The wit and wisdom of John Huppenthal: The Mystery of the Disappearing Lab Class Experiment

by David Safier

This is the fourth in the series of quotes I pulled from Huppenthal's appearance at the Tucson Ed Supe forum a week ago Thursday, along with my analysis and commentary. I've held off on this one because I was hoping to solve, Agatha Cristie style, The Mystery of the  Disappearing Lab Class Experiment. I'm no closer to an answer now, so I throw this out for my intelligent and knowledgeable readers to help solve.

Here's the short version: Huppenthal mentioned a lab class he helped start to discover ways to increase students' motivation in math. When I went up to him after the forum and asked for details, he had nothing — no names of others involved in the lab class, no name for the project, nothing except that the project is affiliated with ASU, he is in charge of the project, and the researchers haven't published their findings yet.

My question is, why no supporting details? I have 3 possible answers.

1. There is no lab class. Huppenthal made the whole thing up.
2. The lab class exists, but what he said about it is a wild exaggeration.
3. Huppenthal was being modest, or he was simply at a loss for words, or he had a momentary intellectual blackout and couldn't conjure up a single credible detail.

Since number 3 is unlikely, I'm leaning toward 1 or 2. Either Huppenthal made the lab class up, or his description is a wild exaggeration.

Now for the longer version: The forum moderator, Jim Nintzel, asked the four candidates a question about how to improve students' math skills. After Huppenthal talked about how badly Arizona children are doing in math, he said this (this is a word-for-word quote):

We started up a lab class to try to deal with the issues of motivation and start experimenting with some new approaches. We had the state librarian pull every research paper that is in the level 1 and level 2 research journals on motivation. We designed a class to test motivation to have the students vote if they wanted to do more math or not. You would assume they would vote to go out and play. We had the students voting to do 150 math problems a day. And obviously, because they're voting for it, it's not drill and kill. They're excited about it. When they set new records and they move forward academically, it's like watching the team score a field goal in overtime to win the Superbowl. It's an explosion of excitement.

Hmm. If "We started up a lab class," why couldn't Hupp come up with a single name other than his own? He told me, cryptically, that the project was associated with ASU, but when I asked him repeatedly for the name of a single prof involved in the project, he hemmed and hawed and gave me nothing. I asked if the project had a name. Again, nothing.

Hupp soon developed that deer-in-the-headlights stare I saw on that student video where they interviewed Hupp. (If you saw the video, you know what I mean about the stare.)

At one point, Hupp said he was in charge of the project as Chair of the Senate Education Committee. But why could he name no one else?

In what seemed like a desperate effort to give me an answer that would make me go away, Hupp said the others involved in the project hadn't published their findings yet. But he never told me who those others were.

Beyond the lack of specifics, I question some details about the project. Do the unnamed project leaders really believe you can duplicate a situation in real live classrooms where students will vote to do lots and lots of math on a regular basis? And is it credible to say the students voted to do 150 math problems a day? One hundred and fifty? I can't remember ever doing more than 10 or 20 math problems on any given day. Even that got pretty tedious, and I liked math. One hundred and fifty a day? Is there any research indicating that it makes sense for children to complete 150 math problems a day?

And is it believable that these students "set new records"?

I have no answers to my questions. For this educator, though, Hupp's assertions don't pass the smell test, especially when I watched him evade my attempts to learn more specifics about the project.

Can anyone help me solve The Mystery of the  Disappearing Lab Class Experiment?

Is there someone with connections at ASU who can do some digging? (The two people who tried haven't come up with anything.)

Is there a real journalist out there (Full disclosure: I'm not a real journalist, and I only occasionally play one on BfA) who can give Hupp a call and ask him to be more open about this lab class experiment? I would be more than happy to supply an audio tape of the forum to any journalist who would like one.