On Personalization

High Tech High students quickly accustom themselves to the school’s mix of individual challenge and warm personal support. They talk here about how their bonds with each other and with teacher-advisors have shaped their attitudes toward academic work.

Monica (grade 11): My adviser actually came to my house and talked to us, kind of introduced me to the school and tried to answer all our questions. That really made a difference to me. And the orientation was more of a close, community thing, not just a lot of people talking at you. It made the school seem more comfortable, not just a place you go to where people get paid to give you papers and teach you stuff that you really don’t care about. I wouldn’t have cared as much about another school.

Thai (grade 11): Teachers wouldn’t usually come to your house and greet your parents. When that happened it was like, “School is like a family now.”

Starr (grade 11): I had some teachers who were really important to me, who knew I liked to do things myself and had a hard time asking questions. My adviser was also one of my English teachers, so she knew a lot about the classes I was taking and about who I am. She worked with me on my personal level—that helped me a lot academically. I could start to mix the social thing with the academic thing. I talk a lot and I know a lot of people, so now I can do a survey, for example, I can incorporate my own personal life into the things I do for work.

And it wasn’t just the teachers—I met other kids who were on the same path I was, getting a little lost. Now we lean on each other and motivate each other. If I miss a homework assignment, we help each other. We made our own study group for math, and we noticed the progress; on the next test we both got As. It’s because we’re such a community school.

Gino (grade 11): I’m the oldest child of three, so I’ve always been independent and on my own. My parents were there, but I never asked them for help. I thought I should know everything, and I kept on working till I got it on my own. But when I got here I wasn’t very good at writing, and I couldn’t really get my parents to read my papers—they couldn’t find the grammar, and we mainly speak Spanish at home. So [my teacher] sat with me after school, and she would have me read my whole paper to her. I caught things I couldn’t catch at home. When you read it to someone else, you see all things that shouldn’t be there. She taught me that, and now I’m a better writer—not up to the level I want to be, but I have improved a lot.

Amber (grade 11): Teachers give you all these options. A lot of the teachers have a different attitude about teaching students; they’re trying to work with the students. In a lot of these big high schools, the teachers have so many students that they can’t get to know the kids. They’re not excited about teaching, and their classes are too big.

Ryan (grade 10): Some of our teachers are experts, like our chess teacher, or our bio-tech teachers.

Anders (grade 11): But they’re not always experts. One of our teachers started the robotics course because he also wanted to learn about robotics. He learned with us. He would go to extra classes so he could teach us new stuff. We could like learn off of him and he could learn off of us.

Charles (grade 10): All different kinds of people come from all over the place to study here. That’s a benefit of a small school. In a big school you can’t possibly begin to know everyone’s name, but in a small school people aren’t really ignorant of each other, and they can connect to each other.

Gino: I’m in this little group, we like cars, we like hanging out, but at the same time, we’ll hang out with other groups. We’ll always be able to cut across groups. The main thing is, the school is small. And also the way they make us work, it’s all teams.

On Intellectual Mission

High Tech High puts a premium on the habits of hard work, persistence, and inquiry. Students accustomed to learning “by the book” find that their teachers expect them to become active investigators and researchers rather than passive recipients of knowledge.

Adrianna (grade 10): I thought that in high school, I was just going to learn math, science, English, and history. Now I have learned how to research stuff. If I don’t know how to do something, I can look on the Internet, or I ask for help—I learned how to do that, too. I have more confidence now.

Ryan: For a lot of the things we do, the requirements are very broad. So for your project, you might design a computer game or do a robot, or paint a picture, or make a movie. It’s not like they’re telling us, “I need you to all do the same thing.”

Jose (grade 11): Within the first week we had to start our digital portfolio, and I got introduced to the subject of web design. I remember learning how to place a picture and make the links; I saw this little animated gif and I wanted to learn how to do that. I read a book to learn to do HTML, and I started reading book after book about website design. A year and a half later I was already doing work for this company, and now I go to seminars on web design.

To carry out their classwork and projects, students frequently work together in small groups. Despite the challenges of teamwork, they see the advantages of collaboration.

