Greetings South Students, Parents, Staff, and Community Members,

All past issues of this newsletter are available at the following link: TWaS Archive. 

TWaS is also sent via Canvas Messenger and linked to my Canvas Module for all students and families to access. It is also shared on South’s FB page.

Part I: The News

Content Disclaimer: I am not omniscient. Don’t see your event or results in the newsletter below? I rely on parents, coaches, and others to send me information to include in the newsletter. Feel free to share positive news and results anytime via my email. 

Freshmen UAA Visit Postponed Due to Snow: South High School Freshmen will make a college visit to the University of Alaska, Anchorage on either January 30th or February 6th. This is part of the Freshman Academy course and allows students to get firsthand experience on campus. More details to follow. 

Pre-Extended Year: We will be holding a pre-extended year after school the weeks of December 1st through 4th and December 8th through 11th for students who are currently earning a 49-59% in their classes. Teachers will nominate students to attend and we will make an effort during those two weeks to allow students to make up select assignments as well as prepare them for final exams. Attendance is required to earn back credit. This is a proactive effort to support students to help prevent failure before it’s too late. 

Final Exam Expectations (December 17-18): Students will have an exam, essay, project or some form of final assessment in each class. Each exam will make up a meaningful portion of the final grade. Therefore, students are expected to prioritize attendance during final exams and remain in their class for the entire period. We will not be issuing blue passes during the final exam days. 

PTSO Looking for School Store Help: The PTSO is looking for school store help. Sign up here: 

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/409094AAFAE2CA3F94-57820323-ptso?useFullSite=true#/

Week of November 10th Bell Schedule: Tuesday, November 11th is Veterans Day. Students have no school, and our bell schedule will be different on Friday to equalize instructional time. The schedules will be as follows:

• Monday 11/10        Regular late start PLC
• Tuesday 11/11         Inservice
• Wednesday 11/12      Normal Wednesday
• Thursday 11/13       Normal Thursday
• Friday 11/14          TUESDAY SCHEDULE    

South’s Ellen Schmittinger and Samantha Rose Moore to Perform in ACA’s The Nutcracker: South Anchorage High School students Ellen Schmittinger and Samantha Rose Moore are performing in Anchorage Concert Association’s presentation of The Nutcracker this Thanksgiving weekend in the Atwood Concert Hall alongside premiere dance company Eugene Ballet and the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra.

Senior Yearbook Deadlines: Senior portraits are due November 24th and Senior ads are due by January 9th. More information and submission instructions on the following flier.

Part II: Activities Updates

This Week in Activities: Volleyball State and more. All HERE. 

Basketball Cheer Clinic and Tryouts: There will be a Cheer clinic on December 1st and 2nd from 3:30 - 5:30 in upper commons. Try Outs will be held December 3rd from 3:30 - 5:30 pm in Auditeria.

Volleyball Region Champs & Headed to State: South competed in the CIC Regions Tournament this past week and weekend, defeating West in the 1st round (3-0), Service in the 2nd (3-0), rolling past Chugiak in the semi-finals (3-0) on Friday and taking on our rival Dimond in the Championships on Saturday night, where they took home the Regions IV Championship trophy after a 3-1 victory! This sets the team up well heading into State this week where they will be the #1 seed after their Region Championship! Games will be held Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Nov. 13-15 at the UAA Alaska Airlines Center. 

South Players Earning Regions All-Conference Honors: 1st Team: Ellie Kleven & Indy Kmet 2nd Team: Ellie Birch, Jessica Gieser and Rachael White Honorable Mention: Meadow Carr.

Congratulations to Head Coach, Julie Kleven, for earning the Coach of the Year award for the CIC Region IV conference—a well deserved honor! 

Come out and support South Volleyball at the Alaska Airlines Center this Thursday afternoon (time TBD). Schedule and results can be found at RESULTS ONLINE and tickets can be purchased here ahead of time or at the door. 

Swim State:  SAHS swimmers competed mightily for a spot as one of the top 8 swimmers in the state all weekend at the 2025 ASAA Swim and Dive State Championship. Our individual podium finishers were senior, Charlotte Griffith, taking 4th place in both the 50 Free and 100 Free and sophomore, Griffin Fencil, placing 2nd in the 100 Breast.  Going into the final 200 Free Relay in 6th place, three of our lady Wolverine seniors - Alexa Kotter, Zoe Zipsir and Charlotte Griffith along with sophomore Tui Stanbury - fiercely raced to an exciting 2nd place podium finish!

