Recently a few alumni critics of the school have started reaching out through email to prospective parents. The parents then contact us and ask us about what the alumni-critics are saying. That is how I found out that they are trying to use the work that I do with Ripley, my search and rescue dog, to paint the school in a negative light. In one communication an alumni reported that we go out looking for 40 runaways a year and she stated that 40 was a high number for a population of 250 students.
I don’t know where that number came from but its close enough to the total. But to set the record straight. Ripley and I do not go out to look for every student who walks off campus. We go out for about a third of all the students who “elope.” (That’s the official term for it according to one of our accrediting agencies, the Joint Commission for Behavioral Health Care). Ripley and I get called upon to look for depressed students, very young, and impulsive students; we go out when the weather is cold and when students are under dressed, or when the students head in a direction that is likely to get them truly lost in the woods.
By the way, we belong to a volunteer search and rescue team, Eagle Valley Search dogs. In addition to finding our own lost students, Ripley and I also respond to searches for lost hunters, Alzheimer’s patients, 3 year olds, despondents, lost hikers and the occasional teen who is missing from home (ran away).
The alumni critic thinks 40 runaway incidents a year is a high number—even if most of those are only off campus for a few hours, long enough to cool off, think things through and come back. The critic asks the prospective parent, “What are they running away from?” The critic implies the school must be a terrible place if that many students run away. How silly. Many of our students ran away from home before they came to us. The ones who didn’t “run” away often stayed away—out all night, out of contact for days at a time. That is why most of our students are here. They took serious risks and scared their parents. Part of our job is to keep risky kids away from risky things like drugs, alcohol, sex, cars, parties and to get them reconnected with school, family, good friends and ultimately with God. We don’t always succeed. Those risky behaviors are exciting and attractive. We see the life-style we promote as sane and full of joy. Kids who still want to act-out see what we offer as lame. I can’t help that.
Meanwhile, dog training will continue to be one of the many types of nerdy, straight, sober fun we have at the school. Kids get to pretend to runaway so Ripley and the other SAR dogs on campus can practice finding them. That way, the next time a confused student takes off in the middle of February and gets lost in the woods, we will be prepared to help.
Tagged as:
Dog training,
Search and rescue
If you don’t understand randomness, you can have a hard time telling a real problem from chance fluctuations. This is especially true when it comes to tests of any kind.
Your grade on any test is a combination of luck and skill. I am not going to argue how much of each goes into the mix. Just accept for the moment that to the degree that luck is involved, your test score will vary.
Let’s say you get two A’s in a row. What could explain that?
- You were lucky –that is your true abilities fall below the A range
- You are an A student–that is, your average score is in the A range
Time, and a few more tests, will tell which answer is correct. But almost nobody waits around that long.
Apparently the concept of “random variation” didn’t have much survival back when we were evolving those big brains of ours because random chance isn’t the first explanation we come up with. Instead, we’ve evolved to be superb pattern recognizers and inventors. We are emotionally tuned to find patterns and solutions. We comfortable and feel in control when we think we have “explained” things.
“Uses time wisely” and “Works to potential” were my two worst conduct grades in grade school and high school. Lots of A’s, lots of F’s and everything in between.
First semester of my freshman year, I faced two very difficult final exams. Based on past experience I expected to get “bad” grades. Instead, I aced both tests. I cast about for an explanation. I recalled that I was wearing the same shirt both times. Maybe the shirt was lucky. My prefrontal cortex told the rest of my brain that this was superstition. But I could not shake the association. I remember thinking; “This is nonsense. The shirt had nothing to do with it. But what if I am wrong? Who cares, nobody has to know. What harm can it do? “ I wore that shirt to every test, for the next 4 years and couldn’t help myself—I wore to my oral exams for my PhD.
Between High School and College I had become an A student—I’m not exactly sure how. But my first semester I didn’t know that, and so I came to believe that I had a lucky shirt. This particular lack of logic didn’t hurt me much, but similar reasoning can mean unnecessary criticism of the struggling student and it can prevent a mediocre student from taking actions that really will lead to improvement.
Every semester I have conversations like this with at least one of my students:
Student: Dr. Argiros, I failed Sociology this month what should I do?
Me: What did you get?
Student: 71
Me: What grade did you get last month?
Student: 77
Me: And the month before?
Student: 75
Me: So, you have been passing so far, but just barely, and this month your grade is a little below the bar. Is that right?
Student: Yea, I’m not sure what happened.
Me: The difference is just a few points; do you think it might have been bad luck?
Student: Surprised at my response, Maybe, but I really didn’t understand all that stuff about capitalism we had to learn this month. I liked the stuff we were doing before that better.
Me: O.K. I can buy that. It’s easier to learn something if you like it. But I still don’t see a big difference between a 71 and a 77. I don’t think you should focus on what happened this month only. Whatever you are doing now is good enough to get you grades in the 70s. If you don’t want to get a grade lower than a 75 then you need to figure out what to do so that your average scores are higher—in the 80’s. That way if you are unlucky one month you will probably still pass. Does that make sense? If you like, I’d be happy to look at your notes and we could talk about what you are focusing on …
Sometimes this works. But more often than not, the student never comes to talk to me about study skills.
Either in the conversation with me, or later on when he is discussing the situation with parents and friends, almost invariably the focus shifts back to a comparison between this month’s failing grade and last month’s passing one. Having decided that he only passes when he is interested. He may decide there is nothing he can do except hope that he likes the rest of the semester better.
Even if he decides he wants to do better, unless he changes the way he has framed the problem, whatever he picks as the “reason” is not likely to do much good. It will have little more real impact than my “lucky” shirt. Here is the kicker. Because of regression toward the mean, there is a very good chance that next month’s test scores will be higher anyway. This will confirm the change in his mind. And he will continue another month and another—at least until his luck changes. Score: Superstition:1 Improvement:0.
