With an inquiry proposal due today, methodology research due next class, and the method section paper due the class after that, I started to think “Why don’t the teacher’s ever put themselves in our shoes?”. With a global pandemic that has proven to increase anxiety and depression among young adults and college application deadlines hanging over our heads, you would think they’d cut us some slack. But all of that is a topic for a different article. My point with all of that is I started wondering if teachers even could handle the increasing amount of work high schoolers in America are given, and if they could, what topic would they choose to spend hours of their personal time studying? I asked as many teachers I could reach that weren’t teaching during my newspaper block and here are the responses:

Ms. Metzner-Roop: “Anything with the ocean, maybe specifically how pollution is affecting the ocean.”

Ms. Taylor: “Something to do with Parkinson’s disease, really would like to do something to progress the study of that”

Ms. Pinckney: “What innovative instructive teaching is coming, basically how is teaching going to change?”

Ms. Renes: The psychological explanation of religious beliefs

Ms. Vogel: “Something with science, with viruses and everything going on right now.”

Dr. Altman: “I would definitely study the French Resistance during WWII and coordination of spies for the Allies! I’m fascinated by the courage and ingenuity of those who take such risks!”

Mr. McGill: Researching the attitudes that Charleston County black students and families have towards standardized testing and achievement scores.

Mr. Cosgrove: Through collaborative research in business, education, and all other professions, are inter-personal communication and civic engagement skills valued, and should they be?

Ms. Phillips: “Accounting.”

Ms. Zerbst: How have influential world leaders used existential crises to spur their careers?

Ms. Hurt: “Probably something about the changes in popular music over the years, or an analysis of rock stars through the ages .”

Mr. Garris: Historical patterns of language diffusion.

Ms. Grayson: “I’d probably if I was a senior do something with history, maybe something combining both history and English, like analyzing the connection between the morals in Shakespeare’s plays and the morals of the society at the time.”

Mr. Stackhouse: (Not available for press at the time, but assumably something about golf or hockey)

Ms. Orr: The current structure of school, looking at how we can improve schools current structure to make it more efficient.

Mr. Rush: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Ms. Colon: The influence of politics in soccer, particularly in Colombia, particularly Medellín.

Mr. Percy: “I would study the mathematics of investing”

Mr. Jent: “Quantum physics or mechanics. Holographic universes, parallel universes, all of those things. I’d probably solve the meaning of life.”

Mr. McCormick: Breeding habits of African Elephants in response to global warming.

Ms. Akery: Occult magic during the Renaissance.

Ms. Benton: “EVERYTHING! but as who I am right now the devolving of the family unit and causes and consequences, 0r the necessity of the social hierarchy and the changing nature of it, or the power of prayer, OH MY GOSH or something with fitness and nutrition, or change in societal norms to reduce sex-trafficking and focusing on the perspective of the victim”

Ms. Krupilis: Something with psychology.

Ms. Yackey: “I would research different theorems to solve the Pythagorean theorem.

Ms. Spencer: “If I were in high school I was interested in music and arts, so I would probably study ‘how participation in the arts, specifically music, improves student engagement and overall academic achievement?’.”

Dr. Lupo: What strategies are most efficient for studying for AP exams, not just looking at one class but many.

Ms. Lankford: Very undecided on this one- “maybe the resurgence of interest in sewing in the past decade, or the history of quilting, OR, bread-making using old cookbooks.”

Ms. Calabrese: The effects of taking digital notes on student’s grades.

Ms. Oliveira: What to do to lower stress in the classroom environment.

Ms. Do: Find the cure to cancer.

Ms. Aydlette: “I’d study cats and their communication, I think they are smarter than we think, and they hate people more than we think.” Another possibility: Gluten-free food and the feline diet.

Ms. Dover: “Child psychology, specifically the best ways for children to relax because y’all need to learn to chill out.”

Mr. Phillips: Students at Academic Magnet and the relationship between stress and performance.

Mr. Murphy: Something about World War II.

Ms. Liang: “Something related to the current economy, more specifically related to China’s economy and how people are predicting it to go down.”

Dr. Cassidy: “Probably something like: How cellphones impact teenagers and their social skills.”

Ms. Hofstetter: Behavior modifications and the benefits of maintaining consistency and control in the environment you can not control using behavior modification and “the idea of streaking”

Coach Koll: “I’d probably choose something I’m doing right now, researching something to do with sports or anatomy.”

That’s all I got for y’all, thank you to all the teachers who took part in this article, hope I got some of those wheels spinning for you guys. And for underclassmen, hope this article serves useful as to what AP Research questions are NOT supposed to look like.