AP Calculus Weekly Dress-Up Days

Now on the fourth week of school, many Arrowhead students noticing classmates dressing up on Fridays. This dress-up is for the Calculus A-B and B-C students. These AP students are following the tradition of having alliteration-themed dress-up days in order to earn a partner on their quizzes.

Steven Schmid, the calculus BC teacher, says the dress-up days have the possibility to make students “excited for taking a quiz that could be a pretty tough quiz, depending on what [they’re] covering.” 

This idea is supported by Calculus A-B student Sophie Lee who says she “[enjoys] the calculus dress-up days because it provides a partner quiz.” 

So every Wednesday or Thursday, the calculus students choose their top three themes and vote on their favorite—heads-up seven-up style. The theme with the most votes is chosen for Friday and the students and teacher come up with the dress requirements. Schmid says they “try to make the themes as accessible as possible, so everybody could participate if they wanted to.”

The dress-up themes are student chosen based on an alliteration with Friday. On September 24th, students participated in Felon Friday where students had to wear all orange, gray, or black and white stripes with a prison number and some type of related accessory such as shackles or a wanted poster.

Schmid says “even though it can be a very serious kind of intense class, it [the dress-up days] brings a little light embrevity to it that I think some of the kids appreciate.”

The calculus dress-up days are not mandatory for students, either the entire class or just individual students have a choice to dress up. 

“Every year,” Schmid says, “I give the kids an option to not do the dress-up days…but kids have demanded that we continue to do the tradition.” 

If any students choose not to participate in dress-up days, the only thing that happens is they don’t have a partner to work with on their quiz.

Lee says she enjoys “dressing up in a fun way,” saying that “it bonds the class more together.”

While the majority of calculus class students embrace the dress-up days, these themes remain optional for every student. When referring to dress-up days, Schmid says that “[he has] a couple [of] kids who choose not to” further telling us that “ the kids that don’t participate, usually are perfectly content with taking the quiz on their own anyway.”