© Joseph De Carlo Principal Mitchell Combs congratulating junior Brandon Molano on his victory. On paper, Jeffery Kravitz's job is to make sure students at Port Chester High School learn history. But in his mind, that's not the magic of being a teacher.
"There's so much to know about each kid," he said. "My goal no matter what, 365 days a year, is to cultivate that relationship, and to make this place closer."
Last year, Kravitz, then a senior adviser for the class of 2019, started talking with senior Eli Taylor-Lemire about how to make Port Chester High a more close-knit place. Their chat led to Stumped, a game that encourages students to meet as many teachers as possible and, by answering teachers' trickiest questions, help build a tighter high school community.
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Taylor-Lemire brought in Tommy Ross, then a sophomore, to create Stumped. They are both self-taught code writers with a talent for web design. Kravitz, not a technology guy himself, played the role of cool teacher, full of ideas, passion and encouragement.
"This team that came together, we're like mad scientists," Kravitz said.
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Port Chester students played their second round of Stumped the week before their midterms. Over 500 students and 63 teachers participated.
Connections are built like this: If a student logged into a Stumped website answers an academic question correctly, they "unlock" a teacher. The student has to find that teacher, who asks them three more academic questions in person. If the student answers correctly, they get a card with a code, a point value and the teacher's face on it.
Kravitz called them "teacher Pokemon cards."
'Really builds a connection'
Students who accumulate the most points make a Stumped leaderboard displayed in the high school's main hallway. The student with the most points wins $100.
During the recent round, 70% of Q&A interactions were between students and teachers meeting for the first time.
© Joseph De Carlo Port Chester High School students check the Stumped standings. (Submitted/Joseph De Carlo) "It really builds a connection," said Ross, now a junior. "I feel I'm very close with a lot of my teachers, and I think that helps me perform in the classroom. If I'm a freshman and I meet 40 new teachers my first Stumped round, when I have those teachers going forward, the connection is already there."
Taylor-Lemire, now a freshman at NYU, said that Stumped has helped students with disabilities and students with limited English proficiency to more quickly become part of the school community.
"Seeing that was very rewarding for all of us as well," he said.
Junior Brandon Molano won the latest round. He collected 32 cards, including Principal Mitchell Combs' coveted card, worth 60 points. There were only three in the game.
"I met new teachers from last year, and I'm close to those teachers now," Molano said. "That helped me find out how I could solve their riddles. I came in third last year so I had that drive, I had to get first."
The Stumped team plans another round next year, and they are in talks with other schools about expanding the game. Kravitz said that Stumped has done a lot to impact the culture of Port Chester High, so they are hopeful it could do the same for high schools around the region, or even the country.
"There's never been a better time to be able to fix your own communities through technology," Taylor-Lemire said. "I hope Stumped also inspires other students to come up with their own solutions for how they can make their school community better."
Twitter: @sdgrosserode
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Teacher 'Pokemon cards' helping build teacher/student relationships at Port Chester HS
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