An Exercise in Jargon

Take one key concept, two related concepts, and a global context. Together, these form a statement of inquiry.

Questions can be factual, conceptual, or debatable.

[Ann Arbor Pioneer High School teacher Andrew Smith placed on assignment at WISD]

IB Examinations

Students at an International Baccalaureate school are expected to interact with a text in a language (e.g., German, Latin, etc.) other than the school's (or the student's) native language. This will be part of the standardized assessments which are administered by the local school but sent to IB for evaluation.

For example, students must pass a 90-minute test in which they are given four short texts in the target language. Students then write, analyzing those texts in the target language.

[Andrew Smith teaches at both Pioneer High School and Huron High School. Although based primarily out of Huron High School, during the 2014/2015 academic year, and possibly into the future, Andrew Smith is an Ann Arbor Pioneer High School teacher placed on assignment at Pioneer for two hours daily, and a Ann Arbor Huron High School teacher placed on assignment there for three hours daily.]

Getting Real - Ann Arbor Pioneer High School Teacher Reflects on Change over the Decades

In the 1970s, high school was not as serious as it is now.

Homework loads are greater, standardized testing has multiplied, competition between students is more intense, and the stakes are higher.

Our challenge, however, is this: a segment of our student body has not become more serious, despite the fact that high school in general has.

In the 1970s, the consequences for not doing homework or not studying were not as impactful as they are now.

Good study skills and good work habits are essential to get good tests scores and get admitted into a competitive college or university.

In the late 1970s, students who were average or a little above average routinely gained admission to Big Ten universities. Now, to get into U of M, a student must be significantly above average.

The University of Michigan, along with MSU and Wayne State University, has become quite selective. But a significant percentage of high school students haven't adjusted to this reality.

The situation is, naturally, multi-factorial, and there is no simple answer. But one essential part of the solution is parental involvement and encouragement. Without that, a student's chances of excelling dwindle.

[Ann Arbor Pioneer High School Teacher Andrew Smith teaches History and German in the Ann Arbor Public Schools.]

School Census - Interesting Demographics

A statistical overview of Huron High School's student body as of November 10, 2014, reveals some interesting ratios. Total enrollment for these purposes was listed at 1501, although in reality it is probably somewhat higher.

Of 387 ninth graders, 221 were boys and 166 were girls. This lopsided breakdown held for every ethnic or racial demographic group except Asians. Among those labeled as 'white' or 'Caucasian' there were 103 boys and 56 girls.

By contrast, of 344 tenth graders, the gender ratio skewed in the opposite direction: there were 155 boys and 189 girls. There were more girls than boys in the following categories: Caucasian, African-American, Asian, and Multi-Ethnic. Among tenth graders, there were slightly more boys than girls among the 'American Indian or Alaskan' and the Latino/Hispanic, Arab-American, and 'other' categories. There were no data points among sophomores in the 'Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander' and 'unclassified' categories.

Among eleventh and twelfth graders, there were no significant asymmetries in the numbers. The total student count included 745 males and 756 females.

The statistical quirkiness seems to be found primarily among the freshmen.

A Sports Metaphor for Assessment

When it comes to testing, the unique and paradoxical role of the teacher may perhaps best be captured in a sports metaphor. Imagine a game in which one person is simultaneously a coach and an official.

Picture a coach, who’s worked with his team all week to help them prepare to struggle for a victory: picture this same individual being asked to make a “neutral” call, perhaps while watching the slow motion video replay several times.

Obviously, this doesn’t happen in organized athletics, and for good reason: the assignment of the tasks of coaching and refereeing involve a conflict of interests.

The classroom teacher, however, is placed into exactly this paradoxical role. The teacher works all week to ensure that the students are engaged in meaningful academic experiences. Yet the same teacher is then called upon to judge the students.

This creates a counterproductive psychological relation between the students and the teachers. If the students see the teacher as a coach, who’s helping the students to gain academic skills, then the students feel betrayal when the teacher suddenly assumes the role of the umpire and calls the students “out.”

Conversely, if the students see the teacher as a judge who will make the objective calls on the assessment, then the students are less inclined to engage when the teacher coaches them toward achievement.

The solution to this conflict of interest? Regular assessments - the ordinary tests given in a class, not the high stakes college admissions tests - should be designed, administered and graded by someone other than the classroom teacher.

If twice, or four times, or six times, per semester, the students were put through an examination regime by someone who’s not their regular classroom teacher, then the students would see more clearly that the teacher is their coach - the teacher is “on their side” and helping to prepare them to “clear the hurdle” of an upcoming examination.

Otherwise, as is commonly done now, the classroom teacher seems to be the one erecting the barriers for the students to jump: the teacher is seen by the students to be the problem, because the teacher creates, administers, and grades the tests.

In those rare occasions when a teacher is not the author of the assessment - in classes which prepare for AP tests, or for ACT or SAT tests - there is quickly a different relation between student and teacher. It is clear to the students that the teacher is there only to help them, and not to create obstacles.

To ensure meaningful results, the classroom teacher should not see the examination prior to the students taking it, although the classroom teacher should receive a clear description of the test, so as to prepare the students for it.

Such a method for classroom, in-course, assessments would lead to a better relationship between the students and the teacher, a more clear sense in the minds of the students that they are there to prepare for the test, and subsequently to better test results reflecting better academic achievement.

As a side benefit, the test results would be more meaningful: a more accurate and neutral measure of student progress.

[Andrew Smith is a German teacher at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan.]

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.