The Boston Globe says...

Six aces
St. John's students made their own history in self-directed effort that led to perfect scores
By Megan Woolhouse, Globe Staff | September 24, 2006
The students never received school credit for the work. Teacher Carl Wilson never got paid for it.
Yet the group met faithfully once a week, often before their peers at St. John's High School in Shrewsbury were out of bed, to discuss everything from the ``Epic of Gilgamesh" to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Their plan was simple: The school didn't offer an Advanced Placement World History course, so they would learn the material on their own time and take the exam anyway.
School administrators were leery.
``People didn't think we could pull it off," 17-year-old junior Christopher Helali said with a smile.
But that's exactly what they did. In fact, all six in the group earned a 5 -- the highest score possible -- on the AP World History exam last spring. Nationally, only 10 percent of students get the highest score, usually after taking a specialized AP course designed to prepare them for the test. Yet here were six students from varying backgrounds -- one is the son of a lumberjack -- who challenged the system and won.
``It's extremely rare to have a class where you get 100 percent 5s," said Paul Brule, AP coordinator at the Xaverian Brothers school.
The saga of the unlikely perfect 5s began early in 2005 with Anthony Mariano , then 16, who was searching for ways to build his college-application resume. He wrote for the school newspaper, played on his church basketball team and led the high school's mock trial and debate club. He also chose activities -- like the Model United Nations, academic decathlons, the history club -- that stimulated his mind, he said.
AP World History, one of nearly three dozen courses offered for high school students by the College Board organization, seemed like a good match, he decided. ``You can get college credit and it certainly looks good when you apply," Mariano said. ``But I think we also wanted to have a forum to discuss history."
He was at a rehearsal for the spring production of ``Hamlet" during his sophomore year when the idea struck. He had taken both honors history and European history, enjoyed them, and wondered whether he could attempt the AP World History exam after studying for it on his own.
School administrators had nixed the idea of offering the course for credit years earlier; some faculty members objected to changing the curriculum. So Mariano asked history teacher Wilson if he would lead a student study session in the weeks leading up to the test. Wilson said yes, but only if Mariano and his fellow students agreed to meet early mornings throughout the year.
That's because Wilson, a teacher at the school for 38 years who administered its first AP course in 1974, knew the exam would be tough. It could ask students to analyze and write about any historical event as far back as 8000 BC. On the College Board's scoring scale, 3 is a passing grade; nearly half of the students nationally who took the AP World History test in May managed only a 1 or 2.
``I said: `It's demanding academically,' " Wilson recalled telling them. `` `I wouldn't want it to turn into something where you didn't do the work. I wouldn't want to get to January and have to quit.' "
Principal Stephen Gregory shared those concerns. He approved the formation of the study group as an extra curricular ``club" but said he had seen similar efforts by ambitious students fail. It was just too much work, he said.
``There aren't a lot of people who can pull off independent study -- students or teachers."
Starting last fall, Wilson and the students met at 7:15 a.m., usually on Wednesdays. Wilson picked the course book, ``Traditions & Encounters," and based the curriculum on a method of teaching history he had learned years earlier at an education seminar in Connecticut. Instead of going by eras or by nations, they would compare civilizations, analyzing influences and changes over time.
Wilson, who teaches evening classes in Chinese and Russian history at Clark University in Worcester , described his role in the seminar as a ``guide through the forest."
``I said, `How do you want to do this?' And they came up with the idea that they would analyze primary documents, architecture, and artwork across civilizations," Wilson said. ``They set up the model."
Each week, a different student was responsible for preparing an outline covering 50 pages of course material, comparing such topics as the Vedic books of Hindu scripture and the writings of Confucius. The outlines were scrutinized by the group, and the author would act as the material's ``presenter," leading the discussion and debate. There were no tests or quizzes.
Of the eight students who initially signed on, one never showed up and another dropped out halfway through. The remaining six were all juniors, except for Helali, a sophomore who had never taken an AP exam before.
Pat Border, 17, of Northborough, said he had just finished taking Wilson's AP European History class and was ``kind of psyched about the subject."
Border shares a love of history with his father, an ophthalmologist. He wanted to learn more, so while his classmates were spending their free time on MySpace.com, he read ``Timeline 191," a series of alternative history novels exploring, for instance, what might have happened had the Confederacy won the Civil War.
Border said at his busiest point last year, he found himself saddled with six hours of homework a night.
``Other kids balance a social life in there, but I just focused on work," he said.
Another member of the group, Shamus Hyland, said if he hadn't bought the textbook, he probably would have dropped out. His mother and father, a nurse and a lumberjack, found his efforts curious, and there were times when he himself wondered whether he could continue.
``It just didn't have the feel of a regular class; I wasn't writing notes off the board," he said. ``I wasn't expecting our results to be very good."
Sometimes students showed off with outlines complemented by PowerPoint slide shows. Wilson recalled one student who used a series of photographs to demonstrate how the architecture of the Fertile Crescent influenced design in Africa, India, and the Far East.
Once in a while, one of the students would come to class without the required outline, and Wilson would have to help guide the discussion. Peer pressure kept those times to a minimum, the students said.
``The whole thing was a lesson in responsibility," Border said. ``If you didn't have your outline, you failed the other students."
Halfway through the school year, even though his classmates were already stressed, Mariano then upped the stakes. He decided to try to convince school officials to offer the class for credit this year, and gathered the signatures of a 125 students on a petition.
``Too many students can pass through St. John's without hearing a word of the history of China," Mariano, son of former Worcester m ayor Raymond Mariano, wrote in a letter that he presented with the petition. ``Another important yet ignored region is the Middle East. The trade routes of the Moors were pivotal to the international relations of Western civilizations, yet traditional classes simply glaze over Islamic history."
The school faculty council heard his arguments and last spring agreed to offer the course for the current school year.
As the test day neared, Hyland said, he knew everyone would be watching. ``There was a lot of pressure," he said.
The group began meeting twice a week, sometimes on Saturdays. They took the test in May. The results came back in late summer.
Gregory, the principal, said he ripped open the letter with the results, eager to organize it onto a spreadsheet. Out of more than 700 AP exams given at the school last spring in all subject areas, there were only 150 scores of 5. He said it reflects well on the school -- a Catholic all-boy's institution founded by the Xaverian order in 1873 -- that both student and teacher stood up for what they believe in.
``We change," he said of the school. ``But we don't change with the wind."
Wilson, a placid 60-year-old who wears glossy, wing-tip shoes, said he learned about the scores in an e-mail from the AP coordinator, and was ``shocked" at what he saw.
``Don't get me wrong, they're brilliant kids, but I thought we left a lot of gaps," he said. ``We couldn't hope to complete everything."
This fall, about 20 students are taking AP World History with Wilson for credit.
As for Mariano, the senior is already onto his latest projects -- applying early decision to Cornell University's history and government program and campaigning for Deval Patrick. He and the other study group members haven't met to celebrate their achievement. There's just no time.
``I don't think there's a secret to how we went about it," he said. ``Other than we became more of a team than you would have in a typical classroom."
Megan Woolhouse can be reached at woolhouse@globe.com.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.







A few notes: I am not in Model UN, Acdec, or the history club. The first quote about colleges was misleading. She cut out "But that's not why we did it." and tossed in a different quote to make education seem secondary. Finally, I relayed to her at least 5 times I did NOT do this to build my college resume and she chose not to listen. However, overall I think its a good article. Feedback?