Category Archives: Symbols & Ethics

The Carondelet Prison Experiment & The 4Cs In action

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The Carondelet Prison
Experiment & The 4Cs In action
In Ethics last month we explored Restorative Justice (shout out to Carrie and Caitlin for coming in to intro that for us!) in
relation to various social issues including the School to Prison Pipeline, Policing
in the United States, and alternatives to the death penalty and incarceration for
non-violent criminals.
I asked students to get into groups and create a 30 minute
experience for their classmates that explored one of these issues from an
ethical perspective using technology and student interaction (i.e. don’t just
make a freaking Kahoot! please).
 If you are already feeling uncomfortable and
uncertain – it’s ok I was too – these are really serious topics and I really was committed to making sure they weren’t satirized or trivialized.  
At the same time I was thinking about the 4C’s – Critical
Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity – something that I had learned about while
getting my credential and something that was a looming Alludo task. In order to
really try this out I felt like I needed to give up some of the normal control
and interference I run while working with students on group projects so I made it a point to have each of these 4 components critical to the group’s successes – hence the
Carondelet Prison Experiment was born….
A group
of students took the US prison population (by race, gender, and crime) and put
it into proportion of the 25 students in the class. They then created a their
own version of Hedbanz where each student had a card taped to their head
representing their crime and gave the class ten minutes to walk around and guess what
their own crime was by the way other people treated them. As you can imagine things
got weird, rowdy, and slightly uncomfy as someone who was a “murder” was
avoided by the class and someone who had abused a child was put in the corner,
literally.
here they are with their Hedbanz cards on their heads waiting for instructions……
The ten
minutes were slightly anxiety provoking for me – I was not in control and was
worried something would be said that would hurt someone or a joke would be made
that would derail the whole thing. I was wrong. The simulation didn’t go perfectly
but the discussion that we had after was so great. 

I have often thought that
some topics could not lend themselves to creativity because of their serious
nature. In retrospect this project worked because students were given full ownership of the project (there were vague instructions) and they were allowed to integrate things that were familiar to them (in this case a game that they played: Hedbanz) and consequently the engagement from the rest of the class was high because of the novelty of the idea and because the class overall seemed to want to help each other succeed. 

Giving students autonomy and keeping the 4C’s in mind really helped me to realize that I do not have the best answers/ideas – my students do, especially when they can authentically work together.  I just need to give them the creative space to help them create something amazing. 

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”.

Food Vlogging – When Food Network meets YouTuber meets Jesus

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I made a commitment this year in my religion classes that I would not give any tests/quizzes. I have been doing Youth Ministry or teaching religion since 2010 and I have not seen a single teen have a true conversion experience by making sure they were adequately tested on the Hypostatic Union or what it means for Jesus to be Consubstantial with the Father. I finally gave myself permission to put that aside and focus on lived experimental faith. #yasinnovation

So this year when I was teaching the Eucharist I knew I needed to mix it up. I see so many of my students watching and sharing YouTubers and Vloggers (James Charles?) that I decided that over Thanksgiving Break I would have my students make their own cooking vlog (this was also selfishly motivated by my deep desire to teach Home Ec.)

Here’s what the project was (in a nutshell):
They needed to document the following in a 10 minute video:
– Cook with someone (or a group of people) that they loved and felt comfortable talking about their faith with
-They could cook whatever they liked as long as it was made from scratch (more or less)
-They then needed to share the food/meal together
-They could work with classmates if they wanted
– Finally they sat down either by themselves or with their loved one and reflected about what they did. They were asked to talk about how their experience informed their understanding of Sacrificial Love and to speculate about why Jesus, on his last night on Earth, would choose to share Himself through a meal with his best friends. While Mass feels dead and boring to so many of them I asked them to think about Jesus’ original intention when He instituted the Eucharist in hopes that they would understand the way in which God wants to be connected to us.

