I go to a school called High Tech High and, to put it simply, it is not your conventional school. Here, everything we do is hands on and applied. This is called project based learning! Our school is internationally recognized for its progressive education techniques, basing what goes on in the classroom off of what's going on in a student's mind. The philosophies of our school are based on how teenagers learn, meaning that instead of lecturing us or giving us a textbook, teachers create interdisciplinary projects that allow us to naturally gain skills from all over the spectrum. This connects different parts of the brain and makes school something that teaches us not only what to think but how to think. We are pushed to ask questions, be curious, and follow our passions. Instead of explaining any further to you here, I'll do things the "High Tech" way by giving you the tools to derive your own answer. On this site, you will find all of my high school projects, the highlights of my middle school projects, and my extracurricular activities. If you have any questions, please contact me!
Before you begin, there is some basic terminology you should know:
POL: Presentations of Learning are what we do instead of finals. We give a 15 minute reflection of our past semester to our teachers using evidence of what we have learned in class to show how we are developing as a student and human being.
SLC: A Student Led Conference is held once in the beginning of each school year between students and parents. Instead of having a parent-teacher conference where the teacher tells the parents everything they are doing in class and how their teenager is doing, SLCs push the student to reflect on themselves in order to give their parents a thoughtful review of their first semester.
Teachers: Teachers at High Tech High are much more than that. They are supportive guides that personalize everything that they do to the needs of their students. They have complete autonomy of their classes and work with other teachers to refine projects and ensure that they are meaningful to students. They build strong relationships and make an effort to understand the lives of their students outside of the classroom.
Critique, Drafts, Refinement, etc.: At HTHCV, work is never done after the first try. We believe fully in improving upon ourselves as we do the things we create. We want to make sure that we put our full effort into all that we do, so we usually follow a basic format of asking essential questions, creating brain dump first draft, getting extensive peer feedback, revising, getting more feedback, revising, (this continues for a while) until we have something we think is worth exhibiting.