Practicing what I preach

This past weekend I gave my "Hot Topics" presentation on accountable talks. One of the things we focus on in high school is using sentence stems to ask good questions.
However, I missed a perfect opportunity to use the sentence stem soccer ball I made for class. I Had a simulation where Cuba, the United States, and the USSR were all trying to figure out how the Cuban Missile Crisis started and who was responsible. It started out with small group research and then went into a full fledged debate. I tried to monitor and moderate as always but it got intense and some of the boys, who are more comfortable with one another, began to talk over all the female students. One even ran out crying and had a panic attack with the school counselor. I felt so horrible about how this spiraled out of control, and thought, in retrospect, if I used the soccer ball with appropriate sentence stems as our "talking stick" it could have gone much smoother and more equitable. All of my research was about equitable conversation, yet it wasn't happening in my classroom!
We have one final Harkness discussion of the quarter on Tuesday where I really want to stress how important it is for everyone to get their voice heard.