The Ongoing Marshmallow Test

A series of psychological studies, conducted by Walter Mischel and Ebbe B. Ebbesen at Stanford University, has become a well-known touchstone for both developmental psychologists and behavioral researchers. The major publication, in 1972, centered around the ability of young children to exercise self-restraint: if they could refrain from eating a marshmallow placed in front of them for a certain number of minutes, then they would receive a second marshmallow.

Those who ate the marshmallow before the designated time would not receive a second one.

The most significant aspect of the research was the correlation between being able to wait long enough to earn the second marshmallow and a large variety of indicators for success in academic, personal, and business life.

A variety of followup studies have expanded the range of correlations event further. Tanya Schlam at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health showed a correlation between body weight and success in the marshmallow test. That study was described, in non-scientific terms for the popular audience, in the online magazine Slate in August 2012.

Recent versions of the study involves multitasking and the ability to maintain focus. These have been conducted variously by Larry Rosen at California State University, James Kraushaar and David Novak at the University of Vermont, David Meyer at the University of Michigan, Russell Poldrack at the University of Texas, and Reynol Junco at Harvard.

These versions examine whether students could refrain from checking their smartphones, tablets, or laptops while studying. An informal summary appeared in Slate in May 2013.

Another variation studied environmental variations, particularly whether children had experienced reliable or unreliable promises from authorities. For the purposes of the study, this translated to whether the children believed that they would received the advertised reward. Summarized in Slate in October 2012, the researchers who created this version of the study concluded that unstable home factors would impede academic achievement.

New variants of the marshmallow experiment continue to appear, both in the serious literature, and in popular summaries. In all of them, continued correlations hold to SAT and ACT scores, grade point averages, graduation rates from both high school and college, as well as non-academic metrics like income or divorce rate.

[Andrew Smith is a German teacher at Pioneer High School.]

Georg Trakl

Over the years, poems by Georg Trakl have appeared in the German classes taught by Andrew Smith at both Pioneer High School and Huron High School. Why would a German teacher choose these particular works for students to study?

Trakl was a genius who played a major role in the Expressionist movement during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The Encyclopedia Britannica offers this:

The patronage of a periodical publisher and of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who secretly gave him part of a patrimony, enabled Trakl to devote himself to poetry; he brought out his first volume, Gedichte (“Poems”), in 1913. The following year he became a lieutenant in the army medical corps and, in Galicia, was placed in charge of 90 serious casualties whose agonies he, as a mere dispensing chemist, could hardly relieve. One patient killed himself while Trakl watched helplessly; he also saw deserters being hanged. He either attempted or threatened to shoot himself in the aftermath of these horrors and was sent to a military hospital at Cracow for observation. There he died of an overdose of cocaine, perhaps taken inadvertently.

Trakl's meter, rhyme, vocabulary, and lyric imagery make him a valuable influence in any German class.

Andrew Smith - Pioneer High School - Snow Days!

During the 2014 / 2015 academic year, Pioneer High School has had four snow days already. This may be a cause for concern, because after missing a certain number of snow days, the State of Michigan’s Department of Education will require local districts, like the Ann Arbor Public Schools, to add makeup days to their calendars.

This might mean either shortening some scheduled vacations, or adding days to the end of the school year. Either option would bring a flurry of protests. Many families will consider it inappropriate to impinge on their already-scheduled trips.

Should the extra days be necessary, the Department of Education will notify local districts around the state. Districts who fail to comply risk receiving a letter of reprimand or other disciplinary action. The worst consequence would be a reduction to the funding which the district receives from the state. This type of discipline is often threatened but rarely enacted, and to date, no district has been so disciplined because of snow days.

In any case, students in Pioneer High School are not eager to surrender vacation days, and also not eager to see school go further into the summer. As much as students enjoy ‘snow days,’ they’d rather not have any more of them if it means compromising the vacation schedule for the rest of the school year.

The teachers who teach German at Pioneer - Robert Lederer, Andrew Smith, and Astrid Tackett - are especially concerned because they have scheduled a trip. Pioneer High School students have been invited to Ann Arbor’s sister city in Germany. This trip, in June and July 2015, marks the 50th anniversary of this sister city partnership.

Although there have been many trips from Pioneer High School, Huron High School, and Skyline High School, this trip is of special importance because of the 50th anniversary. German teacher Robert Lederer is scheduled to lead this trip.

If the school year should be extended further into June because of snow days, or because of any other reason, this would complicate the already-intricate travel arrangements being made for the Pioneer High School group.

German teacher Andrew Smith, who has led or co-led such exchange trips since 1983, and German teacher Astrid Tackett, who has organized student travel and exchange programs in the district, teach a combined three hours of German per day during the current academic year at Pioneer.

Andrew Smith teaches other classes at Huron High School, and Astrid Tackett teaches other classes at Tappan Middle School.

German teacher Robert Lederer teaches five hours of German daily at Pioneer High School and does not teach at other schools.

Comments and remarks from students who’ve participated in these trips and exchange programs have been consistently positive. It seems that almost every year, a student makes the comment that she or he will celebrate her or his birthday in Europe because of the Pioneer High School German program!

The official name for the exchange programs of the AAPS high schools is ‘The German-American Partnership Program.’ More than one university administrator has made the remark that participation in programs like Pioneer’s GAPP is an important factor in the college admission process.

It would be a shame for this valuable GAPP program to be compromised because of snow days.