Social studies teacher Leirdre Galloway won't accept late assignments, strictly enforces classroom rules and demands that her students think for themselves. "I'm going to teach you how to fish," she likes to tell them. "I'm not going to give you fish."
She is tough on her students. She says she has to be.
Galloway teaches 10th grade, a year in which students are asked to take more responsibility for their education and to start preparing seriously for college, educators say.
Once less fraught than the earnest freshman year before it and the intense junior year that follows, 10th grade now pulses with a tension of its own. There are more standardized tests and tougher classes. New social opportunities abound, too -- 16-year-olds get their driver's licenses -- offering the potential for more fun, and more trouble.
"In 10th grade, you are by yourself, expected to be more independent," said Jen Liu, 15, a sophomore at River Hill High School in Clarksville, where Galloway teaches.
Ninth-graders are often welcomed into high school with instructional and other support to smooth the transition from middle school and to help the academically struggling, said River Hill Principal Bill Ryan. But much of that support ends for sophomores.
That means, said Regan Riley, 15, teachers no longer pull kids aside to make sure they understand the assignment.
That means students are given more control over their day; they have more elective courses to select and must figure out what interests them, said Brittany Roe, 15.
And, said Megan Murphy, 15, that means that there is a heavier workload in such classes as English and government and that "a higher thought process" is expected.
Prepping for college
Students used to wait until 11th grade to get serious, but not anymore. The competitiveness of college admissions has prompted students to start preparing sooner.
"Definitely college prep starts in 10th grade," said Adam Yalowitz, 17, a junior at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring. "You start thinking about what classes you will take as a junior and senior because those are classes colleges want to see on your transcript."
In some cases, students do more than think about it. More sophomores are taking Advanced Placement classes than ever, with the number of AP tests more than doubling in some subjects from 2000 to 2005, according to the College Board.
The Preliminary SAT, a practice test for the SAT known as the PSAT, once was taken mostly by juniors, but not anymore. Last year marked the first time that students below grade 11 took the majority of the PSAT, with the number of sophomores growing steadily -- an 11 percent increase this year, and a 15 percent jump the year before, said Beth Robinson, executive director of the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test program, co-sponsored by the College Board and the National Merit Scholarship Corp.
Most U.S. high schools consist of four grades, starting at ninth, although other configurations exist, including some that start at 10th.
Brad Williamson, a science teacher at Olathe East High School in Olathe, Kan., said he has taught in high schools with grades nine through 12 and 10 through 12, and found, to his surprise, that 10th-graders who had just entered high school displayed an immaturity similar to that of ninth-graders at schools that start with ninth grade.
"I never cease to be amazed at how significant this transition period seems to be for students trying to find their identity," Williamson said.
What worries Galloway at River Hill is that even 10th-graders in their second year of high school sometimes come into her class unprepared for the demands placed on them.
Teaching self-reliance
Her mission, she said, is to teach students how to be more self-sufficient. Unfortunately, teachers say many are not -- a result of numerous factors, including overindulgent parents and teachers in earlier grades unable, or unwilling, to make students stand on their own.
"There is a concern that children are not as self-reliant and responsible as they should be," said Galloway, a refrain repeated by teachers at other schools. "They say, 'Just tell me! Just tell me what to do! Just tell me how to do it!' I'm not going to do that.' "
Matthew Harris, 16, is an 11th-grader who dropped by Galloway's class one recent day to say hello. Galloway's tough tactics seemed annoying a year ago, he said, but they helped him gain the self-reliance he needs in his junior year. He laughed when Galloway said, "I know the kids see me as flying a broom, but they come back to thank me."
Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and a former West Virginia governor, calls 10th grade the "final sorting-out year," when students take big steps toward figuring out who they are and what path they are going to take.
Sophomores are supposed to be at the developmental stage at which they are ready for more independence and actively seek it, said Nora Alder, an associate professor in Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Education.
"They can see themselves and their choices as having implications for the kind of persons they are and want to become," she said. "They are often well into the ability to think abstractly and want to be challenged intellectually."
Mike Radow, co-chairman of the Social Studies Department at Mercer Island High School on Mercer Island in Washington state, said he finds it easier to discuss abstract concepts and theories with 10th-graders than with younger students.
"Developmentally, or maybe because they have greater background knowledge, more students are able to make connections between and across eras," he said. "Most recently, my world history students have been finding parallels between the Roman Republic and Empire and the United States in the 21st century."
In Diane Curry's English class for gifted and talented 10th-graders at River Hill, the current assignment is the novel "The Catcher in the Rye," by J.D. Salinger, what she called a perfect book for sophomores, most of whom are 15 or 16.
In class one recent day, students read aloud a passage in which the cynical Holden Caulfield, a 16-year-old, interacts with his roommate, Stradlater.
"I think the students greatly relate to Holden's view of the world," Curry said. "They think they are unique and different and others don't understand them. They are becoming cynical about the outside world and seeing the world as full of phonies."
Said 15-year-old Kaitlin Briel: "It's about what we are going through. He's a high-schooler trying to figure himself out, like us."