School news
8th grade students explore artificial intelligence
As artificial Intelligence becomes a routine presence in our lives, 8th grade English students have begun investigating how AI creates and sorts natural human language. Students began by looking at artificial intelligence broadly, and took a homemade Turing Test to see whether they could tell the difference between human and AI artists, musicians, and writers. Then we took a deep dive into StoryQ, an AI text classification model that took us behind the scenes to see how a machine "reads" human text, identifies key words, and assigns them negative or positive weights to make predictions about the overall sentiment, or tone.
Students fed StoryQ ice cream reviews, then analyzed the words the machine used to make its predictions about sentiment. Some of the machine's decisions surprised us. For instance, it assigned a heavy negative weight to "like" and "just," which were sometimes used positively. It was also flummoxed by sarcasm :). At first, StoryQ was only able to predict 78% of reviews accurately, so we analyzed error cases and proposed new language rules to improve the model.
Once we understood more about how AI generates and classifies text, we turned our attention to its limitations and its role in our lives. We looked at news stories and discussed whether AI is sentient, and whether it will ultimately improve or worsen human communication, and human life. Students raised concerns from disinformation to job loss. Below is an AI-generated image of 8th graders having a fishbowl-style discussion, courtesy of DALLE-2, and an actual image of our class doing the same thing.
Middle school knitting and crocheting club stays busy
The middle school Knitting/Crocheting Club is on fire! These students are making hats, scarves, and blankets, and they've been experiencing first hand how satisfying this craft can be.
Did you know that the rhythmic and repetitive nature of knitting/crocheting actually releases hormones that decrease stress and increase cognitive clarity?
It's been wonderful to observe the calm that comes over the room when the students are all focused and busy, and it's been a pleasant surprise to witness some of the profound conversations that have arisen out of this space.
One example happened last week, when they had a lively discussion on whether or not the U.S. was justified in dropping a nuclear bomb during World War II. They were so thoughtful and respectful of each other as they all wrestled with this challenging topic, while simultaneously wrestling with the yarn in their hands. Wow, and I thought we were just making scarves!
Middle schoolers learn new cooking skills
Middle school students are cooking! Starting with a couple of easy dishes, students are learning some basic skills in the kitchen through a new quarter elective—and they are enjoying the fruits of their labor with some left to share. (Food photography skills may be next!)
1B Spanish students make traditional tortillas
Students in Anna Megyesi's 1B Spanish class made traditional tortillas in class today as part of their unit on foods. We have been studying types of food typical to different regions in Mexico. Here students are hand-pressing their own tortillas and grilling them
8th grader Lylah Zeitlin wins Hildene Essay Contest
Congratulations to Lylah Zeitlin, who won 1st place for Region 4 in this year's Hildene Essay Contest. The contest is held annually by the Lincoln Family Home in Manchester, and is open to 8th graders across Vermont. This year's prompt asked students to address censorship; choosing a frequently challenged book to read, imagining that it has been challenged in their school library, and advising the organization on whether to remove or keep the title.
Lylah used her essay to build a compelling argument for keeping Art Spiegelman’s Maus, on library shelves. Maus is a Holocaust survivor's tale that is frequently challenged for violence and sad themes. "Comfort shouldn't take precedence over the truth," Lylah wrote, concluding, "We read harder books to become better readers; we read sadder books to become better people."
Lylah will travel to the Lincoln Family Home on May 21st to receive her $500 prize.
Special congratulations to all the WUHSMS 8th graders who participated in this year's Hildene contest: Nick Cellini, Hailey Dow, Aiden Helm, Philip Holland, Coby McGaffigan, Timmy Moore, Haakon Oates, and Luke Pomeroy.
Out of 198 entries, Luke's essay also made it to the final round, earning a special commendation from the judges.