What made this project SO great:
– Oh my gosh! I got to see my students in an entirely different light. Getting to see them learn to make Pancit with their mom for the first time was so special. Watching 3 students mess up a pie because they didnt know there was a difference between regular milk and condensed milk was HILARIOUS. During one student’s clip her 10 year old brother stopped to tell her how happy he was that she included him in the project and asked why they didnt cook together more. I could go on and on with stories…PURE JOY! Our students are SO creative.
– Their reflections were actually good! Often times religion teachers get canned answers to questions related to faith because they have been “doing religion” for 10 years plus. Having them speak from the heart definitely elicited more genuine responses than I am used to getting.
-I got to grade at the gym! Literally my life this semester consists of multitasking as much as possible. I got to watch videos on the treadmill for an hour before I started class tonight.
-They learned new skills in the Google Drive since they had to upload, share, and link their videos to a Google Form. Many did this for the first time.
-Students getting 2 extra days at home to work over break also elevated the quality of these projects I think

Drawbacks:
-Watching 10 minutes of footage per student is a lot – it can’t be graded fast. I am not even half way done.
– SO MANY TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES – so if flexibility isn’t your gift it’s probably not for you

I am looking forward to learning new ways to promote experimental learning – inspired by this project I am creating a “Choose you own adventure final” that I can’t wait to try out. More on that later, off to class.

I walked out of Mass after the homily on Sunday and it’s got me feeling feelings.

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I left Mass on Sunday after the homily. I quietly excused
myself from the back (cause that’s where all the good Catholics sit) because my anger was so great I couldn’t sit still. If you were
raised by a super Catholic family like me (i.e sinning=hell + lots of things are a sins) leaving Mass
before the priest walks out and the final song is done is a huge no
no.

A little backstory: I am struggling really bad right now. It
is not easy to teach a class on the Sacraments and maintain your passion for a
church that has really let so many people down recently. The Grand Jury’s
report on the sexual abuse in Pennsylvania and the recent news about the abuse of children in Catholic orphanages in The United States is a huge weight of sadness on my heart. This is not even easy to post, it’s
not like I’m leaving the church or am trying to talk trash but I cant make
sense of how these things happen and not only have to come up with answers for
myself, but for my students who feel that the church has lost all credibility on
issues of morality.
I went to church because I was aching for the priest to
stand up and say something like, “dang we messed up, we ruined lives, we need
structural change, there is nothing we can ever do to make up for this type
of damage but we have to try”.  I wanted
a game plan and marching orders of what to do next. But that didn’t happen. Instead
I heard things like how “only” (that’s a direct quote) nine priests in our
diocese have ever been arrested for abuse and the church is not the only
organization that deals with sexual misconduct.
While these things are true they fail to capture the magnitude
of the cover up of these “few” (please note the sarcasm) priests and the fact
that so many victims will never have anything close to justice in this life. Do
other organizations have issues?? Sure. But Jerry Sandusky & Harvey
Weinstein don’t claim to be the moral teaching authority for 1.2 billion people on earth. Priests are the gatekeepers for the Sacraments, they literally act
in the person of Christ, and at times, have left so many Catholics feeling
less than (i.e. divorced Catholics, the LGBTQ+ community, etc). So, do I think
this is comparable to any other scandal? Absolutely not and I was real mad that
the message was not stronger. You can’t fix something that is not fully acknowledged and brought into the light.
When I made it out into the foyer I was alone except for
another woman pacing. I recognized her – she was the mom of a recent alumna who
like me was really upset. Her daughter had finally come back to the church
after Kairos and was now unwilling to go to Mass. We talked and shared feelings
until Mass was practically over. She reminded me that we, the laity, are the
church. Like the sisters of St. Joseph who rolled up their sleeves and did the
dirty work that the hierarchy didn’t want to do, the work of manifesting
Christ’s love to a broken world is ours. The truth and beauty of our faith
doesn’t become untrue because of the failings of others, but it HAS to be
addressed.  While I missed the Eucharist (another
big Catholic no no – I was on a roll) I encountered Christ through this woman who restored my
faith in a way that sitting there upset mumbling prayer responses mindlessly never
would have.
This is not the darkest moment in church history (cause:
indulgences, Vatican bank stuff, crusades, inquisitions, you know…) but it is
pretty dark. I hope that this is a time for purification for our church. I hope
it is a time for our students to have conversations and grapple with their faith
as messy as that can be. I hope they see themselves as part the Body of Christ
with gifts and perspectives that the rest of us need. I hope they know that I
believe that change in the church will come from their generation, not mine or
older generations. I hope that they can feel confident enough to speak out and
question the system when it is wrong.  And
I hope that I can walk humbly with them in that. Teaching religion comes with so many little issues that teaching history does not, but what a gift to get to show up and do this as a job.  
Any words of advice (especially from any of you raising your kids Catholic) would be much appreciated.