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Hail Joseph Lancaster!
And for that matter hail Seth Weidman:
It was a classic case of supply and demand.
Entering his senior year at Pittsburgh Allderdice High School, Seth Weidman felt there was demand for an Advanced Placement economics class.
So he decided to supply one.
At least one night a week for nine months, Seth taught college-level economics to a group of his fellow Allderdice students, traveling from living room to living room with his dry-erase board in tow.
Fueled by Doritos, pretzels and the occasional homemade tiramisu, Seth's students in the "Weidman School of Economics" numbered 18, with nine of them eventually taking at least one of the two AP economics tests offered.
Thus far, the results have been spectacular. The students took 12 total tests, and of the eight scores that have come in this month, six are 5's -- the highest possible on a scale of 1 to 5 -- and two are 4's.
Greg Mankiw and Aplia appear in the story as well. Seth loves Hayek's Road to Serfdom: ""It made me see that economics isn't just about a bunch of guys sitting on CNBC," he said. "It's more about incentives. It gives you a cool perspective to understand the world."
Here is the full story. Seth will be attending the University of Chicago next year. Here is material on Joseph Lancaster and I thank Eric Crampton for the pointer.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 13, 2008 at 06:52 AM in Education | Permalink
Comments
Awesome. Well done Mr. Weidman. And good luck in Chicago.
Posted by: Rue Des Quatre Vents at Jul 13, 2008 9:06:30 AM
This was truly inspiring. Shades of "Stand and Deliver."
Best,
David
Posted by: David R. Henderson at Jul 13, 2008 9:45:48 AM
Great story. It is kind of a shame that his AP exam will only earn him general elective credit, but I am sure a student of Seth's initiative will enjoy taking the core econ series even if there is some review involved. Congratulations!
Posted by: UofC06 at Jul 13, 2008 12:26:11 PM
Surprised he wasn't arrested for teaching without a license.
Posted by: emerson at Jul 13, 2008 12:41:00 PM
O lawdy. A big fan of "Road to Serfdom" and he totes a copy of "Atlas Shrugged."
I'm having flashbacks to when I graduated from high school. Better get this young man reading Economist's View, stat!
Big congrats to him, though. Color me impressed. And I don't get impressed easily.
Posted by: Robert Olson at Jul 13, 2008 1:12:34 PM
What is the economics joke on the back of the t-shirt?
Posted by: Paul Schreiber at Jul 13, 2008 1:26:03 PM
Great story, thanks for posting.
Posted by: BlogReader at Jul 13, 2008 2:07:45 PM
Congratulations to Seth!
Posted by: alisa at Jul 13, 2008 2:24:44 PM
And for the bad news, Seth probably asked five girls to the senior prom and got rejected by all of them.
Posted by: Peter at Jul 13, 2008 3:04:16 PM
When's the movie coming out? Does he really understand economics?
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 13, 2008 3:29:13 PM
I was required to take a Consumer Ec class in high-school, but I took Microeconomics because it was equivalent and I could use it as a study-hall. They let me take the test both for that and Macroeconomics, which I never actually learned in school. I got 5s on both, indicating to me that the AP tests for economics have a much lower bar than the other AP tests.
Posted by: TGGP at Jul 13, 2008 4:51:27 PM
Why hail Joseph Lancaster? Or are you being sarcastic and I dim? This story seems to me to show an example of young people going out on their own and learning without needing the rigors of a Lancastrian school to keep their noses to the grindstone.
Posted by: RobbL at Jul 13, 2008 7:10:08 PM
The economics joke on the back of the shirts is:
"Marginal benefit exceeded marginal cost.
(that's what she said)"
During the first half of the school year, we had class Thursday nights from 7:00-9:00, after which we would watch The Office; thus, I started throwing in occasional "That's what she said" jokes into my lectures.
Also in response to TGGP: I agree that the bar is set too low on the econ APs--I thought they were easy and I hadn't taken an economics class--however, not only did most of my students knew little or nothing about economics entering the class, but also only 10-15% of students who take the tests each year get 5s, and it's looking like we'll end up with ten 5s and two 4s.