Max (grade 10): I had a hard time getting along with my partner [in physics projects], because I would do the work and he would just sit around. Also, it was hard for me when he did do the work, but not the way I wanted him to. It was hard for me to trust him to do it right. We had a talk, and I kind of swallowed my pride and let him work on most of it, and it turned out pretty good. It’s different working with another person. You might have one idea of how you want it to turn out, but they have a different brain and they might have another idea. Part of the reason they have us do group work, I think, is so that we can learn to work with people we probably wouldn’t otherwise want to work with. In college and in your career you might need that. Your boss might need you to do something, or you might have a team project, and you might have a coworker you don’t like that you need to work with to get the job done.

HTH students are also asked to draw upon their own expertise to teach other students—and at times, their teachers as well. In such cases, students say, everyone’s learning is enhanced.

Jose: I remember one teacher tried to teach us Flash, but she barely knew it herself. I was the student who knew Flash, so she would have students come to me. At first it was kind of a drag, but I actually learned it so much better by teaching someone else. It kind of sets it up differently, when you’re thinking how to explain Step 1, Step 2, Step 3; and then you understand it a lot better. Instead of just going through the process like one big thing, it’s set up in smaller steps and you know exactly what you’re doing. It helps the person who needs help, and it also helps the student who knows it already. Also, some students are scared to interrupt a teacher at lunch to ask them something. If there’s another student who’s an expert, it’s a lot easier to ask. There’s that comfort zone.

Thai: If the only expert in a class is the teacher, the process of finishing a project is kind of slow, compared to if a group of experts teaches the beginners how to do something efficiently. Like if this group knows how to do Flash and other group doesn’t, then if this group teaches the other group they both learn how to collaborate with each other, and they also learn Flash. It also creates a better environment. In most schools people are just caring about their grades. It’s like “Forget about you, why should I teach you?” Most high schools are about individuals, and at our school we try to be a community helping each other.

High Tech High does not separate students by prior achievement levels but rather expects them to engage with each other in hard thinking about important things. A class discussion about philosophy gave Charles, a tenth grader, new insight into the HTH community, he says:

Last year we had to analyze the Symposium by Plato. It was written all in discourses between his friends, and we had to pull out the main point and write a summary. I was spending hours and hours trying to understand what was going on. I reread it and reread it; I spent the whole weekend trying to figure it out. What was even more helpful was discussion of it. I had my mom read it, and we shared our thoughts.

The next day in class, I discussed the same passage with some of my peers, and I actually discovered a lot more. We argued why we thought it was this way, we got different people’s perspectives, and I got a lot more out of it. We came pretty darn close to what Plato meant to say. Through discussing it, I came to the conclusion that a great piece of work usually can be interpreted in many different ways. And that’s what makes it great. Because a rich man or a member of the aristocracy can interpret it in one way, and people of the lower class can interpret it in their way.

His classmates agree that heterogeneous grouping enhances their learning.

Jose: Someone’s ethnicity and religion and morals come a lot into play, especially in seminars. We had a seminar discussion where the text of the Pledge of Allegiance was the text. And all these different types of people have different perspectives on the same exact words. There’s a huge diversity. If you go to the other neighborhood high schools they’re very segregated, but here everyone’s coming from different places. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor or at random.

Monica: I interpret it differently than another person would because of my background. I live in Sherman Heights, which is not the nicest neighborhood around, and I’m the only person from that area coming here. And I would see things differently from someone who lives in LaJolla. I have a different perspective on life and on school stuff.

On Projects and Internships

At the heart of the HTH curriculum, projects allow students to go deeply into areas that interest them. Gino, now a junior, describes his initiation into the high-tech world and where it took him:

I had never done anything with computers when I came to HTH—I didn’t even have a computer at home before that. In my freshman year, I joined the robotics class, and my partner and I had to create BattleBots to fight in an arena. I was in charge of the programming and I was really into it; I became more and more interested. I would work on it all day and then come back to school and type it up to see if it worked. I would see what was wrong with it, and test it again, over and over. Sometimes I would get frustrated and get it wrong, but I knew I could do it. And then after many retries and trials, we finally finished—and we tied for first place. I had never done programming before, so that just shocked me. I was like, Wow!

That made me see that I was interested in that field. Now I know that I want to do some design programming or architecture work. Last summer I went to a UCSD academic connections program; I took a course called Earthquakes and Engineering and that brought me even more into the field that I liked. With that robotics class, HTH literally started me out to my future career.

