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In addition to the chemistry credit, Will Oliver received college credit in English and Jonathan Watson received college credit for computer science as the result of advanced placement tests.
One extra benefit of the course was that the regular chemistry classes did especially well last year. They covered more material and in
greater depth than in any other year. According to Mr. Patterson, part of the reason was they were seeing the example of the advanced placement students and some of the best students in the regular class advanced to a point not very far from the advanced students.
Mr. Patterson also learned that students can do more than he thought in prior years. They can cover more material and cover it faster than he had realized.
Mr. Patterson was given a gift from the advanced placement students. “That was special since I had made life as miserable as I could for them all year long. It seemed to me to be particularly difficult for these students to be as committed to their school work as was necessary for this exam. It was especially difficult because they were the only students in the school doing it.”
In order to succeed in the course the students had to make a tremendous commitment to hard work and extra hours.
The only way they could possibly be successful was if they were willing to say that there was nothing else in school that was more important than chemistry. It was too difficult if anything else was more important.
“I enjoyed working with these students. I think it was worthwhile. It made me go back and relearn topics that I hadn’t been over in years. It was a challenge. When we started we had no idea if we would drop it after a week or a month, but we carried it through the whole year,” Mr. Patterson said.
“I think in future years these three students will be looked back on as being real academic pioneers of Rappahannock County High School. I think they have set a trail that other Rappahannock students can follow. They have set quite an example for others,” concluded Mr. Patterson.
This school year four to six students will be following that trail. This year the work group is a scheduled period class; however, they will still need extra time to complete labs. Mr. Patterson hopes to use an Apple lie computer, donated by Potomac Edison, in the class. This will allow the students to do labs that couldn’t be done in previous years.
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