often let teams do the research, with each team member being responsible for finding a certain number of references. Team members then discuss the value of each reference and help each other assemble their individual list of references. Once the references are turned in I give a small grade indicating my confidence that these references and notes will lead to a successful paper.

After the research has been approved students are required to individually write an outline for their paper. What is the criteria for a good outline? I tell them that someone should be able to write a good essay using nothing but the material they find in the outline. The thesis, the claims, and the evidence should all be included in the outline. The outline also receives a small grade.

Next the students write the essay. When the essay is complete each student must have one or two other students read and critique the essay. While the critiques are happening the essay writer must ask questions from and take notes on a prepared form. The essay writer then goes back and edits her essay and submits it along with the evaluation form.

If after all of this is done, if the essay writer is not satisfied with her grade, she may rewrite the essay one time for regrading. This has been pretty successful, especially with students who received poor essay grades. They read my notes. They ask me questions. They rewrite their essays and almost always receive a higher grade. Sounds good. Maybe I have this whole thing figured out.

But then I listened to a couple of Rick Wormeli videos and started rethinking this process. He is a standards based grading guy. This is something I have been looking at more and more. With a standards based system students do and redo until they meet the standards. When they meet one set of standards, they move onto the next set. At various points these can be translated into letter grades, but the focus should always be on meeting the standards.

To be honest, my school back in the ’70’s went to standards based grading and it was pretty much a bust. There were lots of check lists and lots of writing, and little understanding by anyone. Standards based grading has come a long way since then. We have the C3 Framework. We have digital portfolios. We know much more about standards now than we did a half century ago. (Yes, I am that old.) I am eager to revisit standards based grading and will be looking for inspiration and edification from Rick Wormeli’s videos and books.

If you would like to join me in exploring standards based grading, watch these two videos. See if they make you want to do something different. Send me a reply.

Rick Wormeli: Redos, Retakes, and Do-Overs, Part One

Rick Wormeli: Redos, Retakes, and Do-Overs, Part Two

Working The Room

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Students love attention. Don’t we all? But how do you give the 120 to 150 students you see each day the attention they need?

Newcastle University’s Professor Sugata Mitra is teaming grandmothers and other volunteers in England with students in his schools in India. In this and previous experiments he has shown that just having someone to talk to about their schoolwork inspires students to do better in school. These people do not even need to understand what the students are talking about. All that’s needed is empathetic listening skills.

One solution for Carondelet might be to find a bunch of retired people who would like to chat with our students on FaceTime or or Skype. We have thousands of such people available in local retirement communities. All we need is an organizer to make it happen.

While this might be a future solution there are other things we can do right now. One easy thing I do is take role as each student enters the classroom. I say hi and exchange a second or two of amenities. For the students I miss, I walk around the room and greet each one of them. To make this go quickly I keep a seating chart in a plastic sleeve. I use a marker to mark each student picture. After taking role, I erase the marking and am ready for the next day.

Students do quite a bit of team work and seat work in my classes. Instead of sitting at my desk doing my work, I get up and wander from team to team asking questions and talking to students. Like the grandmothers, one of my favorite openers is. “Show me what you are working on.” If a student is not working I tell her I will return in a few minutes to see what she is doing. Most share with me and seem to enjoy the experience. This also helps the whole class move into work mode.

People do like to talk about themselves. Look at me right now. The only difference is that the students get immediate feedback. I must wait and see if anyone will respond. As you know, immediate feedback is much more effective in reenforcing positive behavior. A bonus is that this interacting with students activity also makes me feel better. Students have many interesting ideas and working the room is a great way to hear their ideas.

Team Spiderweb Discussions

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The assignment you have created is perfect for a spiderweb discussion, but how do you make it happen with a whole class? Team spiderweb discussions are the answer.

If your class is not already divided into teams, begin by dividing your class into teams of between five and six students. Next have the team recorder* open a shared Google Doc. Supply the essential question or topic for discussion.

Teams will then begin their discussions in their joint Google Docs. Each member will begin each entry with their name and place each entry in an appropriate position. Positioning may be determined by a timeline, a progression of thought, or responses to other comments.

Team members are responsible for their own comments and positioning and also for helping others writing and positioning comments. Discussions need to be equally balanced in terms of entries per person. They need to have good content. They need to progress in a logical order.

Once the time is up for discussion each team will then look over the discussion and edit as necessary. Finally the team speaker will read or summarize the discussion for the class. If appropriate, a short all class discussion can be used to compare the individual team discussions.

*I assign team members roles including leader, recorder, speaker, researcher, and monitor. These roles are reassigned for each project or discussion.

Engaging Parents

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Don’t we all want our students’ parents to be our best advocates? Don’t we want to be the first ones to know about their concerns? These are easy goals to accomplish if we take just a few minutes to sent occasional email to our the parents telling them about what is going on in class. I started doing this a couple of years ago and I cannot describe how much goodwill it has created.


A couple of weeks into school I send out an introductory letter with this opening:

Parents,
I will be sending you emails every couple of weeks to help stimulate dinnertime conversation. I hope you will take the conversation beyond, “How was school?” “Good. Will you please pass the potatoes?’ Parents have experienced much more than their children. I hope that, by sharing your experiences and discussing ideas, your children will be able to more fully benefit from your wisdom.
The response is always very positive. At Back to School Night the emails are often mentioned. If I have a problem with or a comment about a student, with this foundation in place, parents are much more accepting and supportive. For me the rewards of spending these extra few minutes every couple of weeks far outweighs the time spent. This is a complete win-win exercise.
This year it has gotten even easier with the new parent email list generator. Open PowerSchool Pro, click on the “Class” icon in the upper left hand corner. Follow the instructions for two more clicks and you have the most up to date parent email list for each class. Copy and paste it into the BCC (blind carbon copy) of your email and send it out.
I would be glad to help with a first run through with anyone who is interested. Happy parents are easy parents!
Mitch