In the first week of our technology course, our instructor asked us to watch the 2015 documentary Most Likely to Succeed. Directed by Greg Whiteley, the film takes the viewer into the unconventional classrooms of a charter school in San Diego, California. At High Tech High, students dive into large inquiry projects instead of following a conventional curriculum. Most Likely to Succeed focuses on a handful of grade nine students as they face the new challenges of a seemingly unstructured education model that enables them to take ownership of their own learning.
Despite its clear parti pris and its simplistic overview of the history of education, the film makes for compelling viewing because the struggles of its protagonists are real and affecting. More importantly, I would argue, the viewer glimpses the infinite possibilities that inquiry-based learning can potentially offer. The opportunities for discovery and creation are thrilling.
I appreciate how the educators in the film acknowledge that their students are learning less curricular content. This recognition aligns with current trends in education, which are based on developing competencies more than on acquiring knowledge. I believe that both are important. As someone who has spent her life seeking and absorbing knowledge, I have trouble understanding how people now “externalize” large swaths of their knowledge and memories to devices. Or, often, to the internet: the device is merely the means of access, like a ladder in an old library. Following this analogy, the difference is that now some people do not
bother learning any knowledge that their device can retrieve for them, even basic things like how to navigate the roads of their own city. Of course, adults who solve problems at work have access to all available resources, so it is artificial and unfair to make students memorize, for example, complex formulae for a math test. On the other hand, I still believe that knowledge is power, and many things are still worth knowing.
High Tech High, for all its apparent freedom, does make students produce a final project. The students must present their capstones to the public at the end of the school year. This requirement feels, to me, very American in its emphasis on production and performance. Why should students have to prove themselves by producing an eye-catching public exhibit? Does this obligation give contrived results, designed to please a mainstream public? I would argue that inquiry as a method of exploration should not have to produce anything at all, that the journey of discovery can be its own goal. This aspect of education at High Tech High suggests that the school is intended to be a training ground for the tech professionals of tomorrow, who will be well-versed in making prototypes. From this perspective, High Tech High does not escape the industrial pressures that are heavily criticized at the beginning of Most Likely to Succeed.