Other top finishes came from senior Zoe Zipsir with 5th place in the 200 Free and 6th place in the 500 Free.  As well as Griffin Fencil taking 6th place in the 50 free.  Our boys 200 Free Relay - Griffin Fencil, Porter Ellingson, Lincoln Altman, and Daniel Lund - dropped an impressive amount of time to take an 8th place finish.

Alternate swimmers that trained all week to be at the ready to jump in if needed were seniors, Lindsay Dahlstrom, Iris Rothbarth, and Danny Schulz as well as freshman, Henry Lemelson.

Hockey: JV lost a hard-fought game vs Service last Wed, 4-3. They also participated in the Wasilla tournament, going 1-1-1, defeating Soldotna 4-1, tying Tri-Valley 4-4, and losing to Colony 2-0. 

Varsity defeated Service last Wed by a score of 11-4, led by seniors Ryden Scott (2 goals), Nick Yohman (2 goals), and Johnny Lamantia (2 goals). 

Upcoming schedule: Varsity (3-0-0) will take on Chugiak at the MAC this Tuesday at 7:30, and both JV and Varsity will take on West on Wed, JV at 6pm and varsity at 7:30pm. Go Wolverines!

Wrestling: Wrestling had another successful weekend on the mat. The team competed at the Amanda Richmond Memorial tournament in Eagle River, taking 1st overall as a team. 

South finished with 12 individual champions: Julia Dunlap, Brooklyn Duelfer, Allison Coffey, Manny Novelli, Peter May, Dylan Frawner, Landon Cardenas-Sumera, Ben Dunlap, Shane Ostermiller, Clayton McGuire, Zane Gerlach, and Lucas Griffin. 

Skiing: The ski team is having a fundraiser at the Beartooth this Saturday. Go online to the Beartooth website and get tickets for the 4:00 showing of Teton Gravity Research’s ski film “Pressure Drop”.  A portion of the proceeds for ticket purchases go to the ski team.

Part III: What I’ve Learned

Learning is defined as a relatively permanent change in behavior, knowledge, or brain function that results from experience (Oxford, emphasis mine).

Last week I had the privilege of traveling to Yale with Jen Neff (Alaska’s first Yale Teaching Fellow) to attend the Yale National Initiative, which provides professional development to teachers across the country. While there, I had the opportunity to sit down with teachers, principals, superintendents, and other education leaders from across the country to talk about learning and unit design. 

One of those discussions was moderated by a Yale English professor who teaches the university’s course on writing the essay. Her discussion topic was the role of AI in learning to write. We sat in a Yale classroom, which appears exactly like it might in your imagination: chalkboards on three sides, hardwood wainscoting on the walls, and a heavy, central table around which students and professors gather to learn. 

While the outcome of the discussion was inconclusive, with some participants favoring AI and others lamenting its invention, four major themes emerged.

The first was that often AI is used to replace the learning process. It can be used to solve entire problem sets or write entire essays. When this happens, students give up their right to think for themselves, surrender their voice to a nameless digital crowd, and skip the value and substance of their education. In this manner, AI removes learning and therefore the process of getting better. Ultimately, learning is about following a process to create a product. Ideally, a person is changed for the better after having gone through the process. They become more confident, more resilient, and more able to adapt to change. 

This first theme hearkens back to Jeremiah Day’s comment in 1828 that, “the scholar must form himself by his own exertions.” Day, a former President of Yale, was lamenting students’ focus on careerism rather than learning to become part of a community. His concern resonates because, as The New Journal notes, students are now balancing the temptation of preparing for a promising career with the inherent value of learning. The tension remains. It also begs the question whether our students will be prepared for jobs if they skip the process of getting better. 

The second theme was how AI influences what we consider to be true or authentic. ChatGPT output is only as good as the prompts and questions we feed it. So, if a novice asks an uninformed question, the output will also lack nuance and detail. It might also be incorrect or false. This happens when AI creates fake sources or uses faulty problem solving processes. Furthermore, if it is used for writing essays, it is only capable of giving the user everything that has already been said, stripped of any nuance, tone, or personality. In essence, the learner’s voice is lost. Just like surrendering the personal strength and confidence that results from overcoming the tension built into the writing process, students are also surrendering their personality to a machine. 

