DANIEL TYLER GOODEN / L’Observateur / January 14, 2000

LUTCHER – If you need advice on opening a financial savings portfolio, before paying someone you may want to consider asking a few Lutcher High School students.

Anne Marie Clemente, in Wednesday’s second-hour enrichment class, laid out more plans and facts for a savings plan in 10 seconds than many people ever fully understand.

Phrases like diversification of stocks for steady growth mutual funds filled the room as the rest of the class jumped in. It was enough to make aveteran stock broker feel intimidated.

The enrichment class at Lutcher High School is a one hour a week pass or fail class with five students – Anne Marie Clemente, Amy Duhon, Sarah Pousson, Jessica Lambert and Ashley McClung.

The class is part of the Gifted and Talented Students Program at Lutcher High and is sponsored by Dr. Judy Petit, counselor with the school’ssuccess oriented programs.

The class teaches students to solve social and worldwide issues with cognitive problem solving, according to Dr. Petit. Students are given threeproblems, which they work with in and outside of class. On a weekly basisthey spend more than 10 hours individually, said Duhon.

Some of the questions they’ve covered so far involve the Olympics, women in the work force, artificial intelligence and the colonization of outer space and underwater environments.

The students focus on current, disturbing problems which are of global interest. It is “always a problem that projects them into the future,”explains Petit.

Lutcher High is not the only school to utilize this kind of learning in Louisiana. According to Petit, there are three other schools in the state,and outside of Louisiana there are 150,000 students participating in the United States, 14 foreign nations and five Canadian providences.

These schools and students are all collectively part of the Future Problem Solving Program.

The FPSP was established in the early 1980s at the University of Georgia, by Dr. E. Paul Torrence. The program was created with the belief that”people with high potential need a more stimulating education,” says Petit.

The students in this international program come together once a year, during the second week of June, for the FPS Bowl.

The Lutcher High students are well on their way to attending the conference and are currently ranked first in the nation. They used aquestion on teen-age fads to win their position, looking at the consequences whims of style have in school and how they redirect a student’s focus in an learning environment.

Students will continue fighting to hold their position in the next two rounds of competition. If they do so they will certainly gain an invitationto the International FPS Bowl.

Lutcher High students attended the bowl from 1987 to 1990. They won thecompetition in 1992′ and continued to attend in 1993, 1997 and 1998.

The competition gives the students a very difficult task, Petit explains, including: They are given three hours to outline and prepare a solution to an unknown hypothetical situation.

In those three hours they must explain 20 possible problems in the devised situation and pick the most underlying one.

They must devise 20 possible solutions and pick the single one that would be most effective.

Lastly, they must develop a plan of implementation to solve the problematic situation.

As if that is not difficult enough, they must then stand before the judges and give their findings without any material, including their own notes.

Few people have the drive to submit themselves to this kind of torture, but these students at Lutcher have been tried and tested and are more than willing to step into the fire.

Speaking of their willingness in this class, Petit said, “They’re a breath of fresh air. It’s great to work with such self-aware and motivatedpersons.”

Back to Top

Back to Leisure Headlines

Copyright © 1998, Wick Communications, Inc.

Internet services provided by NeoSoft.

Best viewed with 3.0 or higher