Although HTH demands technological proficiency of its students, its curricular emphasis is equally on liberal arts. Amber, also a junior, tells of a humanities project that led her into science and art as well:

When I was in ninth grade, we did a country project for the whole year, and because part of my family is English, I researched England. We integrated a lot of things into it, like history, which I love, and Darwin. And I did a History Day project on teaching creation science versus religion in public schools. And I got to study a lot of philosophy, which I like a lot.

Also I oil painted for three hours a day all year, in a fine arts class. It all carried together. My painting was an interpretation of a metaphor in a book we were reading in philosophy, Sophie’s World, [in which] the world is like a white rabbit coming out of the top of the universe. I painted a white rabbit and a top hat and the Creator as a cloaked figure with a magic wand, orchestrating the world out of the top hat, which symbolized the universe.

Many of the projects HTH students carry out take place in the world outside school. In Ashley’s ninth-grade year, for example, she joined a project that investigated the redevelopment of the former naval base where High Tech High had made its home.

I thought it was really exciting because I love looking at the history of things. At the beginning of the year we used to go look around the buildings, so these were areas I had run around in. [Before] I would never call someone up and ask somebody something, but I emailed the developer and they sent me all these pamphlets and news updates and I stuck it all together and scanned pictures and maps. My partner and I created a booklet, put it into Powerpoint , and presented it to the school. We were able to tell the whole school what was going to be happening around us, which was really exciting. It was my shining moment. First I was able to talk to people outside the school—and that was cool—and then they came and saw my presentation.

Kiel, now a senior, made a short video documentary in his junior year about the HTH internship program. The school now uses it to acquaint students, parents, and employers with their roles and responsibilities.

I never would have thought to do a project like that. I had never done videos before, but once I got involved, I cared about it being a quality project. I didn’t want to put [only] half of myself into something that was going to be seen by hundreds of people at conferences. Since we only had four weeks to get it exactly how we wanted, it was pretty crazy. I made contacts and taped interviews with four mentors. I was only doing it two days a week, four or more hours a day, and we got it completely finished and approved the very last day. I cared about the video because it was an important thing, and the school had a lot riding on it. Because it was important to them I gave it my best effort.

A summer job for Monica before her junior year turned into a serious interest, and she made plans to incorporate it into her work at High Tech High.

This summer I had a job at the Sherman Heights Community Center, helping to create a teen center. We got the center to rent the house next door, and we’re turning it into a youth center. I really cared about that, and I think I might want to do an internship related to it. I was talking to an accountant there that I helped with payroll and little things like filing, and making phone calls that she needed. I helped with the Latin Music Festival, and I had to call agencies asking them to verify that we had their correct address, fax, director, and asking if they would like to participate in the music festivals. I kind of related some stuff I did at school to it.

A lot of skills I learned here [at HTH] I had to use [on the job]—like habits of mind, collaboration, communication, how to see stuff through [other] people’s perspectives. I had to think of how the directors of the Community Center would see it, so we could convince them to pay for the house. I wasn’t really thinking about it till after the summer was over, but when I started to do my resume again, I started to think about that stuff.

For Quan’s first internship in the junior year, he and an HTH classmate worked at a nearby Science Park. Their project benefited its management, but it also stretched him personally, he says:

We surveyed the public regarding an exhibit called Smoke and Mirrors, a virtual reality game showing what smoking can do to you. After they finished my friend and I would ask what they think, gather the data and put it into the computer, then analyze the data and see the trend. I learned how to be more outgoing. I’m a quiet type and with this my communication skills really boosted up. It’s important to know how to work with others in the field. The environment there is really good, I like working with my mentor; she helps me and my friend go through the process of what to do there.

Thai represents HTH students, both in meetings at the school and by presenting the school philosophy at various educational gatherings:

It’s very important for me to be prepared. Every word I say is having a great impact on the school. If they ask me something, I have to think carefully. I really care about representing the students here. Governors from different states come to our school to see how we are doing, because they want to create a school like that in their state. I went to Washington state with [the HTH principal] to a development convention, where 600 teachers from different states were talking about their teaching and students’ perspectives. There were about 15 students there, from nine schools. So every question they asked me was like putting me on the spot. I had to be prepared to respond.

Project Vignettes

Digital Portfolios

Home