As educators, we want to see the nuance, personality, novelty, and eclectic nature of students’ thoughts and learning process. Their inherent uniqueness provides richness to the learning process and to the larger community. We want to hear what students have to say. We are far less interested in the bland mediocrity and catch-phrase-like writing style of ChatGPT and related LLMs and bots. Many of our favorite thinkers, artists, writers, and designers are our favorite because their unique perspectives resonates with us. The same goes for student work. 

A third theme was the idea that learners need to first “sing along” before they can write and sing their own songs. The assumption is that novel creation results from interacting with what has already been said. The underlying analogy here is the need to rehearse with and hear the best singers before going solo. This relates to the first theme in that we must engage with others in order to build understanding. This also underlies our emphasis on building learning communities in the classroom and focusing on practice rather than products. 

When students are part of a social network of peers and teachers who are aligned to common goals, their collective capacity can result in much better outcomes for everyone. This illustrates the power of in-person learning. In this sense, the smartest person in the room is the room. 

I like how Kenneth Burke’s parlor metaphor illustrates this theme:

• Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about.... You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you..... However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress. (The Philosophy of Literary Form, p. 110-111)

To follow Burke’s analogy, if we do not get the opportunity for authentic engagement with those already in the parlor, we never catch “the tenor” and our voice remains silent or underdeveloped. If we still choose to offer it, it fails to resonate with those in the room. Since we survive by social connection and group membership, anything that precludes us from becoming part of the parlor compromises our social belonging, wellness, and productivity. 

A final theme was the ethical dilemmas associated with AI use. This is a central point of discussion in The New Journal article linked above.  At what point do our students start to see themselves as frauds and then begin to doubt themselves? If they turn in work that is not theirs, yet remain silent and claim it is, what is the risk? 

The short answer is anxiety, depression, and listlessness. 

Action is the antidote to ennui. As such, it would behoove us to focus on repeated exposure to learning tasks that slowly escalate degrees of difficulty, coupled with encouragement and support throughout the learning process. This is how we all get stronger and better together.

In other words, if we assume confidence results from undergoing hardship and getting stronger as a result, then we can expose our students to this cycle through presenting challenging problems, normalizing mistakes, and convincing them that getting the right answer is far less important than how that answer is found. This is, in part, why we are focusing on analog methods and the learning process over the final performance task. 

The A is less valuable than the experience that was required to truly earn it. If a student gets an A with AI, it is not far-fetched to imagine they may start to question their value and ability when compared to those who have truly earned their grade. What happens in the future when the stakes are high, when a performance must be done in person, and there is no bot to provide comfort?

Conclusion

I didn’t walk away with any grand revelations, but I am confident that our emphasis on community, analog processes, and focusing on practice rather than products will give our students the ability to transcend whatever technology disrupts their futures. After all, technology is man made (at least for now), and we still have the means to choose what kind of environment we want to create and try to sustain. 

I assume we want our students to think, to know how to follow a process that makes them more confident in their abilities, and to engage with other humans in the pursuit of a higher purpose rather than sitting sad and alone with chatbots and filtered reality. 

This is why unstructured play is so important to youngsters and why we need to create learning environments that encourage calculated risk and reward effort. These are the kind of places that provide open fields to try new things, have novel experiences, use imagination, and create informal teams to solve problems. 

In this respect, the metaphoric parlor or the empty woodlot at the edge of the neighborhood can function as a test bed for open-mindedness, novel solutions, growth, and learning. 

Creation is at the very top of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy for Learning (2001). To create the solutions that will be needed in the future, our students need to remember, understand, apply, analyze, and evaluate information. That is best done by interaction with others, focus on a narrow task over an extended time period, and acceptance that there is no such thing as a final arrival. Once we crest a hill, we might be able to ease up for a moment as we gain momentum into the valley, yet the next hill remains to be climbed, ad infinitum. 

Here’s to giving our students the strength, equanimity, and fortitude to charge up their proverbial hills and not lose confidence when gravity starts to pull them backward.

As Always, Onward!

Luke Almon, Principal

Part II on Substack: @OnPrincipal