Category Archives: Uncategorized

Immutable Time

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It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?
Henry David Thoreau

 My thinking about how to best spend my time came to me while I was completing my weekly Friday Feedback assignment. Half of my students complete the assignment each week. I split it up because it takes me about two hours to answer each set of feedbacks. 

 My Friday Feedbacks consist of three questions: 

  • What did you like or find most interesting during the past two weeks? 
  • What did you least like or understand? 
  • What questions or random thoughts came to mind while you were studying (the subject)? 
I learn much about each of my students through these Friday Feedbacks. It is also a great way to take the pulse of how students feel about what is going on in class. Students are very straightforward about what they like and dislike. Their questions show what they do not understand and provide insight to their interests. But then, doing Friday Feedback is so time consuming. Should I be spending that much time on doing something that isn’t even required?

When I add this work to innovative lesson planning, paper correcting, student tutoring, and other school activities, it adds up to about 60 hours per week. If I write a blog post or play Alludo or observe other teachers, it takes even more time. My wife claims my whole life revolves around school. Maybe it is time to reevaluate my priorities. 

School work that challenges students also challenges teachers. Creating essential questions, providing genuine research opportunities, requiring complex writing, and engaging students in meaningful discussions takes time. Good lessons go way beyond assigning a chapter in a textbook or giving students a multiple choice test. Meeting the needs of students is a never ending task. Every class is different. Every student is different. One size does not even begin to fit all. Even the lessons from last year must be modified for this year. How much time should I spend trying to best meet the needs of my students?


Each day I engage with about 120 students. Each day I owe every one of these students my very best. But who is counting? Who is measuring the learning and engagement of my students? I could have modified or created a lesson for tomorrow instead of writing this blog. I could have given more feedback on the outlines for the Civics essays that are due today. But now I am worried. Is someone counting my posts? Is someone tracking my Alludo score? Is someone recording the number of observations I make? So how should I spend my time? Should I continue spending as many hours doing my Friday Feedback assignments? Should I continue spending as many hours researching all the subjects I teach? Should I continue spending as much time helping struggling students? Maybe it would serve my interests better to spend more time blogging or garnering Alludo points or taking on another club.

Maybe someone can offer some sage advice. I have no more hours to give. My wife will divorce me. I don’t want to be busy like an ant. I need to reevaluate what I should be busy about. If you have read this far, your feedback will be much appreciated.

Using Data in Economics

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I want to share part of a unit evaluation I used in my economics class last semester. The unit I taught was a problem-based unit. This type of lesson front loads the unit with a “wicked” real-world problem that the students must grapple with before they begin to learn any content. This process makes the acquisition of new content more purposeful for students and will, in theory, promote meaningful and lasting learning.

Because students are challenged with solving the wicked problem, a high level of intellectual rigor is required throughout the entire unit. Students at all proficiency levels must struggle with unpacking the wicked problem before they can move forward. Students are ultimately successful in converting the wicked problem into a wicked question, and learning accelerates.

At the end of the semester I asked students the question below using a unit evaluation:

Those results were satisfying. Most students in that class think they learn better in a problem-based learning environment. This validates my hard work and effort. However the next question in the unit evaluation produced an unexpected pattern.

I asked students why they made their particular choice and requested their response in written format. Here are the groupings:

Students who preferred PBL provided 
shorter simplistic responses.

Students who preferred “conventional” learning provided
longer well-articulated responses.

The salient points are not contained in any of the reasons they provided. Here is  where the money is: students who are skillful reader/writers prefer units designed closer to lecture format. Shit! That was never my intention.

If PBL provides a more intellectually rigorous learning experience then conventional lecture/textbook learning, then why are my most academically proficient students giving thumbs down? (Disclaimer: many dissenters stated they like PBL, but they still prefer the conventional classroom)

According to a majority of my students, PBL is here to stay, at least in my regular economics classes. The challenge for me moving forward is too obvious…

Here is the unit evaluation.

Fun facts from AP Computer Science Principles

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Does this look familiar?  After filling out a form, you’ve likely been asked to read a distorted sequence of characters like this.

How many of you found it really annoying?  (Personally, I much prefer the CAPTCHA over the “select all the images that are cars/trees/bridges”.)

Invented in 1997, CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.  CAPTCHAs are “a type of challenge–response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human.”

Mildly interesting, right?

But here is what you probably didn’t know.  If you’re decoding words with reCAPTCHA (like the image above), you are actually doing something good for humanity.  You’re solving a problem.

YOU are helping to digitize old books!

With reCAPTCHA you are given two words, one is a word the computer knows the answer to, the other word is a word that needs to be digitized.  If you get the test word correct, the computer assumes you also got the other word correct.  Does this mean all the responsibility of correctly decoding a word is falling on your shoulders?  Nope.  Once ten people agree on the new word, the computer digitizes that word.

I find this fascinating!

Now, the same brilliant guy (Luis von Ahn) who came up with CAPTCHA/reCAPTCHA also created Duolingo.  You get to learn a language for free, but what you’re also doing is helping to translate the web!

Ok, I’ve basically given away all the exciting parts of Luis von Ahn’s TEDtalk, but I highly suggest you take some time to watch it.  It’s 20 minutes, but remember that you can watch it in fast-forward mode (just click on the little cogwheel in the lower right hand corner and pick your speed).

