Image from Ian Samkov on Pexels.
I really enjoyed High Tech High, and I thought it was interesting to watch the students as they worked to complete their projects over the course of the year. I think the film’s choice to focus on Samantha and Brian highlighted the personal growth that can take place when students are given more agency over their own learning. Both cared deeply about their projects, and it was especially nice to see how much Samantha had come out of her shell by the end of the movie. However, I definitely understood the parents’ concerns regarding their children’s performance on standardized tests considering the school’s lack of a traditional curriculum. While they obviously couldn’t film everything that teachers covered over the course of the year, I do think it would have been interesting to include some more information about what the students were taught that didn’t fall under the scope of their final projects; although the students clearly learned a lot from the experience of writing and directing the play, I did wonder whether they were also taught more practical skills like how to write and structure an essay. On the whole, the film was definitely thought-provoking and made me consider what the ideal balance of creative freedom and conventional learning would look like in a school.
In terms of what I would like to incorporate into my own teaching practice, Mark Aguirre’s decision to structure his class as a Socratic seminar really resonated with me. I especially liked how this format decentered the teacher and encouraged discussion among the students, and I think it could be particularly useful in English classes when conducting a novel study or similar lessons focused on working through a text.