Finally thank you Tyler for the mention; your blog is fantastic, and one of the few I read regularly.
Posted by: Seth Weidman at Jul 13, 2008 10:27:00 PM
Hey kid, way to go.
Come back to the Burgh when you're finished at U of C, and save it from becoming like the rest of non-southeastern PA
Posted by: Delirious at Jul 13, 2008 10:53:57 PM
A perfect example of what students can accomplish when they are engaged and interested in what they are learning. Nice job Seth.
About the rigor of the AP Economics exam (TGGP comment above). He said that he got five's on both AP Econ exmas. I would agree it isn't the hardest AP Exam if you learn the concepts. That is the beauty of economics. A lot the other AP tests require a lot of factual memorization, where a lot of the AP Econ test is application. I think that is a good thing.
As Seth mentions, only around 10-15% of the 30,000 students taking the test score a 5 (which is the highest score possible). The test is curved.
What I can attest to is the fact that I believe that the test and curriculum for AP Microeconomics is more rigorous than the Intro Mirco/Macro classes that I took at the college level. Maybe I just had poor teachers.
Posted by: Keysh at Jul 14, 2008 1:03:13 AM
That's a great achievement. This guy is one to watch for sure.
Posted by: Ali Choudhury at Jul 14, 2008 3:20:54 PM
It's kind of shocking that Allderdice doesn't have AP Econ, it's like the crown jewel of the Pgh public schools.
Posted by: Paul N at Jul 14, 2008 10:14:55 PM
Whoa. One of Seth's students here... and it's fairly awesome that the class has landed on a real economics blog. Thanks for posting about it.
I haven't taken any AP's besides macroeconomics (thus far) but it seemed fairly easy to stay ahead of the curve as long as you were well prepared. I suppose that's a somewhat depressing measure of teaching quality on a national level...
Posted by: Eva Petzinger at Jul 14, 2008 11:08:42 PM
Well done Mr. Weidman. You too Ms. Petzinger.
Tyler, this may just be my favourite of all the blog posts you've written.
Posted by: Bob Meade at Jul 15, 2008 7:09:53 AM
Well, now, the class was a great success. Though most people showed up only to have a great time, which we all shared, eat free cookies and watch The Office on Thursdays afterwards, those truly interested in the subject rarely missed a class or a homework "assignment". I personally do not think it was unnecessary, even for me. I am planning to go to Pitt starting Spring term (thanks to all the APs I took this year and past 2, I am a semester and a half ahead already) for Neuroscience, I totally think going to class and taking the Ap was worth it. First of all, to prove, that I was able to do it, second of all - to get an almost free college credit, that never hurts. I ended up with a 4 on Micro and 5 on Macro, which, actually surprised me, since I studied much harder for Micro.
Anyway, thank you, Seth.
Posted by: Minas at Jul 18, 2008 12:50:38 AM
I was also a student of Seth's this past year, and I wanted to thank Tyler as well for the publicity. Seth honestly deserves all the praise in the world for putting so much of his time and heart into the class. He spent way more time preparing for our class than any of my actual teachers do, and he knew the material just as well, if not better. He also made economics easy to understand by using simple explanations with personal, usually humorous examples. The class was the most fun and satisfying academic adventure I've ever been a part of. I took the Micro AP and got a 4 on it, with no prior knowledge of the subject, taught only by Seth and N. Gregory Mankiw's textbook, which is certainly a testament to Seth's teaching methods. To update the information as well, our class recieved eight 5s and four 4s out of the twelve tests that we took.
Thank you so much Seth. It was truly an amazing experience, and I hope this inspires more high school students to do something similar.
Posted by: Laura Greenberg at Jul 18, 2008 7:03:30 PM
Hello!
Yet another of Seth's students, I also would like to thank him for everything (really, thanks Seth:) ) and to mention that all of you should be as impressed as you are. He is an incredibly intelligent individual and will be filthy rich very soon. I got a five on Micro with so little extra time to study, so that proves that Seth's methods were highly effective. This was an amazing and inspiring experience that I will definitely never forget.
Do visit us soon, Seth!
Posted by: Hristina Petrova at Jul 21, 2008 4:46:09 AM