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East Bay Cue. February 23, 2019

This tech workshop was really worth the investment of time!
Anne-Marie Cabral, Joan Tracy and I spent our
Saturday with other tech lovers at Valley View
Middle School. During the breaks we got to hear
about the Pear Deck and Google Slides sessions
that Anne-Marie attended, and they sounded
really great, but I’m writing this to tell you about
the fun Joan and I had playing with Raspberry Pi.
This is a credit-card sized, open source computer
that is the perfect platform to get our girls excited
about coding and physical computing. With only a screen, keyboard,
mouse and our Raspberry Pi, Joan and I had LED lights blinking and making patterns within just an
hour. You can start off with the coding language Scratch and can quickly start working in Python.
Our brains were spinning as we made plans to integrate these cute little devices into the TMS
and physics classes. Our workshop leader inspired us with projects her second graders are doing,
so we are ready to share the challenge with our 9th grade girls. As a bonus-we were able to take our
Raspberry Pi’s home, so we have jump start on planning.
The next symposium will be held in September–it’s free and a great PD opportunity!

On John Francis and (Not) Keeping Silence

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On this observance of the Day of Silence, I offer this TED Talk with John Francis, a personal hero of mine.  
In case you are unfamiliar with him, after the S.F. oil spill of 1971, when over a half-million gallons of oil polluted our waters, John Francis completely gave up motorized vehicles (’72-’94)  and walked much of the U.S. as well as South America.  
For seventeen years, he also held silence (while earning several degrees, teaching, and becoming a UN Ambassador, etc.), which he describes in this TED Talk:  https://www.ted.com/talks/john_francis_walks_the_earth/discussion#t-178070 
I appreciate his message: “We are the environment, and how we treat each other is really how we are going to treat the environment.”

I also appreciate the questions he provokes in me–e.g., when is silence a way of giving voice? When is silence connecting and when is it divisive?  If giving up motorized vehicles or holding silence (even for a day) is not an option for many of us, what can we do (or not do) to show our solidarity with the silenced and suffering dear neighbor, human and other-than-human?

You Are the Light, So Why So Drab?

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Last night, as I was driving home with my extensive playlist on shuffle, a Jonathan Richman song came on, bringing everything I have been experiencing at Carondelet into focus:
“You are the light of the world
So why is your world so grey?
You are the light of the world
So why are you so bored?
Are you tired
Of your drab ways
Them drab an’ stagnant ways…”
That’s right, friends! All of this talk about advancing mission, new state-of-the-art facilities, immersions, innovations–why we cannot keep doing what is no longer working (if it ever worked)–is the antidote to “drab an’ stagnant ways.”
I must say, I have never been in a more vibrant work environment than Carondelet.
Thank you for being light, for being anything but drab, and for bringing the best out in me, our students, and one another.

How Square!

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One of the issues we have been exploring in some depth at Carondelet is balance.   Even though I worked in the Sabbatical field before coming to Carondelet, I describe myself as a “slow learner of slow-time.”  While I can find enjoyment in most things I do, I typically have some accomplishment in mind, above and beyond the simple pleasure of the activity itself.  In an attempt to remedy this issue, I made a resolution last summer to put a few activities in place for the sole purpose of fun. One of these activities was square dancing.  
I recalled fond memories of square dancing as a kid.  I also enjoyed it once as an adult.  One evening, when I was at a conference in Loveland, Ohio, I attended a local family gathering, with four generations taking turns calling as the rest of us dosadoed among fireflies. 
I was uncertain if square dancing had become a thing of the past or if I would be able to find a venue nearby.  When I Googled it, not only did I find that there is a vibrant square-dancing scene in San Francisco but there happened to be a weekly square-dancing club, with classes and a live caller, in Concord.  On top of that, they were offering a Groupon special: ten lessons for $17 total.  
I couldn’t pass up the offer, even though a close friend, upon hearing my expressed enthusiasm, admonished that I would likely be well out of my element.  Other loved ones thought I was joking.  After anticipating my first night of class for several months, in September I was greeted by the glad faces of a community of varying ages: small children, teens, young adults, older adults, and seniors, most wearing the traditional square-dancing garb.  
The caller sang out clear and concise instruction.  The advanced dancers were patient and gracious with the beginners.  The lessons were interspersed with opportunities for the advanced dancers to enjoy their long-honed skills, while the rest of us looked on in delight.  One woman brought her elderly, wheelchair-bound mother to look on, with beaming smiles.  Several regulars told me that they consider the evening a “family event,” one person pointing out his spouse and four children, while another lamented a deceased husband with whom she danced for decades.  Spare advanced dancers, called “angels,” are on hand for those without a dance partner. 
While it would be a stretch to consider square dancing as a workout, it has exercised me in other ways. I have found particularly refreshing attending an entire two-hour event devoid of electronic devices. I have also enjoyed the eye-to-eye contact and the clasping of hands with perfect strangers.  The cool jug of iced-water and the homemade cookies and cupcakes add an additional welcoming dimension.  I have also appreciated certain bygone courtesies, such as bowing to your partner and corner at the beginning of a dance, and thanking and shaking hands with each and every dancer following every number.  Square dancing also cultivates keen listening, as the fun largely depends upon each individual’s following rather than anticipating the calls, for the good of the group.   Most importantly, I have found the evenings deeply renewing, waking the following morning feeling more spaciousness, energy, and inspiration than had I not attended the evening before.  
I completed the last of my ten dance lessons in December (missing only one class due to the CSSJ Conference). The club presented the new dancers with certificates and supplemented the snack table with a large congratulatory sheet cake. 
Why do I blog about square dancing here? Because, well, I know it’s not for everyone, but I thought maybe you might want to consider giving  it a whirl (or a twirl).  More importantly, I offer this reflection in light of the conversations we have been holding regarding balance, for our students as well as for ourselves.  I am reminded of the quote by Marthe Troly-Curtin (often attributed to others):“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”  
In what ways do you enjoy wasting time not wasting time?