Summary
Last week we were asked to watch “Most Likely to Succeed” (2015) – a documentary that highlights an inquiry based high school (“High Tech High”). This school is located in the United States and, unlike traditional American high schools, encourages students to take control of their own learning with guidance from teachers. They place emphasis on stepping away from standardized testing, and instead allow their students to harness their passions and work creatively and collaboratively. The documentary showcases an end of term exhibition that this school had where the students presented their passion projects, and the processes of creating them, to their families and peers.
Additionally, this documentary displayed the effects of standardized testing, most notably the SAT, on students and parents. The Untied States centres their education system around standardized testing – and these tests are what allow students to get accepted into top colleges. Due to this system, students and their families place the importance of these tests above their own learning.
The documentary shows that when asked whether they would rather learn important skills and harness their creativity and passions or get a good grade on a test – high school students choose the latter.
This documentary also highlights a conversation between a mother and a teacher at High Tech High where the mother states that although she loves the way this school runs she worries that it will not prepare her child to take the SAT and transition into a college. This system of standardized testing and the inflated importance of test scores is concerning – and the documentary questions whether or not it is properly preparing students to move into a world with growing technology that can take tests better than any human.
My Personal Thoughts:
This documentary made important critiques of our current school system. As I watched it, I found myself becoming frustrated with the way that schools place so much importance on tests. I think that the way this school encourages students to follow their passions is amazing – but I do not believe that it is properly preparing them for the system that they are in. The students who would choose getting a good grade on a test over furthering their own learning and passions make complete sense to me, and I was surprised to see that their teacher didn’t understand their answer. From an early age children are ingrained with the belief that grades are what matters – rather than learning for the sake of learning. It is so frustrating because I find it hard to believe that anyone involved in furthering this system would honestly agree that this is how it should be – yet this is the system that we are in. Although standardized testing isn’t as big in Canada, the same philosophy of ‘get good grades, go to a good college, have a good life’ still stands. When I was in high school good grades were what I cared about and I believe that this led me to miss out on things that I could have learned – but instead just memorized.
However, while I do not believe that this type of school works in our current society, I still believe that we can take ideas from it and bring them into schools. When I was in grade 7 I did a year long passion project – and it gave me the chance to learn about something I cared about alongside all of the memorizing and tests. I am glad to have watched this documentary because it has inspired me to incorporate passion projects into my own classroom one day. Giving students a venue to be creative and work together is extremely important and inquiry projects are a good way to do this. I am inspired and motivated to learn more about facilitating inquiry projects in elementary classrooms.