Category Archives: student life

Washing of the Feet

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Photo creds: Adam Chaffey
Photo creds: Miranda Cozzone
While on Ven a Ver last week, we attended three masses at three different churches. We went to Palm Sunday mass in Charleston, Holy Thursday mass in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Good Friday mass in Columbus, Ohio. I loved the Holy Thursday service. I’ve always loved Holy Thursday. When I go to church, I want to feel the Holy Spirit, and I have been affected by Holy Thursday my whole life. I love the washing of the feet and the reminder of the importance of humility. Having your feet washed is embarrassing though. Just the idea of it makes me nervous, and I almost talk myself out of getting my feet washed every time. But one of our students asked me to go up and have my feet washed with her. How could I say no? I chose to attend Ven a Ver to serve my students, my community after all. Lesly (Do you know Lesly? She is such outgoing and full of life, a pleasure to be around) and I approached the alter and had our feet washed. A couple more students followed. It was a beautiful experience. Later, we went to dinner in town and an older couple who saw us at church asked about our group. I invited them to dine with us and we talked about our trip and their lives in West Virginia. They too are educators, though retired. This couple shared how heartfelt it was that some of our students had their feet washed. It is really a very spiritual tradition, washing of the feet.

How many notifications do students get in a class period?!

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I have Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook, group text messages, an iPhone and an Apple Watch. I might not be Gen Z like our students, but I have empathy for them. I know what it is like to text during a high school class.

Last week I came across a Twitter “retweet” of the picture below. The teacher, for one class period had students turn their phone “ringers” on and instructed students to tally every time they received a notification and this was the result.

I decided to try the experiment with my junior classes. On Monday, in a 45 minute class, I was ready to go. Instead of students getting up from their seats to tally, I just had them call out what classification of notification they received and I made the marks.
I felt/learned/observed 3 things from this experiment…

1. I feel badly for our students and their level of notifications.
2. I would guess about half of the students in each period never yelled out a single notification.
3. Students need to learn HOW to MANAGE their cell phones since it doesn’t seem to be something that is disappearing from their lives any time soon.
Period 3
Period 1
P.S. the circled numbers in the above photo are from group messages of three students… the three students told their friends to flood their group message…and they thought I didn’t know it…except I did….and then other students of mine later on in the day told me “hey _ told me to text them over and over”
Image result for not amused face

Is it Actually Schoolwork or Homework?

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Schoolwork at Home
Sometimes schoolwork outside of school is necessary.
We can’t get around it…but this made me stop to think about how much actual “homework”
our students get to do when they go home.


Do they get to eat at a dinner table free of distractions? Do they get to have real conversations with parents? Do they do their own laundry? Do they actually get to spend time, in person, with their friends outside of class and practice? My best afternoons of high school were when my best friend and I had no homework, no obligations, and could go shop or get froyo or go to the golf driving range. (to clarify I did not golf, my talent was placing the ball on the tee for my League MVP best friend). 
With that said…..guess what I am going to do? Assign “schoolwork at home”.
However, I am going to ask them to interview a parent, grandparent, teacher, or other relative that is
married. I want them to have a conversation with the adult about the ups and downs and true reality
of marriage since we have just learned about the Sacrament of Matrimony.
While the interview will have to be done at home I am giving them a block period to actually complete
the “schoolwork” part. After reading Miranda’s blog about her students vlogging during Thanksgiving
and hearing student feedback when I observed, I am inspired to figure out ways to facilitate
“schoolwork at home” that actually creates true “homework”.

Laughter in the Classroom

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“You should be a comedian!!!!!”

Yesterday, a freshman told me in front of the class that I should be a comedian. I joke often that I am “the funny one” in the family. However, I never really thought about how often I actually do try to get a laugh out of students.

I don’t tell jokes, I don’t try to “roast” them, I don’t self-deprecate (too often), but I do try to be dorky, nerdy, silly, and laugh often to create a certain classroom feel. Research is somewhat inconclusive about the use of humor in the classroom. There are studies that show humor does not increase learning and I am okay with that because that is never truly my aim with class laughter. For me, laughter makes life better. For my students, I believe that laughter disarms them, makes them take a breath, relieves the pressure of their daily school grind, and makes my classroom a safe place.

For example, yesterday again (it was a pretty good Tuesday if I do say so myself), a student was sharing his prayer. He was talking about his family tradition of going to a pumpkin patch every Halloween and during his description of the patch he momentarily forgot who he was speaking to and commented about the “big a** pumpkins”. Almost immediately I gasped and then burst into laughter with all 30 juniors, including the student who said it, also breaking out into laughter. He immediately apologized with a giant smile, blushing only a little in embarrassment. We all gathered ourselves and he went on with his prayer and he received a great round of applause from his classmates. It is in these moments in a classroom that I love laughter. It never takes away from class rules and expectations, respect for one another, or sincerity, but keeps us all a little more relaxed and a little more human.

“Laughter has been implanted in our soul, that the soul may sometime be refreshed.”
— St. John Chrysostom

“It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.” — St. Thomas Aquinas

“Lord, give me a sense of humor so that I may take some happiness from this life.” — St. Thomas More

“Humor is the foundation of reconciliation.” — St. Francis de Sales

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.)