On our week long trip to the sunny state of California, we had the chance to do something you won’t believe…

We went to school. For two days.

But this school isn’t a normal one. It’s located in downtown San Diego, California. It’s called High Tech High, a pretty well known and controversial school in that area.

We visited this school, and got to shadow a grade 9 class for the entirety of two of their school days. We met with a teacher, Mrs. Anna, who Ms. Willemse and Mr. Hughes have known and met with for a few years, and she and her students explained how their school works. We were taken on a tour of the school by some of the students there. Here are some photos of the schools:

I was really impressed with how different this school was. From the architecture to the curriculum, High Tech High is unique. When we first arrived there, we didn’t really know how the school worked, but after we got the tour of the campus, we started to learn a bit more. Once we had our tour, we met with our partners.

But before this, before we left on the trip we had to make videos describing ourselves and our interests. I went through three drafts, and I was extremely happy with my final draft:

This was so that we could be partnered up with HTH students that are similar in personality with us. So, when we entered HTH we began meeting our partners.

But, I was a little disappointed.

As sad as it was, it seemed like everyone got their own partner except for me, Calum and Alex. We had to join with any of our friends, and so I joined forces with Robbie, and his two HTH partners Max and Daniel. They were pretty cool guys, they were mostly quiet and reserv3d but they knew a lot about their school and were very smart. Me and Robbie followed them to all their classes for the two days, and their classes were very different.

From my understanding, the students had four periods in the day. And it’s the same thing for a whole term, everyday. They had a humanities classroom, math, media arts, and the outdoor basketball court. Their schools didn’t have a cafeteria, library, gym, computer room, or even lockers.

The reason the school is like this is because the type of learning is PBL, or project based learning, just like in our program PLP. Except their whole school is PBL. The aim of this school is to prepare the students for the real world after high school by working on projects that are less like traditional schools where you memorize facts from textbooks. The students use a variety of materials to create those amazing projects, like paper, wood, metal, or digitally, and they are all very well done. The materials the students need are made ready for them when they need them because the staff really wants the students to let their creativity and ingenuity thrive in what they are creating. This is the goal of High Tech High and project based learning.

One of the things I noticed that I thought was pretty cool was that the walls weren’t covered with lockers, but covered in the projects of all the students. From the elementary school to the grade 12’s, their projects were being showcased for anyone to see. This made each and every area of the school different, and very interesting to walk through.

This was the High Tech High Media Arts building, the one where we tagged along in a class. The entrance is on the right side of the long T-shape, and the clsssrooms are all over. There are three floors, the bottom for the elementary, middle for middle school, and top for the high school.

At one point in the day, I got the chance to interview two of the students in the HTH class about their experiences and daily lives at their unique school. I asked them about what they like and don’t like, and how their school works. Here it is below:

Overall, my HTH experience was pretty cool. I got to see firsthand how an entire school is making an effort to make change in the education systems in their community, and eventually, hopefully, worldwide. I liked seeing all the projects the students have done, and how the school functions in general. The students all were really nice and welcoming, and they were laid back but worked very hard. I was interested in seeing all the differences and also similarities between PLP and HTH. This whole experience was really educational and it showed me that there are more ways than just one to learn.

 

See you